The Standard ClubCommunity Fund
The entrance of the Standard Club at 320 South Plymouth Court at night, its lit canopy bearing the Club’s octagonal logo above open glass doors set in a carved stone facade.

The Standard Club, since 1869

About the Fund

Our mission

The mission of the Standard Club Community Fund is to carry forward the Jewish heritage of the Standard Club's membership by making meaningful contributions to organizations that promote the welfare of the Jewish community and to any organizations that advance the interests of the people of Chicago. In making such contributions, the Fund will consider the degree to which organizations under consideration serve these objectives and also the extent to which they are in need of financial support. In addition, the Fund may underwrite programs that are designed to preserve the Jewish heritage and the history of the Standard Club.

The Club

  • The Standard Club’s first clubhouse, draped with flags and bunting, as mounted riders in plumed helmets gather in the street in front of it.
    1869First clubhouse
  • The Standard Club’s second clubhouse at Michigan Avenue and 24th Street, a broad stone building with arched windows and entrances, an American flag flying above the roof.
    1889Michigan & 24th
  • The Standard Club’s last clubhouse at 320 South Plymouth Court in black and white, rows of arched windows along its stone facade and a dark office tower beside it.
    1926Plymouth Court
The Standard Club logo: the letters S and C interlocked in white inside a dark red octagon.

The Standard Club

The Standard Club was organized in Chicago in 1869 by German-Jewish business leaders barred from the Chicago Club, which had formed only months earlier. It was chartered on February 14, 1887, for “the social and mental improvement of its members by social intercourse and by various educational means.”

Three clubhouses followed: Michigan Avenue at 13th Street from 1869; an Adler & Sullivan stone box at Michigan and 24th from 1889; and, from 1926, Albert Kahn’s building at 320 South Plymouth Court, the Club’s longtime Loop home.

Julius Rosenwald, the Sears president, was a founder of the Museum of Science and Industry; Max Adler gave the city its planetarium. After the Great Fire of 1871 the Club “gave up the club-house to the relief work of the city.” Albert Einstein spoke there on his 54th birthday, March 14, 1933.

The Club marked its 150th anniversary in 2019, the same year it asked members for emergency money. In March 2020 the Club announced it would close its clubhouse, effective May 1. The clubhouse shut that March as the pandemic began, so there was no farewell. The building sold in 2022.

The Club’s archives — minutes, member records, photographs, scrapbooks — are at the Newberry Library.

In 2025 the Club’s members set aside a fund to carry the Club’s purpose forward, held as a donor-advised fund at the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. The building is gone. The charitable instinct is not.

Beyond the check

Every grant opens a relationship.

  • When you apply, you tell us how Standard Club members could help: a board or committee seat, volunteering, professional expertise, an introduction, or visibility.
  • The committee member who called you becomes your advocate, and builds a partnership plan with you. It is an invitation, never a condition.
  • We check in at the midpoint and at the close, and we feature every grantee to our members — with your consent, and in your words.
  • You’re invited, never required, to the Standard Club holiday party and annual meeting, where we introduce our grantees to the membership.
  • Afterward, we ask for a one-paragraph update (under 200 words), three to five photos of the work, and a short selfie-style video (under a minute).

Photographs

Photographs courtesy of The Standard Club, from the Club’s collection. The Plymouth Court entrance and the two ballrooms set for dinner are by KingenSmith.

Work we should know about?

Apply for a grantSee what we fund

Tell us about it: fund@standardclub.fund