News

March 20, 2020

The Coleman Foundation is committed to supporting the Chicago community during these uncertain times and has become a founding supporter of Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund. The Fund was created to deploy resources to community-based organizations at the frontlines of the COVID-19 outbreak in the Chicago region. While a contributor to the fund, the Coleman Foundation is not in a role to decide which organizations receive resources from the Fund. For more information, please visit:...

March 19, 2020

The Coleman Foundation cares deeply about the health, safety and well-being of our grantees and those they serve in our community. We want to provide an update concerning the Foundation’s response to COVID-19 epidemic, recognizing that it is a very fluid situation. We are committed to providing the best support possible while safeguarding the health of our staff and their families. For the present, our staff will be working remotely and will not be participating in...

March 9, 2020

March 9, 2020 Michael Hennessy, CEO of the Coleman Foundation in Chicago since 1995, has announced that he will retire at the end of 2020.  Hennessy began his association with the Foundation in 1987 when it was a part of the Fannie May Candy Company and he was a member of the company’s management team. During his time as head of the Coleman Foundation, Hennessy has played a critical role in shaping the development and advancement of...

February 13, 2020

Janet Wolter, MD – Janet Wolter, MD, former physician and professor of medicine at Rush University Medical Center, passed away on Feb. 4. A national leader in cancer care, Wolter co-founded the Midwest’s first comprehensive breast center in 1985 known as the Coleman Foundation Comprehensive Breast Center Clinic. She recently passed at the age of 93. Wolter was passionate about care teams and encouraged nursing staff to work alongside physicians before this model of care was...

January 31, 2020

The seventh year of the Coleman Foundation’s #ILGIVE Matching Grants Program resulted in record fundraising by participating non-profit organizations. Seventy Foundation grantees collectively raised over $3.1 million during the program period which ran from November 1 to December 3 of last year. ...

October 1, 2019

On October 1, 2019, The Coleman Foundation joined Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and a group of six Chicago banks and three fellow grantmaking organizations to announce its recent support for the Entrepreneurs of Color Fund. The new investments bring the total funding committed to the Entrepreneurs of Color Fund to over $9 million to support minority entrepreneurs on Chicago’s South and West sides....