Chance the Rapper has spent much of his public life insisting that Chicago's young people deserve investment, not just attention. In the summer of 2025, his nonprofit SocialWorks put that conviction into dollars again, announcing a fourth cohort of its New Chance Fund aimed at strengthening Chicago Public Schools.
According to SocialWorks, the latest round directed grants to a selected group of CPS high schools to enhance what the organization calls Career Connected Learning, the kind of hands-on, real-world instruction meant to tie classroom work to actual pathways after graduation. The fund has been structured so that each chosen school receives a substantial multi-year award rather than a one-time check, giving campuses room to plan beyond a single school year.
SocialWorks described the effort as a partnership with Children First Fund, the philanthropic arm of Chicago Public Schools, allowing the grants to move through an established channel built specifically to support district programming. That partnership reflects a shift in how the fund operates: from headline-grabbing campaigns to a steadier, infrastructure-minded model of giving.
The New Chance Fund did not begin with a career-and-technical focus. When SocialWorks launched it several years earlier, the emphasis was on arts and literature, an attempt to restore creative programming to schools where budget cuts had hollowed it out. Early rounds raised significant sums for a cluster of CPS campuses and leaned on partners in the arts-education world.
Over successive cohorts the fund broadened, reflecting both the evolving needs schools reported and SocialWorks' own growth as an organization. The move toward career-connected learning signals an interest in what happens to students as they approach the end of high school and weigh college, work and training.
For Chance the Rapper, born Chancelor Bennett, the work is personal and local. A Chicago native who came up through the city's schools and open-mic scene, he founded SocialWorks to channel resources into the communities that shaped him, and the organization has become known for programming spanning education, the arts and mental health.
The fourth cohort continues a pattern of the artist using his platform and fundraising reach to supplement, rather than replace, public funding, a point SocialWorks has been careful to make as it collaborates with the district's own foundation. The aim, the group says, is to make opportunities more durable for the students who have the least access to them.
Career-connected learning has become a national watchword in education-reform circles, premised on the idea that students stay more engaged when coursework points visibly toward employment, apprenticeships or further study. By funneling resources specifically to that work, SocialWorks positioned the New Chance Fund within a wider conversation about how urban districts prepare graduates for what comes next, while keeping the money and the decision-making anchored in Chicago's own institutions.
The number of schools, the size of each grant and the combined total were stated in SocialWorks' own announcement, and program details can change as cohorts are finalized. Readers seeking to confirm the figures or learn how schools are chosen should consult the official SocialWorks announcement directly.
Source date: August 29, 2025. Contextual photograph; it does not depict the people or the specific event described in this article. Photo: Look4Faith, CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗.
Sources & further reading
This article is editorial coverage, not an endorsement. For donations or programme participation, go directly to the organization’s official website.
