Explore the SOCAP26 Chicago Community Sessions
For the first time in SOCAP’s history, we’re taking our global community beyond the conference venue and directly into the neighborhoods, organizations, and innovation hubs shaping the future of impact in Chicago. Participants will experience impact not as a theory discussed on stage, but as tangible, place-based work happening in real time alongside the practitioners building it.
On the first day of SOCAP26, Monday, October 12, from approximately 1:00–4:00 p.m., attendees will have the opportunity to participate in Chicago Community Sessions, immersive off-sites designed to connect the ideas and conversations of SOCAP with the people, places, and projects putting them into practice.
Our move to Chicago is more than a change of venue. Chicago is a city with a rich history of community organizing, neighborhood dis- and re-investment, entrepreneurship, cultural leadership, and economic innovation. It is home to people and organizations building new models for how capital can contribute to more equitable and resilient communities.
The Chicago Community Sessions are an invitation to experience that work firsthand and make place a part of the SOCAP experience.
Rather than simply talking about community wealth, place-based investment, Indigenous economic sovereignty, small business development, or catalytic capital from a stage, attendees will have the opportunity to see these approaches in action, meet the people leading them, and ask what it really takes to move capital differently. Because the most important questions facing the impact investing and social impact field aren’t abstract. They are playing out in neighborhoods, businesses, community institutions, cultural spaces, innovation hubs, and local economies every day.
Capacity for each session is limited, and advance registration is required. SOCAP26 attendees may participate in only one off-site session, as all sessions will take place simultaneously. Take a look at the full SOCAP26 Opening Day schedule:
- 10:00 a.m.: Registration begins (the Convene Willis Tower will be open for networking throughout the day)
- 11:00 – 11:45 a.m.: SOCAP Newcomer Welcome: Building Connections and Navigating the Conference with Confidence
- 12:00 – 12:45 p.m.: Capital Provider Exchange: Curated Connections & Insights
- 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.: Chicago Community Sessions
- 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.: SOCAP26 Opening Remarks
- 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. SOCAP26 Opening Party
Explore all of the Chicago Community Sessions below, and then register for SOCAP26 now to secure your spot!
Already registered for SOCAP26? Register for your preferred Chicago Community Session in Brella.
1. Explore North Lawndale’s Economic Development Story
After a brief introductory presentation at Convene, we will take a guided, hop-on/hop-off bus tour through North Lawndale, a Chicago neighborhood with a long history of underinvestment and a growing ecosystem of community-led economic development, including a warehouse recently converted into a community economic engine structured in a community benefit trust.
The tour will highlight efforts to build businesses, create jobs, and strengthen individual and community wealth, with a particular focus on housing initiatives, key development sites, and projects led by local developers. Stops will include the North Lawndale Employment Network to witness their innovative employment social enterprise, Lawndale Christian Development Corporation and Inherent Homes for affordable housing, including modular home construction, and Fillmore Linen Service, a newly established local laundry service for area hospitals that hires people from the community.
It’s an opportunity to see how neighborhood investment takes shape on the ground—and to hear directly about both the challenges and possibilities of building wealth in historically underinvested communities. This session is presented by Steans Family Foundation.
Already a SOCAP26 ticket holder? Sign up in Brella for the North Lawndale Economic Development Tour.
If you aren’t yet registered for SOCAP26, secure your ticket to participate in the Chicago Community Sessions!
2. See What Blended Capital Can Make Possible in Greater Auburn Gresham
In Auburn Gresham, impact investment is helping create a pipeline of projects designed to generate economic, environmental, and community value. This hop-on/hop-off bus tour will visit two major projects: the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation’s Healthy Lifestyle Hub and the Green Era Campus, the Midwest’s first anaerobic digester converting food waste into renewable energy and compost, where you will witness Chicago’s urban garden with Urban Growers Collective.
