Chicago Case Studies Overview
Friends of the Chicago River
Boeing has supported Friends of the Chicago River since it first moved its corporate offices there in 2001. Boeing Chicago, which has the river practically in its front yard, participated in the Friends' "Adopt-a-River Downtown," a program that encourages community groups, river-edge neighbors and businesses to care for the Chicago River by adopting specific sites along its banks. The intent of this original grant was to invent a downtown Friends of the Chicago River constituency, which ultimately led to an overall strategic approach on the part of the organization and an increase in support.
In 2005, Boeing helped Friends throw its first-ever gala benefit, The Big Fish Ball. Boeing was a founding sponsor of this unique and popular outdoor fund-raiser, now an annual tradition. Additionally, Boeing employees participate in Friends' Flatwater Classic River Race as well as in the organization's River Clean-up Day.
In 2007, Boeing gave a grant to Friends of the Chicago River to fund a 25th anniversary charrette--an event that brought together stakeholders from many disciplines in a collaborative brainstorming process. "Action Plan for the Chicago River: Getting Specific" was a six-day convening that included more than 50 experts engaged different but interrelated topics--water quality, aquatic habitat, riverbank habitat, riverbank naturalization, public access and land protection. Building on the Action Plan, in 2008 Boeing supported a similar process for Friends to create Ecology-Based River Corridor Development Standards to provide a guideline for development that promotes maintaining and restoring wildlife habitat and natural open space while also paying attention to public access.
Chicago Wilderness
Chicago Wilderness refers both to nearly 360,000 acres of protected natural land in the greater metropolitan area--a geographic region that extends from southeastern Wisconsin through northeastern Illinois into northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan. Additionally, it serves as a regional consortium of more than 220 public and private organizations dedicated to restoring the natural areas of this region and to increasing public awareness of their importance.
As such, the nonprofit provides a mechanism for individual groups to develop and act on a shared vision for enhancing the quality of life in this region in support of its overall goal " to protect, restore, study and manage the natural ecosystems of the Chicago region, contribute to the conservation of global biodiversity, and enrich local residents' quality of life."
Boeing has provided financial support and strategic guidance to Chicago Wilderness to develop a report card based on a set of biological and human community indicators to assess progress in this region toward achieving a sustainable relationship between society and nature.