Previous Grantees

2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005

2011 Grantees

Crossroads Fund is proud to announce that in FY2011 we gave out more than $245,000 to 56 groups working for social change across a spectrum of issues. Although the following list categorizes grantees based on one primary focus of their work, grantees’ work is rarely limited to a single issue area. Most work across issues and prioritize the multiple needs of their diverse constituencies.

The listed grantees received funding within five grantmaking programs. A notation after the grantee description indicates from which program(s) they received funding. These programs include the Seed Fund (Seed), Partner Funds (PF), Technical Assistance Fund (TA), Emergency Fund (EF) and Youth Fund for Social Change (YF). Our largest Donor Advised Fund, the GRAM Fund, supports women and girls, rights for Arab Americans, and innovative youth projects. Unless otherwise noted, the grants were used for general operating support.

Economic Justice and Community Development

Biblioteca Popular is a community space that creates culturally-affirming workshops and arts programming for and by people of color, specifically youth, LGBTQ folks, documented and undocumented immigrants, and people experiencing homelessness in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. $2,500 (GRAM)

Blocks Together is a grassroots, multi-issue social justice organization on the West Side of Chicago addressing affordable housing, public education and other issues. These grants include support for Blocks Together’s youth-led restorative justice campaign, and to take constituents to Springfield for a legislative hearing. $9,500 (Seed, TA, YF)

Chicago Honey Co-op is a member-owned beekeeping cooperative that provides economic development opportunities for the underemployed while promoting sustainable urban agricultural practices. $5,850 (PF)

Chicago Law and Education Foundation provides Chicago Public School students and their families access to legal services, training and education on issues like record expungement, domestic violence, immigration, and tenants’ rights. $3,000 (TA)

Jane Addams Senior Caucus organizes low-income seniors to improve their quality of life and build a strong community voice to address issues like healthcare and housing. These grants include support for a process to become a more antiracist organization. $8,000 (Seed, TA)

Lakeview Action Coalition, a multi-issue coalition of individuals and organizations in the Lakeview neighborhood, organizes around affordable housing, healthcare, sustainable development, environmental justice and police abuse of homeless youth. These grants include support for the implementation of an individual fundraising plan. $7,500 (Seed, TA)

Next Steps organizes people with mental disabilities and homeless individuals to be active in the systems that affect them, particularly major boards, institutions and decision-making bodies addressing homelessness and mental health. $3,000 (Seed)

Southside Together Organizing for Power organizes primarily African American tenants, youth, consumers of mental health services and others in the Hyde Park-Woodlawn neighborhood to address housing, gentrification, healthcare and criminalization of youth. These grants include support for a youth-led campaign to reopen the trauma center at University of Chicago hospital, and consulting to develop an individual fundraising plan. $10,000 (Seed, TA, GRAM, YF)

The Whittier Parent Committee organized a sit-in to prevent the demolition of a field house at Whittier Elementary School in Pilsen. They continue to advocate for the facility’s conversion into a library and community center, and to hold Chicago Public Schools accountable for their promises and decision-making regarding the distribution of funds. Grants include support for consulting in organizational development. $3,500 (TA, EF, Ron Sable Award)

Immigrant Issues

The Chicago New Sanctuary Coalition organizes congregations and people of faith to respond to injustice experienced by undocumented immigrants. Its strategies include public witness, political advocacy and support for immigrants at risk of deportation. $5,000 (TA)

Immigrant Youth Justice League is a network of undocumented youth and their allies working for justice for immigrants. They have played a prominent role in organizing around the DREAM Act, which would provide undocumented youth a path to citizenship. Their strategies include undocumented youth “coming out” and sharing their stories publicly, to put a more human face on the immigration debate and counteract racist stereotypes. $3,500 (GRAM, Donald F. Erickson Synapses Award)

Korean American Resource and Cultural Center challenges Koreans in the greater Chicago area to engage in meaningful civic participation to solve community issues, with a particular emphasis on youth programs and intergenerational activities. These grants include support for fundraising trainings for staff and youth, and a speaker series to introduce youth to community organizers working on a range of issues throughout Chicago. $4,500 (TA, YF)

Human Rights, International Policy & Government Accountability

Applied Research Center is a public policy institute that advances racial justice through research, advocacy and journalism. This grant supported the participation of Crossroads Fund grantees in Facing Race, a national convening of organizers and intellectuals addressing racial justice politics and activism. $3,000 (TA)

Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights educates the public and organizes to support legislation that will protect First Amendment and due process rights. This grant supported the redevelopment of their website to better provide communities with information about issues related to civil liberties. $2,000 (TA)

Chicago Palestine Film Festival exhibits and promotes films about Palestine or by Palestinian directors that address current issues in the region and portray the daily lives of Palestinians. Over the years, they have established themselves as a critical educational resource for various communities, institutions and the general public. $4,500 (Seed, GRAM)

Christian Peacemaker Teams trains and places violence-reduction teams in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world and reports to the larger world community on these atrocities. These teams also support local nonviolence efforts through nonviolent direct action and public witness. $7,496.25 (Seed)

Citizen Advocacy Center works in DuPage County to increase the capacity and skills of individuals and organizations, particularly those most excluded from civic participation, to participate effectively in community life while advocating for policies that protect public participation. $5,000 (TA)

Committee for a Just Peace in Israel & Palestine works toward a just and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through public education forums, civic participation and an annual walk for justice. $3,000 (Seed)

National Boricua Human Rights Network works to raise awareness of human rights issues facing the Puerto Rican community, including political prisoners and the preservation of civil liberties. These grants include support for consulting to develop their grantwriting capacity. $5,500 (Seed, TA)

Nuclear Energy Information Service provides information about the safety hazards and environmentally and economically harmful effects of nuclear energy, and advocates for safer and more sustainable alternatives. This grant supported two actions in response to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. $500 (EF)

Tamms Year Ten is a coalition of prisoners, ex-prisoners, families, artists, activists, organizations and concerned citizens protesting inhumane policies at Tamms C-MAX prison and calling for an end to the abusive conditions that are known to provoke mental illness and physical breakdown. $3,500 (SF)

Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Issues

Affinity Community Services serves African American lesbian and bisexual women and youth in Chicago by providing a safe space while addressing issues related to race, health, poverty, immigration and education. These grants include support for a community forum organized by Affinity’s youth leadership cohort, and a consultant to improve their bookkeeping systems. $12,500 (Seed, TA, YF)

Women and Girls

Beyondmedia Education partners with under-represented women, youth and communities to create and distribute alternative media and arts addressing the issues and systems that affect them. $5,000 (GRAM)

