Rooted in Englewood on the south side of Chicago, Growing Home is more than an urban farm—it’s a workforce development center and nonprofit social enterprise with a clear vision: everyone deserves a good job and access to healthy food.  

“We're constantly trying to be innovative and responsive to our population in any way possible,” said Executive Director Janelle St. John. Located in a food insecure community with high unemployment, Growing Home is focused on strengthening the neighborhood by providing affordable organic produce, jobs, and employment training to residents.

But as Growing Home’s impact has expanded—with more than 80 individuals trained each year and more than 35,000 pounds of produce grown annually—so have its operational needs. 

Through the Corporate Coalition’s Corporate Connector, Growing Home was matched with Accenture, a global consulting company eager to leverage its resources and expertise to support the nonprofit’s mission. 

For Accenture, joining the Connector offered an opportunity to go beyond traditional pro bono work. “We usually do one big pro bono project per year, which requires approvals to take somebody off of client-facing work for three months,” said Michael Chiappetta, Accenture’s Director of Midwest Business Operations and Chicago Market Development. “That’s a big effort, but it’s often a one-time boost of impact to a community. The thought here was, what if we found a way to do lower-effort, consistent support throughout the year?" 

Melvin Flowers, Accenture’s Global Legal Lead – Governance & Risk – Data Privacy, worked closely with St. John to determine Growing Home’s most pressing needs and how Accenture could meet them. In response, Accenture hosted an expungement clinic in December 2023 for 14 graduates of Growing Home’s workforce development program. Working in conjunction with Legal Aid Chicago, Accenture Legal supported Growing Home’s members with this critical step, enabling them to fully participate in the workforce.

Cultivating Growth

But Accenture’s involvement didn’t stop with a single initiative. Flowers assembled a team to address Growing Home’s broader needs as a nonprofit, including business operations. “It's always bigger than that one thing you come to the table with,” Flowers said. “At Accenture, especially as consultants, we look at the whole picture."

Through their work with Growing Home, Accenture’s employees have developed new skills while using their expertise for a meaningful purpose. “You’ve got to bring interesting programming that people are passionate about, and you’ve got to shape it so they can do it easily,” Flowers said.

Many employees chose to become more involved—beyond their designated time commitments—when they saw the impact they were having. “It's a simple thing, how you bring people together, how they start to give their talents, and they may not realize they were destined to do that thing,” Flowers said. “Most of them just get fired up—like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize it was this easy.”

For Growing Home’s staff, this relationship with Accenture has been powerful because it goes beyond a one-off project or a photo opportunity. “I’m trying to connect Growing Home to the people within those companies,” St. John said. “The people that have a passion for our work and become ambassadors of Growing Home and Englewood.” 

Connecting the Right People

Growth has taken multiple forms for the Englewood nonprofit, which currently operates out of two trailers and a small processing building. In 2023, Growing Home launched a capital campaign to build a larger processing facility, commercial kitchen, café, farm store, and workforce development classrooms—an ambitious expansion that would involve acquiring a vacant corner lot adjacent to their property in Englewood.

“We said, you know what? Let's figure out how we can pull this together,” Flowers recalled. “Accenture doesn't do real estate acquisitions, but we've got partners that do.” Accenture connected Growing Home with legal experts at DLA Piper, who donated more than 100 hours of legal aid.  

“It's weird how things connect when you have the right people making the connections,” St. John said. “With Growing Home being a nonprofit, we would never be able to afford that caliber of an attorney firm if this relationship didn't start.”

In February, Growing Home closed on that property—a huge win, St. John said, and one that laid the foundation for expanding their reach in Englewood, while supporting even more individuals through their training program. 

To fully realize that mission, “It's going to take coordination, it's going to take working with different organizations at the same time,” St. John said. “It's going to take connecting dots—like we just did. To me, this partnership, this connection that we’ve made, is so impactful.” 

If you ask Flowers, that impact is mutual. “Accenture recognizes that we’ve got a platform. We've got some incredible people. We need to let them bring their whole self, or as much of themselves as possible, into this job,” he said. “When you allow that to happen, it just grows and becomes contagious.”

The Corporate Connector, an initiative of the Corporate Coalition of Chicago, is uniting companies with nonprofits and small businesses to advance equity. When we align corporate expertise with community needs, both parties grow—and so does Chicago. Learn more.

Photos courtesy of Growing Home. Lead photo by Alexy Irving.

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