Does Umoja receive its funding from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS)?
Umoja intentionally chooses to maintain its unique and independent identity as a school-community partnership rather than becoming a CPS controlled initiative. More than 80% of our funding comes through private fundraising. This allows us to determine our own priorities based on the needs of the young people we serve, free of the unavoidable bureaucratic considerations faced by schools and other large service delivery systems. However, Umoja works in close partnership with CPS through our individual partner schools, the CEO’s office and offices of post secondary education, service learning, and student development. Each of our CPS partners contributes a combination of dollars and valuable in-kind resources to the work we do with CPS students across Chicago.