Chicago Abortion Fund works to address economic barriers to reproductive choice by connecting young women with free or low cost reproductive health services, and organizes young women who access their services to become advocates for reproductive justice. These grants include support for consulting for their board in financial management practices. $5,500 (Seed, TA)

Chicago Books to Women in Prison fulfills incarcerated women’s direct requests for books, reducing incarcerated women’s isolation and providing them with valuable resources. $2,500 (GRAM)

Chicago Friends of WE-ACTx – Rwanda is a pooled fund to benefit the WE-ACTx HIV/AIDS clinics in Rwanda. WE-ACTx serves HIV positive genocide widows, rape survivor and orphans and is a model of care and international/local collaboration. $21,989 (PF)

Global Girls, Inc. uses performing arts as a medium to develop strong communication, leadership and life skills amongst a group of youth that consists primarily of girls between the ages of eight and eighteen. $2,500 (GRAM)

Women’s Voices Fund provides programs that promote feminist dialogue through book discussions, author readings and community events at Women and Children First bookstore. $15,858.70 (PF)

Worker Rights

Arise Chicago builds partnerships between low-income, primarily immigrant workers and faith communities through education, by organizing workers and congregations and by advocating for policies to protect workers. These grants include support for consulting in fundraising. $7,000 (Seed, TA)

Associacion de Vendedores Ambulantes organizes low-income, primarily Latino street vendors to advocate on their own behalf, with the goal of passing a comprehensive ordinance to protect vendors’ right to earn an income. $3,000 (Seed)

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: Immigrant Workers Project is an immigrant-run workers’ center on Chicago’s Southeast side that protects immigrant workers from violations and exploitation by area employers. These grants include support for consulting to continue implementing the organization’s fundraising plan. $5,500 (Seed, TA)

Chicago Community and Worker Rights educates and organizes Latino workers to fight against exploitation in their jobs and for jobs that are safe and dignified. $3,000 (Seed)

Chicago Workers’ Collaborative, a coalition of workers and groups, organizes for day laborer and immigrant rights through public education, worker trainings and litigation on behalf of primarily immigrant workers who have experienced exploitation in their workplace. $9,000 (Seed)

Restaurant Opportunities Center of Chicago uses a range of workplace campaigns and education strategies to improve the working conditions of low-wage restaurant employees and shift the imbalance of power within the restaurant industry. These grants include support for consulting in board development and financial management. $6,000 (SF, TA)

Warehouse Workers for Justice organizes warehouse workers to challenge abuses and to build the power and influence of workers within Chicago’s warehouse industry, one of the nation’s most significant ports in the transport of goods across the country. $3,000 (SF)

Youth

Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE)’s Filipino American Leadership Identity Program strengthens Filipino American young people’s relationship to their cultural identity and their analysis of issues affecting their community, like racism, colonialism and violence. $1,500 (YF)

Arab American Action Network’s Alliance of Young Women Activists is using documentary filmmaking as a teaching tool to address domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence within their communities. $2,000 (YF)

Broadway Youth Center’s Peer Advocates program facilitates leadership development for LGBT youth of color, many of whom are without stable housing. The Peer Advocates provide workshops for other youth at Broadway Youth Center on issues like sexual health, systems of oppression and harm reduction practices. $1,500 (YF)

Chicago Freedom School works to build youth-led social change movements and educate youth and community members in social movement history. This grant supported the participation of young black activists in Rev Up, a comprehensive training program for youth organizers. $1,000 (Cathy Cohen Black Youth Fund)

The Chicago Wisdom Project works with students to create projects that contribute to a more just world through the arts, while mentoring youth in skills like hip hop music production, video/film, community activism and others. $1,500 (YF)

Chicago Youth Initiating Change is a citywide group of students and teachers working to build a youth-led movement for education justice and student rights, including developing a national bill of rights for high school students. $2,000 (YF)

Cicero Area Project is working to address issues affecting immigrant youth, many undocumented, in Cicero, including community violence and immigrant rights. $2,000 (YF)

Free Street Theater produced “Behind These Walls,” a play written and directed by youth to address the social and psychological root causes of youth violence. $1,500 (YF)

Gender Just is a direct action organizing project led by queer, transgender and gender non-conforming young people. This grant supported their Safe and Affirming Education campaign, which addressed violence and harassment within the school system. $1,000 (YF)

Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health’s Sisters Empowering Sisters program is a girl-led social justice group addressing issues of reproductive and sexual health. This grant supported an anti-oppression training series for the girls, and the development of a participatory action research project. $1,000 (YF)

Imagine Englewood If… is initiating a youth-led campaign to get a family community center in Englewood, so that community members of different ages will be able to come together in a single safe space. $2,000 (YF)

Iraq Veterans Against the War is organizing youth to counteract the JROTC at two Chicago high schools by providing social justice-oriented alternatives to military programming. Their local work is connected with a broader citywide and national movement against militarization in schools through their relationship with the American Friends Service Committee. $1,500 (YF)

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization’s youth program organizes young people to address public transportation, land contamination and urban agriculture in the Pilsen and Little Village communities. This grant supported youth-led after school programs to teach environmental justice at two neighborhood schools. $2,500 (YF)

Pilsen Youth Equalizer Corps is a youth program at Centro Sin Fronteras that organizes to address healthcare disparities, immigration reform and gang violence in Pilsen. $2,000 (YF)

Telpochcalli Community Education Project works to address issues like education and community violence in the Little Village neighborhood. For four years, their youth group Ollin has organized the Little Village Youth Forum, which brings youth together across neighborhoods to address violence and its relationship to racism, sexism and economic oppression. These grants include support to improve their financial management systems. $5,000 (YF, TA)

The Trauma Stewardship Conference helped activists develop and implement concrete practices to address the different forms of trauma they experience within the context of social justice work. This grant supported the participation of Crossroads Fund’s youth organizing grantees in the conference. $500 (TA)

Young Chicago Authors organizes a monthly workshop and open mic series where youth develop their voices and leadership as activists by exploring issues related to violence through writing and performance. $1,500 (YF)

Young Women’s Empowerment Project is run by and for women, girls and youth with life experiences in the sex trade and street economies. They use social justice, transformative justice and harm-reduction strategies to address issues affecting them. This grant supported a campaign to address institutional violence and denial of services experienced by street youth. $3,000 (YF)

Youth Outlook provides social space, leadership development and education opportunities for LGBT youth in DuPage County. This grant supported youth-led community education projects to combat homophobia. $2,000 (YF)

2010 Grantees

Crossroads Fund is proud to announce that in 2010 we gave out $268,256 to 54 groups working for social change across a spectrum of issues. Although the following list categorizes grantees based on one primary focus of their work, grantees’ work is rarely limited to a single issue area. Most work across issues and prioritize the multiple needs of their diverse constituencies. The listed grantees received funding within seven grantmaking programs. A notation after the grantee description indicates from which program(s) they received funding. These programs include the Seed Fund (Seed), Donor Advised (DA), Technical Assistance Fund (TA), Emergency Fund (EF), Healthcare Justice Fund (HJF), Fire this Time Fund (FTT) and Youth Fund for Social Change (YF). Our largest Donor Advised Fund, the GRAM Fund, supports women and girls, rights for Arab Americans, and innovative youth projects. Unless otherwise noted, the grants were used for general operating support.

