Over the past year, Crossroads Fund has been working hard to improve our communications, both online and off. We revamped our website, added a blog, created grantee profile videos, revamped our newsletter, and upped our game on Facebook. Often our media ideas and inspiration come from our grantees, many of whom are grassroots media superstars!

Here are a couple of current and former Crossroads Fund grantees who are using media to get their message out in new and exciting ways:

Crossroads Fund is excited to announce a community partnership with Mata Traders for the month of May! Mata Traders is an independent women’s clothing label located in Chicago that wholesales and retails a high fashion line of fairly traded apparel and accessories. The company works directly with women’s cooperatives and artisan groups throughout India and Nepal that pay a fair wage and provide training, benefits and safe working conditions. Each month they choose a community partner and donate a portion of online sales to that organization. Crossroads Fund is thrilled to be their community partner this month!

When hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Chicago in 2006 to protest unjust immigration laws, Crossroads Fund’s grantees were there. We support groups that have grown over the years to take leadership roles in immigrant rights organizing, like the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center and the United African Organization, as well as emerging leaders like the Immigrant Youth Justice League.

Five years into our Youth Fund for Social Change, we remain humbled and inspired by the many young people who are taking a stand and transforming systems that harm them and their peers. Over the past five years, we have seen young people advocate for a trauma center in their neighborhood, engage their elders to break cycles of violence, come out as “undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic,” and work to empower homeless LGBT youth, among other issues.

Sixteen Crossroads Fund grantees and allies gathered bright and early Wednesday morning to talk about Healing Justice. Over the last two years we’ve been hearing more and more from our community about the need for self care and healing in our activist work, and about the growing healing justice movement. As part of our ongoing Technical Assistance workshop series, Crossroads Fund invited local healing justice activists Tanuja Jagernauth and Stacey Erenberg from Sage Community Health Collective to facilitate an introduction to healing justice at the individual, institutional and city-wide level.

 As parents, teachers and supporters of public education regroup and respond to the Chicago Board of Education’s decision to close or turnaround all 17 schools up for consideration this year, it’s worth taking a moment to think about what makes for a strong movement for education. FeministWire recently posted a great interview with Crossroads Fund grantee Blocks Together’s youth organizer Ana Mercado. Ana touches on the role that community involvement and leadership development have had in their efforts to protect and improve neighborhood schools.

Crossroads Fund congratulates the Chicago Clean Power Coalition, including past and present Crossroads Fund grantees the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, the Pilsen Alliance, the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, the Nuclear Energy Information Service, and the 8^th Day Center for Justice, on winning their long running campaign to close two coal-fired power plants in Chicago.

On March 2^nd, Crossroads Fund is celebrating 30 years of seeding change, growing leaders and building movements with a night of food, music, awards and more! This week we’re offering our Facebook fans a chance to join the celebration and win a free ticket to our gala event!

In my work at Crossroads Fund, it is always a privilege to witness grassroots leaders giving voice to the social justice issues that directly affect them. One of my most memorable site visits from this past spring’s grantmaking cycle was facilitated entirely by volunteer leaders from the organization’s constituency – in this case, low-income seniors from Jane Addams Senior Caucus working for better, more affordable housing and healthcare.

Crossroads Fund mourns the loss of an amazing Chicago organizer and member of our community. On January 29^th, John Castillo-Pennycuff passed away. John was a beloved and respected activist in the LGBTQ community. He served on the Chicago Commission on Human Relations Mayor's Advisory Council on LGBT Issues, was a member of Queer Nation Chicago, Equal Marriage NOW, the Coalition against Bashing, and many other groups, but I knew him as a friend.