About The Foundation

The Chicago State University Foundation was chartered in 1967 and incorporated in 1968 as an independent, charitable organization with the sole purpose of soliciting, receiving, and administering private gifts to the Chicago State University in order to secure the University’s future as a place where promise becomes power.

The Case for Giving

Chicago State University is one of Illinois’ oldest public universities, and has remained a leader in producing graduates who are leaders and innovators in their respective communities.   

Your generosity helps us by supporting initiatives for which State general operating funds are not available.  Our diverse student body of over 7,000, along with our dedicated faculty members have created a university noted for its demand of excellence and commitment to student achievements.  With your help, we can continue to attract the best students, recruit and retain top faculty members, and provide an academic environment of the highest quality. 

Your gifts provide much needed scholarships (over 90% of CSU students are eligible for financial aid) and fellowships, support faculty development and academic programs, fund innovative research, and remain current in an ever-changing technological environment.

We need friends, like you, to give generously in order for us to continue to be a leader in Illinois’ educational landscape.  Here are some of the ways in which CSU has distinguished itself:

• CSU is the number one college in the Midwest for graduating African-Americans with baccalaureate degrees.
• CSU is the first and only university in Illinois to have a robotic book retrieval system in its library.
• CSU is only one of two universities in Illinois to have all of its programs approved by both NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) and ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education).
• CSU nursing students achieved a 95% pass rate for the 2006 National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses, exceeding the state (89%) and national (88%) average.
• CSU is the home to the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers’ Conference, the oldest conference for writers of African descent in the nation. and is the only university in the country offering a MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis on writers from the African Diaspora.
• More than 50% of all African-American baccalaureate degree nurses, health information administrators and occupational therapists in Illinois are CSU graduates.

We need your help to continue this tradition of excellence.