ARTS, CULTURE & MEDIA:
Albany Park Theater Project is an ensemble of primarily immigrant and working class youth artists who collectively write, choreograph, compose, and stage original performance works based on people's real-life stories, including issues like immigration policy, inequalities in public education, the criminal justice system, gentrification, and more. $1,800 (DA)

Backstory is a socially conscious café and social center in Woodlawn. They are expanding their infoshop, which creates space for groups and individuals to share resources and participate in programs that highlight the importance of participatory media and knowledge creation. $750 (FTT)

Center for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts is a youth-focused organization that uses theater and art to organize various immigrant communities across social, economic and political issues. $5,000 (Seed)

Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP) is part of a national coalition organizing to pressure the Federal Communications Commission to make low-power FM radio signals available to community organizations. This would enable the establishment of independent, community-based radio stations in Chicago. They also generate diverse content for their own, currently web-based, station. $5,000 (TA)

Half Letter Press is publishing a book that will document the political practice and visual propaganda of the Madame Binh Graphics Collective, an antiracist women’s poster, printmaking and street art collective that operated in New York City between 1975 and 1983, and acted in solidarity with anti-colonial movements. $750 (FTT)

In These Times is a nonprofit, independent, national magazine published in Chicago that fights for corporate accountability and progressive government. $1,000 (DA)

Stillpoint Theater Collective is facilitating “Matters of the Heart,” a new theatre project created and performed by formerly incarcerated women as an educational tool to help youth break free from the cycle of violence in which many of them live. $500 (FTT)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:
First Defense Legal Aid provides legal advice and aid in Chicago Police Department stations to low-income individuals who cannot afford attorneys. They also document police brutality and provide workshops to at-risk communities on their constitutional rights and responsibilities when dealing with law enforcement personnel. $4,000 (Seed)

Longterm Prisoner Policy Project ("Warehoused Prisoners") pushes for changes in law, policies and practice affecting prisoners serving virtual to actual life sentences in Illinois prisons, promoting their human rights. These grants included support for an amicus briefing filed before the Supreme Court to overturn a law prohibiting men on death row from speaking with the media. $1,500 (EF, Ron Sable Award)

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
Blocks Together is a grassroots, multi-issue social justice organization on the West Side of Chicago addressing affordable housing, public education & other issues. These grants included support for board development and for Blocks Together’s youth-led restorative justice campaign. $11,000 (Seed, TA, YF)

Citizen Advocacy Center works in DuPage County to increase the capacity and skills of individuals and organizations, particularly those most shut out of civic participation, to participate effectively in community life while advocating for policies that protect public participation. $5,000 (Seed)

Jane Addams Senior Caucus organizes low-income seniors to improve their quality of life and build a strong community voice. These grants included support for a workshop in popular education organizing with trainers from the Highlander Research and Education Center. $3,500 (DA, TA)

Lakeview Action Coalition, a multi-issue coalition of individuals and organizations in the Lakeview neighborhood, organizes around affordable housing, healthcare, sustainable development, environmental justice and police abuse of homeless youth. These grants included support for the development of an individual fundraising plan. $8,000 (Seed, DA, TA)

Pilsen Alliance organizes community residents to address gentrification, public transportation access, housing and education. This grant supported consulting in financial management. $1,500 (TA)

United for a Fair Economy uses networking, media, education, research and other strategies to build movements for greater economic equality, recognizing that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart. $1,000 (DA)

HEALTHCARE JUSTICE:
Campaign for Better Health Care is Illinois’ largest statewide coalition of healthcare providers, policy groups and consumers pushing for healthcare reform at a state and national level. Their “What Healthcare Reform Means to Me and My Community” project will help communities of color understand the implications of the recent healthcare reform and ensure its implementation promotes healthcare justice. $6,500 (TA, HJF)

Health and Medicine Research Policy Group promotes social justice in Illinois healthcare, currently focusing on the underfunding of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services and its impact on Cook County residents. This grant supported a project to inform the community about the impact of federal legislation on Cook County’s healthcare safety net through advocacy training sessions and the formation of a coalition to define “charity care” and the responsibilities of nonprofit hospitals. $5,500 (TA, HJF)

HUMAN AND WORKER RIGHTS:
Centro de Trabajadores Unidos is an immigrant-run workers’ center on Chicago’s Southeast side that protects immigrant workers from violations and exploitation by area employers. These grants included support for consulting in board development and foundation relations. $4,500 (Seed, TA)

Latino Union organizes workers to improve the conditions of low-income and immigrant workers and day laborers and to address systemic injustices in the day labor industry. This grant supported the development of their Café Chicago project, a fair trade coffee-roasting venture that will provide income for the organization and jobs for workers. $3,000 (TA)

National Boricua Human Rights Network works to raise awareness of human rights issues facing the Puerto Rican community, including political prisoners and the preservation of civil liberties. They also work to cultivate youth leaders in the Humboldt Park community through their collaboration with the Batey Urbano youth program. $6,000 (Seed, GRAM)

United Taxidrivers Community Council is a multiracial and multiethnic taxidriver organizing project that promotes a living wage and better working conditions for Chicago taxi drivers. These grants included support for leadership development. $4,000 (Seed, TA)

IMMIGRANT ISSUES:
The Chicago New Sanctuary Coalition organizes congregations and people of faith to respond to injustice experienced by undocumented immigrants. Its strategies include public witness, political advocacy and support for immigrants at risk of deportation. These grants included support for the Immigrant Youth Justice League in response to recent anti-immigrant legislation. $8,000 (Seed, GRAM, EF)

Korean American Resource and Cultural Center challenges Koreans in the greater Chicago area to engage in meaningful civic participation to solve community issues, with a particular emphasis on youth programs and intergenerational activities. These grants included support for youth organizing to pass the DREAM Act, which will allow undocumented immigrant youth to attend college and provide a path to citizenship. $7,000 (GRAM, YF)