Together, these projects demonstrate what can happen when blended capital, innovative ownership models, and cross-sector partnerships come together to support community-driven development. Come see what an investable neighborhood pipeline can look like—and explore the capital strategies that can help make it possible. The session is presented by The Chicago Community Trust.
Already a SOCAP26 ticket holder? Sign up in Brella for the Greater Auburn Gresham Community Development Tour.
If you aren’t yet registered for SOCAP26, secure your ticket to participate in the Chicago Community Sessions!
3. Tour The Hatchery and Learn What Works for Diverse Small Businesses
What does it actually take to help entrepreneurs build businesses, create jobs, and generate wealth in their communities? This session explores the combination of capital, coaching, partnerships, and infrastructure that can help diverse small businesses thrive. Using the work of Allies for Community Business as a case study—including The Hatchery food and beverage incubator and the Neighborhood Entrepreneurship Lab—participants will explore what works, what doesn’t, and what impact investors can learn from the model.
The session will include a visit to The Hatchery, offering a firsthand look at how investors can support community wealth building by investing in Community Development Financial Institutions that, in turn, invest in neighborhood entrepreneurs.
Already a SOCAP26 ticket holder? Sign up in Brella for “What Works in Community Wealth Building? Lessons from Supporting Diverse Small Businesses.”
If you aren’t yet registered for SOCAP26, secure your ticket to participate in the Chicago Community Sessions!
4. Get an Inside Look at Hardtech Innovation and Place-Based Growth
What does it take to build an innovation ecosystem—and the capital infrastructure to support it—in a specific place? This invitation-only session offers capital allocators an inside look at mHUB’s integrated approach to hardtech innovation, venture development, and place-based economic growth.
Participants will hear from mHUB, the MacArthur Foundation, Good Chaos, and startup founders about the capital strategies supporting a $1.3 billion hardtech R&D district, followed by a guided tour featuring companies working across quantum, energy, and sustainable manufacturing.
The session offers a unique opportunity to explore how different forms of capital can work together to build not only companies, but the infrastructure and ecosystems that allow innovation to take root and grow in a place.
Already a SOCAP26 ticket holder? This offsite, “Financing Hardtech Innovation and Place-Based Growth in the U.S.,” is by invitation only. To inquire about participation, email sarah@socapglobal.com.
If you aren’t yet registered for SOCAP26, secure your ticket to participate in the Chicago Community Sessions!
5. Reimagine Capital at the Center for Native Futures
At the Center for Native Futures, participants will explore what capital must unlearn to support Indigenous-led futures on Indigenous terms—from cultural infrastructure and Native CDFIs to relationship-based underwriting, community-governed funds, and catalytic capital.
A practitioner council will bring together Indigenous economic builders, funders, artists, and community leaders to explore a fundamental question: What comes after extractive capital?
This is not a traditional panel. It is a grounded conversation with people building, designing, funding, and challenging the infrastructure needed for a different economy. The conversation will connect big questions about the future of capital to the practical work already underway, challenging participants to consider their own responsibility to move capital, share risk, and support Indigenous-led economic infrastructure.
Already a SOCAP26 ticket holder? Sign up in Brella for “Worldbuilding While the World Burns: A Practitioner Council on Capital Futures.”
If you aren’t yet registered for SOCAP26, secure your ticket to participate in the Chicago Community Sessions!
Sarah Sterling has over 10 years of experience working with entrepreneurs, accelerators, investors, and nonprofit organizations on ecosystem building, impact measurement, leadership and organizational management, and fundraising. She’s a natural networker who thrives on connecting organizations for catalytic action and impact and has developed an international network of social entrepreneurs, impact investment funds, major philanthropic organizations, and impact conveners.
She has been with SOCAP Global for over 10 years, first serving as the Executive Director of Entrepreneurship, managing the Fellowship Program, and supporting capital connections between entrepreneurs and funders. In her role as the Executive Director of Programming and Convening, she has helped to guide and lead the development and management of content at SOCAP.
