Core Principles


The Woods Fund has a strong belief in the need for and effectiveness of including the less advantaged in the entire process of addressing issues that affect them. To this end, the Woods Fund encourages and supports organizations and initiatives that promote "participatory policy making" through leadership development, community organizing and constituency building.  Such efforts should involve those most directly affected, in the belief that this approach leads to comprehensive solutions that are authentic, relevant and sustainable.

The Woods Fund recognizes that successful systemic change, which seeks to eradicate poverty and enable work for less-advantaged individuals and communities, must be grounded in collaborative and innovative practice.  We therefore expect grantees to engage in dialogue and share strategies and resources with others within and outside of the communities in which they work.    We support and seek to facilitate stakeholder partnerships and other avenues to share promising practices and successes in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector.  In addition, the Woods Fund encourages grantees to explore new tactics and take calculated risks in their pursuit of more powerful and effective social change efforts.

The Woods Fund of Chicago believes that structural racism is a root cause of many challenges facing less-advantaged communities and people and serves as a significant barrier to enabling work and eradicating poverty.  The Woods Fund encourages and supports organizations, initiatives, and policy efforts that lead to eliminating structural racism.  Success in this area will be evident when there is equal distribution of privileges and burdens among all races and ethnic groups, and when a person's race or ethnicity does not determine his or her life outcomes.  Woods Fund will support organizations that pay disciplined attention to race and ethnicity while they analyze problems, look for solutions, and define and document success.  Ideally, these organizations will incorporate an analysis of structural racism into all aspects of their operations.  Woods Fund is committed to raising awareness in the philanthropic community to support this work.