United African Organization, a coalition of African organizations in Chicago, works for social justice, civil rights, civic participation and empowerment of African immigrants and refugees. These grants included support for cultivating individual donors and foundation relations. $5,000 (Seed, TA)

INTERNATIONAL POLICY AND ADVOCACY:
Christian Peacemaker Teams trains and places violence-reduction teams in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world and reports to the larger world community on these atrocities. These teams also support local nonviolence efforts through nonviolent direct action and public witness. $5,000 (Seed)

Committee for a Just Peace in Israel & Palestine works toward a just and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through public education forums, civic participation and an annual walk for justice. $3,000 (Seed)

LESBIAN/GAY/BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDER ISSUES:
Affinity Community Services serves African American lesbian and bisexual women and youth in Chicago by providing a safe space while addressing issues related to race, health, poverty and education. These grants included support for a community forum organized by Affinity’s youth leadership cohort, and consulting to articulate a position on immigrant rights issues. $11,500 (Seed, TA, YF)

Gender Just is a local direct action organizing project led by queer, transgendered and gender non-conforming individuals and communities. Participants in their Create for Justice project created art to express their commitment to racial, economic and gender justice. $1,000 (FTT)

WOMEN AND GIRLS:
Beyondmedia Education partners with under-represented women, youth and communities to create and distribute alternative media and arts addressing the issues and systems that affect them. $5,000 (GRAM)

Chicago Friends of WE-ACTx – Rwanda is a pooled fund to benefit the WE-ACTx HIV/AIDS clinics in Rwanda. WE-ACTx serves HIV positive genocide widows, rape survivor and orphans and is a model of care and international/local collaboration. $31,530 (DA)

Chicago Girls' Coalition has for several years provided needed professional development, training and community-building opportunities for small and often under-resourced girl-serving organizations in Chicago. Because of fundraising challenges posed by the current economic climate, the Chicago Girls’ Coalition has unfortunately not been able to sustain their organization as it currently exists. This grant supported documentation of the Coalition’s accomplishments and planning to address the impact of their sunset. $3,000 (TA)

Chicago Women's AIDS Project provides prevention education, advocacy and support for women at risk or living with HIV in the Chicago area, in order to empower women to take control of their own health and to live as fully and as productively as possible. $631 (DA)

A Long Walk Home, Inc's Girl/Friends summer institute is a comprehensive sexual health and sexual assault awareness, prevention and leadership development program for African American and Latino adolescent girls from the North Lawndale Charter Preparatory High School. $1,000 (FTT)

Women’s Voices Fund provides programs that promote feminist dialogue through book discussions, author readings and community events at Women and Children First, which this year celebrated its 30th year as a feminist resource in Chicago. $15,000 (DA)

Young Women’s Empowerment Project is run by and for women, girls and youth with life experiences in the sex trade and street economies. They use social justice, transformative justice and harm-reduction strategies to address issues affecting them. These grants included support for a campaign to address institutional violence and denial of services experienced by street youth. $8,000 (Seed, TA)

YOUTH:
Broadway Youth Center's Peer Advocates program facilitates leadership development for LGBT youth of color, many of whom are without stable housing. This grant supported the creation of media to help the Advocates share their stories and build relationships with other youth nationally. $1,500 (YF)

Chicago Road to Detroit Coalition facilitated the participation of multiple youth and youth organizations from throughout Chicago in the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, a movement-building convening attended by more than 15,000 supporters of grassroots change. $6,000 (TA, Cathy Cohen Black Youth Fund)

Iraq Veterans Against the War is organizing youth to counteract the JROTC at a north side high school by providing social justice-oriented alternatives to military programming. Their local work is connected with a broader citywide and national movement against militarization in schools through their relationship with the American Friends Service Committee. $3,000 (YF)

Jaguars for Justice is the student-led social justice club at Julian High School in Auburn Gresham. They are working to save neighborhood schools and to create student-driven social justice media, and their members participate in citywide education justice efforts. $3,000 (YF)

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization addresses public transportation, land contamination and urban agriculture in the Pilsen and Little Village communities. These grants included support for youth attending the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in order to build a regional youth climate justice network. $4,000 (TA, YF)

The Safety Net Works of Auburn Gresham Youth Council is housed at the faith community of St. Sabina, which has worked for a number of years to address gun violence. The Youth Council works, through their “Do You Care” campaign, to reduce community complacency regarding violence, and to make neighborhood spaces safer and more accessible for youth. $2,000 (YF)

Telpochcalli Community Education Project works to address issues like education and community violence in the Little Village neighborhood. For three years, their youth group SITY Ollin has organized the Little Village Youth Forum, which brings youth together across neighborhoods to address violence and its relationship to racism, sexism and economic oppression. $5,745 (TA, YF)

WE-ACTx Youth Exchange helped bring two young women from Rwanda to Chicago to participate in the summer session of the Chicago Freedom School, a social justice history and education program for youth. The young women have recently established a Freedom School in Kigali, Rwanda, and will use their experience in Chicago to inform their project. $1,000 (Don Erickson Synapses Award)

Grantees from Previous Years

2009 Grantees

Crossroads Fund is proud to announce that in 2009 we gave out $339,358 in grants, to 68 groups working for social change across a spectrum of issues. Although the following list categorizes grantees based on one primary focus of their work, grantees’ work is rarely limited to a single issue area. Most work across issues and prioritize the multiple needs of their diverse constituencies. The listed grantees received funding within six grantmaking programs. A notation after the grantee description indicates from which program(s) they received funding. These programs include the Seed Fund (Seed), Donor Advised (DA), Technical Assistance Fund (TA), Media Justice Fund (MJF), Fire this Time Fund (FTT) and Youth Fund for Social Change (YF). Our largest Donor Advised Fund, the GRAM Fund, supports women and girls, rights for Arab Americans, and innovative youth projects. Most grants were used for general operating support.

