Whether you donate to an existing endowment or create your own, be assured that your passion is our purpose.
Support for charitable activities that benefit the people and places of northern Illinois. Over $1.4M is distributed each year through the Community Grants Program alone!
90+ Unique Scholarships, nearly $300K in awards, just ONE Application! Application open December 1 - February 1.
Donors who establish scholarship funds with CFNIL benefit from the expertise and administrative capacity of staff who organize and manage the entire scholarship application and selection process. Donors may also participate in a scholarship selection committee, which reviews applications and makes the final selection for awards. CFNIL works hard to make the process easy for both Donors and scholarship applicants, so the intent and legacy of each scholarship fund is fully met each and every year.
“We’re focused on endowment because we’re long term thinkers. Some of the seeds we plant are not going to come up for eight years, so it was not a struggle for us to imagine that we should start planning now for what the needs might be in ten or twenty years.” -- Bernie Buchholz, Friends of Nachusa Grasslands, which established an Agency Endowment Fund with CFNIL in 2014