At the turn of the century, Mayor Richard M. Daley created World Business Chicago, a nonprofit public-private entity funded mainly by corporate donations. Its purpose was to market Chicago to outside business people, investors and even young, talented workers from elsewhere as a place to grow and invest.
In the years since, WBC largely has stuck to this important mission.
So it’s disturbing to see the agency appearing to be acting as a tool of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s as-yet undeclared reelection campaign as the mayoral election nears and targeting its messages to those already here.
At issue are a series of promotional spots, which began running on social and streaming media earlier this month, that feature the mayor narrating his “strategic investments in every neighborhood.” “We’ve invested over $6 billion of economic activity in every corner of the city,” the mayor claims in each of the spots, which use essentially the same text but lay out statistics applying to various parts of Chicago such as the South Side, the Northwest Side and the West Side.
“Let’s keep building better together,” the mayor concludes after a series of still shots of Johnson in economic-development settings. One is a groundbreaking, another is Johnson wearing a hard hit at a construction site — you get the idea.
Who is the target of that last message? Clearly, it’s those who already live here.
And vote here.
The interestingly timed promotional campaign caught the attention of state Rep. Curtis J. Tarver II, who represents a South Side district and has been critical of Johnson’s dealings with Springfield. He dispatched a letter, dated Aug. 25, to WBC CEO Philip Clement asking for detailed information on costs of the campaign, the intended audience and coordination if any with the mayor’s office, among other requests.
The new marketing campaign’s timing, Tarver noted in his letter, “adds to the sensitivity.”
The release of what look and sound just like political ads just as Johnson’s campaign is circulating petitions to put him on the ballot “raise(s) legitimate questions about whether the communications could be perceived as political promotion or create the appearance of a potential conflict of interest, depending on who requested and approved them, how they were funded, and how and where they were distributed,” Tarver wrote.
We agree.
World Business Chicago’s revenue in 2024 was $9.8 million, $8.6 million of which came from grants and contributions, according to the filing it made to the Internal Revenue Service in that year to justify its nonprofit status. The city and state provide a portion of WBC’s funding; Tarver references $1.5 million in the state budget for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2026, and another $1.35 million for the current fiscal year.
But the majority of the WBC resources come from donations made by corporate Chicago, which has a vested interest in promoting the city as a good place to do business but isn’t generally supportive of this mayor, who after all regularly disparages Chicago’s largest employers for opposing his call to tax them based on how many people they employ in the city.
Johnson likes to make unflattering reference to what he calls “the corporate caucus” of the City Council, which he does not intend as a term of endearment.
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While the mayor always chairs WBC and appoints the CEO, its credibility depends on being above politics as much as possible. Yes, an appropriate role of the mayor is to be a cheerleader for Chicago as a business destination. But this messaging to our minds crosses the line and sounds more like a call to endorse his policies and above all continue them.
When we asked them to respond, WBC said in a statement, “Promoting Chicago’s economy and highlighting the billions of dollars in investment happening across the city is core to World Business Chicago’s mission.”
“Mayor Johnson, as the city’s elected leader, is an appropriate spokesperson, alongside the business, civic, community and entrepreneurial leaders who are featured across World Business Chicago’s content platform,” WBC added.
Johnson had just $631,000 in his campaign fund as of the end of June. At the same point in her ultimately unsuccessful campaign for reelection in 2023, his predecessor Lori Lightfoot had $2.5 million.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who has announced a run for Chicago mayor even as he’s running for reelection to his current office, had more than $20 million in his campaign kitty as of June 30.
In other words, this mayor, should he choose to run, can use every bit of free messaging help he can find.
At the time Johnson appointed Clement as World Business Chicago CEO in 2024, we said that in that moment of post-pandemic torpor for Chicago’s economy WBC also should make the case to unconfident Chicagoans themselves in addition to outsiders about this city’s virtues.
We stand by our words back then, but timing is everything in life. In politics. And in economic development.
Two-plus years later, Chicago’s economic stagnation isn’t a byproduct of a pandemic. COVID-19 is no longer an excuse for our lagging performance. The lack of confidence in the city’s prospects comes far more from poor fiscal management (not to mention constant anti-business rhetoric from the mayor) that makes job creators wonder how much their taxes will soar in the future if they invest here.
Yet growing Chicago’s pie is crucial to providing economic opportunity for more city residents and improving the fiscal fortunes of a city government facing yawning budget deficits every year.
WBC’s principal mission now is to turn up the oven and help the dough rise.
It is certainly not to dispense campaign advertisements designed to get those who already live and work here to endorse the status quo.
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