ARTS AND CULTURE:
April 1968 Riot Oral History Project is a multimedia project featuring interviews and photo documentation of those who witnessed and were impacted by the 1968 riot that erupted on the West side of Chicago after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King. The work will be available for educational, research, and artistic exhibition purposes. $1,000 (FTT)

AREA Chicago Art/Research/Education/Activism is a publication and event series that works to build bridges between movements and communities working for social justice across Chicago by documenting and sharing historical and current social change activities. This grant supported their “Everybody’s Got Money Issues” publication, which examined economic issues affecting activist communities. $500 (FTT)

Arte y Realidad preserves Mexican cultural heritage and counteracts community violence by hosting street-side “talleres” art workshops to share the practice of “artesania”—crafts made by hand—to adults and children in the Little Village. $1,000 (FTT)

Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP) is part of a national coalition organizing to pressure the Federal Communications Commission to make low-power FM radio signals available to community organizations, enabling the establishment of independent, community-based radio stations. CHIRP also generates diverse content for their own, currently web-based, station. $5,250 (MJF)

Funny, You Don't Look Like a Jew is a multimedia art installation that builds relationships between Queer radical Jews and more conservative Jews who are organizing for racial, economic, and social justice. $1,000 (FTT)

Gayco Productions created and mounted a two-weekend political sketch comedy festival to coincide with the historic election cycle of 2008. $12,500 (SF)

Mixing it Up, a follow up to the film “Voices of Cabrini (1998),” examines the impact of the destruction of Chicago's Cabrini Green public housing development a decade after the Chicago Housing Authority initiated their plan for transformation. $1,000 (FTT)

Neighborhood Writing Alliance works with adults in marginalized communities to write, publish and perform their own stories. This grant supported a project to bring the voices of underrepresented constituents into mainstream media to speak directly to key issues affecting their lives. $5,250 (MJF)

We the People Media equips adults and youth from communities of color with reporting, editing and publishing skills and collaborates with national media and academic institutions to shape coverage of the inner city, challenging stereotypes of low-income communities. $5,250 (MJF)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:
A Day at Stateville is a play written by men currently incarcerated at the maximum security prison Statesville. The play will be performed by former prisoners throughout Chicago, in order to raise awareness of the horrific conditions experienced by individuals in long-term confinement in Illinois. $1,000 (FTT)

Citizens Alert holds Chicago metropolitan police accountable and works for systemic change in law enforcement agencies while advocating for victims of police brutality and misconduct. $7,000 (Funding Exchange “Small Axe” Project for Racial Justice, TA)

First Defense Legal Aid provides legal advice and aid in Chicago Police Department stations to low-income individuals who cannot afford attorneys. They also document police brutality and provide workshops to at-risk communities on their constitutional rights and responsibilities when dealing with law enforcement personnel. $4,000 (Seed)

Longterm Prisoner Policy Project ("Warehoused Prisoners") pushes for changes in law, policies and practice affecting prisoners serving virtual to actual life sentences in Illinois prisons, promoting their human rights. $7,500 (Seed)

Mothers of Incarcerated Sons supports writing workshops for mothers of incarcerated sons in the Howard Area Community Center in Rogers Park. The workshops help mothers move past guilt into a more systemic understanding of incarceration and the criminal justice system. $1,000 (FTT)

DISABILITY RIGHTS:
Chicago ADAPT engages in direct action and grassroots organizing to advocate for the independence of people with disabilities from institutional and cultural barriers in everyday life. $350 (DA)

Feminist Response in Disability Activism (FRIDA) is a grassroots non-violent direct action organization led by and for women with disabilities that works on issues of reproductive rights and healthcare. This grant supported their organizational development. $3,000 (TA)

Next Steps organizes people with mental disabilities and homeless individuals to be active in the systems that affect them, particularly boards, institutions and decision-making bodies addressing homelessness and mental health. $3,000 (Seed)

ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
Blocks Together is a grassroots, multi-issue social justice organization on the West Side of Chicago addressing affordable housing, public education & restorative justice. These grants included support for youth to present at the Education for Liberation Conference in Houston, Texas. $8,500 (Seed, YF)

Center for Popular Economics is a collective of economists who advance social and economic justice by educating communities and promoting alternative economic models. This grant supported their Summer Institute, which brought together educators, activists and others to address the economics of immigration and migration. $1,000 (SF)

Chicago Honey Co-op is a beekeeping cooperative that provides economic development opportunities for the underemployed while promoting sustainable urban agricultural practices. $14,550 (DA)

Jane Addams Senior Caucus organizes low-income northside seniors to improve their quality of life and build a strong community voice. $1,000 (TA)

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization addresses public transportation, land contamination and urban agriculture in Pilsen and Little Village. This grant supported the organization’s youth journalism program. $5,250 (MJF)

Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization educates Pilsen-area youth about environmental issues affecting their neighborhood. Youth document local sources of pollution and present their findings to the community. $1,000 (FTT)

Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) uses tenant organizing, action research, and alliance-building between tenants, homeowners, students and youth to address gentrification and displacement in the Woodlawn Neighborhood. $1,000 (TA)

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY:
Chitown Daily News covers local issues ignored by mainstream media, including government, housing, education, and others, while training volunteer journalists to cover issues affecting their neighborhoods. This grant supported the development of a website to generate and track Freedom of Information Act requests in order to make local government more accountable to citizens and media. $5,250 (MJF)

Citizen Advocacy Center works in DuPage County to increase the capacity and skills of individuals and organizations, particularly those most shut out of civic participation, to engage effectively in community life while advocating for policies that protect public involvement. $5,000 (Seed)

Pilsen Alliance organizes community residents to address gentrification, public transportation access, housing and education. This grant supported the development of popular education-based training materials to prepare leaders for their Tax Increment Financing accountability campaign. $3,000 (TA)

HEALTH ACCESS:
Acudetox Healing Collective provides acupuncture and alternative healing education to activist communities to address burnout and promote the self-care necessary to make social justice work sustainable. $1,000 (FTT)

Chicago Women's Health Center is a collective of health workers who provide health education, advocacy, and affordable, accessible gynecological and mental health care to women in the Chicago area. $1,000 (TA)

HUMAN AND WORKER RIGHTS:
Arise Workers' Center (formerly known as Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues) educates workers on rights, assists workers whose rights are being violated and works for systemic change through direct action and advocacy. This grant supported the purchase of a simultaneous translation system that will allow Polish and Spanish-speaking workers to communicate with one another. $3,000 (TA)

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos is an immigrant-run workers’ center on Chicago’s Southeast side that protects immigrant workers from violations and exploitation by area employers. $3,000 (Seed)

National Boricua Human Rights Network works to raise awareness of human rights issues facing the Puerto Rican community, including political prisoners and the preservation of civil liberties. They also work to cultivate youth leaders in the Humboldt Park community through their collaboration with the Batey Urbano youth program. $6,500 (Seed, GRAM)

IMMIGRANT ISSUES:
The Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance organizes congregations and people of faith to respond to injustice experienced by undocumented immigrants. Its strategies include public witness, political advocacy and support for immigrants at risk of deportation. $6,000 (Seed, DA)

Waukegan Leadership Council advocates for the welfare of immigrant and Latino residents, protecting them from indiscriminate arrest, detainment and deportation. They are also involved in voter registration, education and building collaborations with non-immigrant communities of color. $3,000 (Seed)

