Steans Family Foundation (EXT-005)
Summary 🟡 ~
- Owner Unit: External partner organization
- Sub-unit: Steans Family Foundation (philanthropic foundation)
- Content Type: partnership
- Campus/Location: Off-campus (Chicago)
- Last Verified: May 30, 2026
Organization
The Steans Family Foundation is a Chicago philanthropic foundation supporting community development, education, and neighborhood investment—particularly on Chicago’s West Side. It deploys grantmaking and programmatic strategies across housing, human services, and community capacity building.
Access status
- Level: yellow (
Negotiated Access) - Rationale: Foundation partnership supports SPARK projects; access through grant and program relationships.
- Access URL: www.steansfamilyfoundation.org
- Contact name: SPARK Center
- Contact email: spark@depaul.edu
- Verification date: 2026-06-30
- Source URLs:
- www.steansfamilyfoundation.org
- spark.depaul.edu
Relationship to DePaul
DePaul collaborates with the foundation on data-driven housing strategy work that connects university research units to foundation portfolio decisions. This is distinct from—but related to—the on-campus Steans Center (community-based service learning), which shares the Steans name but is a DePaul administrative unit.
Known collaborations & connections
- Housing Strategies project (SPARK partner project): collaboration among Steans Family Foundation, DePaul Institute for Housing Studies (IHS), VIDA (CDM-011), and SPARK (UNI-003) to model housing strategies, trade-offs, and portfolio decisions using public and IHS datasets (SPARK — Steans Family Foundation: Housing Strategies).
- Cross-center DePaul initiative UNI-007 documents Steans Center + SPARK + VIDA joint work on community analytics (foundation as external funder/partner in housing thread).
Collaborative documents
| Document type | Scope | Parties | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project collaboration / scope of work | One-year housing portfolio analytics and modeling support | Steans Family Foundation ↔ DePaul (IHS, VIDA, SPARK) | Publicly described on SPARK site | SPARK partner projects |
| Grant / funding agreement | Foundation support for housing analytics engagement | SFF ↔ DePaul | Not publicly posted (typical for foundation grants) | Map verification (May 2026) |
| MOU (university-wide) | Standing DePaul–SFF partnership framework | DePaul ↔ SFF | Not publicly documented | Map verification (May 2026) |
Verification
- Status: likely (
~) - Confidence: 86/100
- Rationale: Major external partner maintains active public website and standard user/membership access pathways; DePaul relationship documented on map.
- Last verified: 2026-05-30
- Evidence:
- Partner primary website reachable (May 2026)
- DePaul cross-references and partnership notes in resource map (May 2026)
- Steans Family Foundation site active
- SPARK housing project reference
Equipment
External foundation; funds programs (e.g. SPARK); not equipment host.
Last verified: May 28, 2026.
Contacts (resource-level)
- Website: Steans Family Foundation
- Website: SPARK — Housing Strategies project
People & contacts
Named contacts from the people registry when publicly documented.
- Pat Ford (Director)
- LeAnne Wagner (Collaborator) — Profile
Source URL
Official links are listed under Contacts above.
Documented Relationships
External funder/partner for SPARK and VIDA housing analytics; related to Steans Center community engagement (UNI-004) by mission alignment.
Linked Relationship IDs
- UNI-003 - SPARK Center
- UNI-004 - Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning
- UNI-007 - Steans Family Foundation Projects (cross-center initiatives)
- CDM-011 - VIDA / MedIX / IMP Labs
Notes
Do not conflate Steans Family Foundation (EXT-005) with DePaul’s Steans Center (UNI-004).