INTERNATIONAL POLICY AND ADVOCACY:
Christian Peacemaker Teams trains and places violence-reduction teams in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world and reports to the larger world community on these atrocities. The teams support local nonviolence efforts through direct action and public witness. $5,088 (Seed)

Electronic Intifada provides comprehensive public education on the economic, political, legal and human dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. $1,000 (Don Erickson Award)

LESBIAN/GAY/BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDER RIGHTS:
Affinity Community Services serves African American lesbian and bisexual women and youth in Chicago by providing a safe space while addressing issues related to race, health, poverty and education. These grants included support to increase their fundraising capacity. $11,000 (Seed, TA)

Illinois Safe Schools Alliance prevents violence against LGBT students in Illinois public schools through policy advocacy, youth organizing and public education both within and outside of school systems. These grants included support for youth to attend a national leadership development conference for LGBT youth organizers. $10,500 (Seed, GRAM, TA)

Mamsir Productions is producing an experimental film about transgender issues to provoke conversation among the LBGTQ community and others about our gender identities and their social and historical context. $1,000 (FTT)

Chicago Books to Women in Prison fulfills incarcerated women’s direct requests for books, reducing their isolation and providing valuable resources. $2,500 (GRAM)

Ella's Daughters is a network of women of color activists, artists, scholars and writers working in Ella Baker’s participatory democratic tradition. This grant supported scholarships for youth to attend the network’s national gathering. $1,000 (Cathy Cohen Black Youth Fund)

Venus Collective is a multimedia cultural celebration that strives to make every day International Women's Day. In addition to an annual event, they organize a multiracial women's circle and celebrate the lineage, impact and cultural influences of women via art, music, poetry, dance and craft. $1,000 (FTT)

Women’s Voices Fund provides programs that promote feminist dialogue through book discussions, author readings and community events. $7,870 (DA)

Young Women’s Empowerment Project is run by and for women and girls with life experiences in the sex trade and street economies. They use social justice, transformative justice and harm-reduction strategies to address issues affecting them. $5,000 (Seed)

YOUTH:
Black Diaspora Project will develop the leadership capacity of black youth from Chicago as they travel to Haiti to learn about the country’s historical importance to black people in the Diaspora. Youth in Haiti will gain understanding of the challenges facing Black youth in the United States, and the youth from Chicago will return to apply their learning to social justice work locally. $3,000 (YF)

Highly Flavored Inc. is a youth summer social justice program in Gary, Indiana. Last year’s participants will work with this year’s participants to continue a project to address inequalities in Gary’s public school system. $3,000 (YF)

Korean American Resource and Cultural Center challenges Koreans in the greater Chicago area to engage in meaningful civic participation to solve community issues, with a particular emphasis on youth programs and intergenerational activities. Grants included support for youth organizing to pass the DREAM Act, which allows undocumented immigrant youth to attend college, providing a path to citizenship. $7,500 (GRAM, YF)

Kuumba Lynx is a youth program that uses urban (hip hop) culture and arts to promote social justice. This grant supported the production of their first CD, “Braid Tales,” which will be used to initiate dialogue about social and economic issues affecting inner city youth. $1,000 (FTT)

Latinos Progresando's College-Bound Youth Group advocates for passage of the DREAM Act to allow undocumented youth to attend college and provide a path to legalization, while offering trainings for immigrant youth to help them access existing educational opportunities. $2,000 (YF)

Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization organizes residents of Woodlawn and the surrounding areas to fight gentrification and racism, with a particular focus on the development of youth leadership. This grant supported the development of a youth-driven project to train youth to know and exercise their rights in encounters with law enforcement officials. $3,000 (YF)

Nuestra Voz Youth Council works with primarily immigrant youth and their parents in Melrose Park to increase civic engagement and address a lack of resources for undocumented and Latina/o students seeking higher education. $2,000 (TA, YF)

Sisters Empowering Sisters is a project of Chicago Girls Coalition that seeks to engage girls between the ages of 14 and 18 in grantmaking, fundraising and other activities related to social justice issues affecting them. Sisters Empowering Sisters recently completed an anti-oppression curriculum, and will build upon this experience by designing their own girl-driven social justice project. $3,000 (YF)

SITY Ollin is a youth organizing project at Telpochcalli Community Education Project in the Little Village neighborhood. This grant supported the second year of a public forum addressing community violence in Little Village and its relationship to racism, sexism and economic oppression. $5,000 (YF)

Teens Acting in Community uses a student-centered approach to teach poetry, prose, art, theatre and spoken word in Riverdale, IL. Students’ performances open up dialogue issues impacting their community. $1,000 (FTT)

WE-ACTx Girls' Exchange helped bring two young women from Rwanda to Chicago to participate in the summer session of the Chicago Freedom School, a social justice history and education program for youth. The young women have recently established a Freedom School in Kigali, Rwanda, and will use their experience in Chicago to inform the project. $5,500 (DA, YF)

Youth Pride Center offers a range of programs for youth who are primarily LGBT and African American on Chicago’s South Side. This grant supported the Code Red program, an effort to forge better relationships between LGBT youth of color and local business owners. $1,000 (YF)

In addition to giving out grants, Crossroads Fund expended significant resources to support our grantees through Technical Assistance trainings, workshops, and one-on-one time with consultants. In total, we gave an extra $24,000 through the following Technical Assistance programs: presenting fundraising trainings; hiring consultants to conduct an innovative program to assess and strengthen grantees financial positions; and providing one-on-one support to our grantees. We thank Polk Bros Foundation and Cricket Island Foundation for their partnership in these programs.

2008 Grantees

Crossroads Fund is proud to announce that in 2008 we gave out $403,210 to 67 groups working for social change across a spectrum of issues. In the following list, grantees are categorized based on one primary focus of their work. The listed grantees received funding within our eight grantmaking programs. A notation after the grantee description indicates from which program(s) they received funding. These programs include the Seed Fund (Seed), Donor Advised (DA), Emergency Fund (EF), Technical Assistance Fund (TA), Media Justice Fund (MJF), Fire this Time Fund (FTT), Youth Fund for Social Change (YF) and Opportunity Fund (OF). Unless otherwise noted, the grants were used for general operating support.

ARTS AND CULTURE:
African Textile Magazine is produced and distributed by students from Bowen Environmental Studies Team High School, and highlights textile and resistance traditions from the African Diaspora. $500 (FTT)

Chicago Independent Radio Project is part of a national coalition organizing to pressure the FCC to make low-power FM radio signals available to community organizations, enabling the establishment of independent, community-based radio stations in Chicago. They also generate diverse content for their own station. $6,000 (FTT, MJF)

ChicagOtra is a collective of activists and organizers dedicated to promoting the Zapatista ideals of democracy, autonomy and social and economic justice in Chicago. This grant supported the Son de Las Barricadas project, a series of expositions of art from the Oaxacan social movement. $1,000 (FTT)

Chicago Palestine Film Festival exhibits and promotes films about Palestine or by Palestinian directors to encourage public dialogue while engaging local Palestinian and Arab-American communities to address issues presented in the films. $5,000 (Seed, DA)

Revolushunary Strippa Musik is a compilation of local socially-conscious hip hop music and spoken word counteracting the misogyny and materialism of mainstream hip hop. $500 (FTT)

ThickRoutes Performance Collage is a women’s performance collective that creates original multimedia works at the intersection of entertainment, social activism, and education. This grant supported “Where Seeds Have Grown,” a workshop series using writing, movement, theater and music to address the impact of race and the influence of the African diaspora in individuals’ lives. $1,000 (FTT)

We The People Media equips adults and youth from communities of color with fundamental reporting, editing and publishing skills and collaborates with national media and academic institutions to shape coverage of the inner city, challenging stereotypes of low-income communities. $5,000 (MJF)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:
Campaign to End the Death Penalty engages in education and activism to abolish the death penalty in Illinois. This grant supported the Death Row Shuffle Tour, in which former death row inmate and musician Darby Tillis shared his music and personal experiences with youth in communities disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. $1,000 (FTT)

Chicago County Fair is an art, activism and research network that connects groups and individuals for innovative action and dialogue. This grant supported “Coming Home Chicago,” a photo series that promotes productive and informed dialogue about Sex Offenders and their classification, registration and restriction. $1,000 (FTT)

The Gen Y project of the Southwest Youth Collaborative is working to improve conditions at Audy Home Juvenile Detention Facility while using a human rights framework to organize for community-based restorative justice alternatives. $2,500 (YF)

Long Term Prisoner Policy Project (“Warehoused Prisoners”) pushes for changes in law, policies and practice affecting prisoners serving virtual to actual life sentences in Illinois prisons, promoting their human rights. $7,500 (Seed)

Spoke Digital Films is creating a narrative documentary about the torture case against former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, examining the failures of the criminal justice system, especially with relation to race and class, and the inadequacies of local and national media coverage of the case. $5,000 (MJF)

Wiley Resource Center provides legal information and resources to residents of Lawndale and the West Side and is currently organizing for successful reentry and criminal record expungement for the formerly incarcerated. $3,000 (Seed)

ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
Anti-Corruption Center documents the patterns, scale and social costs of corruption in local government to develop a series of reports for grassroots community groups to use in their organizing work. $10,000 (OF, DA)

Beyond Today is a grassroots group of residents in the Lincoln Square/Ravenswood neighborhood committed to promoting environmentalism, social justice and peace. This grant supported the institution of a youth environmental activism internship program at Waters Elementary School. $1,000 (FTT)

Black Men and Black Boys Initiative is a national movement addressing the current situation of black men and boys in the United States. Led by the Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization and Southwest Youth Collaborative, the Chicago group addresses health care, education, economic development, fathers and families, criminal justice and technology and media. $3,000 (OF)

Blocks Together is a grassroots, multi-issue social justice organization on the West Side of Chicago addressing affordable housing, public education & restorative justice. $7,500 (Seed)

Chicago Honey Co-op is a member-owned beekeeping cooperative that provides economic development opportunities for the underemployed while promoting sustainable agricultural practices. $19,037 (DA)

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization addresses public transportation, land contamination and urban agriculture in the Pilsen and Little Village communities. This grant was used to train area youth in basic journalism techniques, enhance the quality and distribution of the community newsletter “El Cilantro,” and train organizers in the use of multimedia technology and social networking websites. $5,000 (MJF)

Southside Together Organizing for Power uses tenant organizing, action research and alliance-building between tenants, homeowners, students and youth to address gentrification and displacement in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Their youth project works to improve conditions at the Audy Home temporary juvenile detention center with the long-term goal of closing the facility and replacing it with community-based restorative justice alternatives. $6,500 (Seed, YF)

West Town Bikes is a community bicycle learning workshop. A grant from the Fire This Time Fund supported the Youth Build a Bike program, providing hands-on education and activities on bicycle maintenance and self-sufficiency for youth. $1,000 (FTT)

HUMAN AND WORKER RIGHTS:
Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: Immigrant Workers Project is creating a new immigrant-run workers center to protect immigrant workers’ rights on Chicago’s Southeast side. $3,000 (Seed)

The Chicago Interfaith Workers Rights Center educates workers on rights, assists workers whose rights are being violated and advocates for systemic change through action on public policy. This grant supported “Radio/TV Chamba,” a worker-led, Spanish-language, independent media bproject that uses community television and radio stations as organizing tools. $5,000 (MJF)

Latino Union organizes workers to improve the conditions of low-income and immigrant workers and day laborers and to address systemic injustices in the day labor industry. $3,000 (TA)

National Boricua Human Rights Network works to raise awareness of human rights issues facing the Puerto Rican community, including political prisoners and the preservation of civil liberties. Grants included support for “Crime Against Humanity,” a play addressing the situation of political prisoners performed by a cast of youth from the Humboldt Park community. $8,000 (FTT, EM, Seed, DA)

Next Steps organizes mentally disabled and often homeless individuals for greater voice in the systems that affect them, particularly major boards, institutions and decision-making bodies addressing homelessness and mental health. $3,000 (Seed)

Restaurant Opportunities Center of Chicago is an organizing project targeting high-end restaurant workers. They will conduct a thorough study of Chicago’s high end restaurant industry, train and place workers in restaurants and launch workplace justice campaigns against employers engaged in discrimination, exploitation and abuse. $5,000 (Seed)

San Lucas Workers Center organizes U.S.-born and immigrant day laborers to protect their rights in the workplace and access permanent and regular work, with a particular commitment to building collaborations between African-American and Latino day laborers. These grants included support for a video project to expose race and gender discrimination in the day labor industry, specifically against young African-American day laborers. $4,000 (FTT, Seed)

United Taxidrivers Community Council is a multiracial and multiethnic taxidriver organizing project that approaches fare increases, inspections standards, lease overcharging, and other concerns as human rights, immigrant rights and workers rights issues. $3,000 (Seed)

IMMIGRANT ISSUES:
The Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance organizes congregations and people of faith through its Chicago New Sanctuary Coalition project to respond to injustice experienced by undocumented immigrants. Its strategies include public witness, political advocacy and support for immigrants at risk of deportation. $12,000 (Seed, DA)

Immigrant Nation is a 90-minute film developed in collaboration with Chicago activists, communities and organizations that documents the critical growth of Chicago’s immigrant rights movement from the Spring of 2006 through the Summer of 2007. $3,000 (TA)

Korean American Resource and Cultural Center challenges Koreans in the greater Chicago area to engage in meaningful civic participation to solve community issues, with a particular emphasis on youth programs and intergenerational activities. These grants included support for a youth organizing project to address issues of human trafficking. $7,500 (DA, YF)

Waukegan Leadership Council protects the welfare of immigrant and Latino residents in a city that is predominately Latino from current immigration policies of indiscriminate arrest, detainment and deportation through voter registration, education and building collaborations with non-immigrant communities of color. $3,000 (Seed)

INTERNATIONAL POLICY AND ADVOCACY:
Chicagoans Against War and Injustice is a broad-based coalition that includes communities of color, unions, suburban residents and others protesting the war in Iraq and combating injustice more broadly through public protests, grassroots campaigns and electoral politics. $7,000 (TA, DA, Don Erickson Award)

Clearwater Project organizes against privatization of the military and law enforcement, particularly the military contractor Blackwater, which has opened a facility in Mt. Caroll, Ilinois. This grant supported the production of a video to aid the group’s organizing efforts. $1,000 (DA)

Committee for a Just Peace in Israel & Palestine works toward a just and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through public education forums and an annual walk for justice. $4,000 (Seed)

LESBIAN/GAY/BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDERED ISSUES:
Actor Slash Model is a multimedia collective addressing gender identity and gender performance and politics through music, film and other projects. This grant supported the making of a documentary about the lives of transgendered-identified musicians, highlighting the complexity and diversity of transgendered artists. $1,000 (FTT)

Project CQY Chicago provides resources and accessible, safe and multiracial meeting spaces for LGBT youth under 21. $1,000 (YF)

Yellow Wing Productions is producing a documentary called “Fish out of Water” to confront long-standing beliefs and misconceptions related to religious texts and homosexuality. $1,000 (FTT)

Youth Pride Center offers a range of programs for youth who are primarily LGBT and African American on Chicago’s South Side. This grant supported organizing to combat police harassment of LGBT youth of color and efforts to establish gay-straight alliances in South Side schools that lack institutional support for LGBT students. $2,000 (YF)

Chicago Books to Women in Prison fulfills incarcerated women’s direct requests for books, reducing incarcerated women’s isolation and providing them with valuable resources. These grants included support for a professionally-printed special issue of “Bound Struggles,” a publication of writing and artwork by incarcerated women. $5,000 (FTT, Seed, DA)

Global Girls, Inc. uses performing arts as a medium to develop strong communication, leadership and life skills for girls between the ages of eight and eighteen. $2,500 (DA)

Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team is a youth-led social change organization developing youth leaders to address street harassment and violence against women and girls. $5,000 (Seed, DA)

The Sisters Empowering Sisters program at Chicago Girls Coalition is a social change grantmaking program where girls between the ages of 14 and 18 direct resources toward other girl-driven social change programs. This grant supported the development of an anti-oppression curriculum to maximize the impact of their girl-driven grantmaking. $2,500 (YF)

Sisters Rising is a group of formerly incarcerated women housed at Stillpoint Theater Collective who build community through participation in theater and creative writing workshops, sharing, writing and performing one another’s stories. $1,000 (FTT)

The WE-ACTx Peace Journey helped twelve young women from Chicago and Kigali, Rwanda design projects to address the relationship between HIV/AIDS and systemic inequalities within their home communities. $2,000 (YF)

Women’s Voices Fund provides programs that promote feminist dialogue through book discussions, author readings and community events. $7,618.90 (DA)

Young Women’s Empowerment Project is run by and for women and girls with life experiences in the sex trade and street economies who use social justice, transformative justice and harm-reduction strategies to address issues affecting them. These grants included support for a research project documenting violence against their constituency. $9,000 (Seed, YF)

YOUTH:
Cabrini Green Chapter of the Hip Hop Congress is working with young male teens to develop a half-hour DVD addressing violence from the perspectives of community members and the young men themselves. $1,000 (FTT)

Kelly High School Students for Social Justice work to address justice issues within their school, such as aggressive military recruitment, harassment by security officers and inadequate curriculum. This grant helped them apply lessons learned during a trip to New Orleans to combat similar issues of racism, economic injustice and gentrification within their school and home community. $3,000 (YF)

Nuestra Voz Youth Council works with predominately immigrant youth and their parents in the Melrose Park area to increase civic engagement and address the lack of resources for undocumented and/or Latina/o students seeking higher education. $2,000 (YF)

Secular Jewish and Community School of Oak Park worked with youth from Austin, Little Village and Pilsen to organize a march and speak-out for a more accessible, affordable and just healthcare system. $2,000 (YF)

SITY Ollin is a youth organizing project at Telpochcalli Community Education Project in the Little Village neighborhood. This grant supported a public forum addressing community violence in Little Village and its relationship to racism, sexism and economic oppression. $5,000 (YF)

2007 Grantees

Crossroads Fund is proud to announce that in 2007 we gave out $421,266.85 in grants, to 63 groups working for social change across a spectrum of issues. We are particularly interested in groups with a racial justice and anti-oppression analysis. In the following list, grantees are categorized based on one primary focus of their work. The listed grantees received funding from any of our six grantmaking programs. A notation next to their name indicates from which program(s) they received funding. The programs include the Seed Fund (Seed), Donor Advised (DA), Emergency Fund (EF), Technical Assistance Fund (TA), Media Justice Fund (MJF) or the Fire This Time Fund (FTT). Unless noted, grants were used for general operating support.

ARTS & CULTURE
AREA Chicago Art/Research/Education/Activism works to build bridges between movements and communities working for social justice across Chicago, while creating and preserving a grassroots history of Chicago activism. $4,000 (FTT, Seed)

Center for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts is a youth focused organization that uses art to organize various immigrant communities across social, economic, and political issues. $4,000 (Seed)

Proletariat Productions specializes in music recording, production, and artist promotion. The grant supported a workshop that explored social consciousness and political movement building through music performance, art exhibition, and panel discussion. $1,000 (FTT)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Ad Hoc Committee on Chicago Police Torture is a coalition of civil rights attorneys, activists and organizations seeking justice for two decades of torture by former police commander Jon Burge and officers under his direction. $500 (EF)

First Defense Legal Aid provides legal advice/aid in Chicago Police Department stations to low income individuals who cannot afford attorneys, documents police brutality, and provides workshops to at-risk communities on their constitutional rights and responsibilities when dealing with law enforcement personnel. $4,000 (Seed)

Long Term Prisoner Policy Project (“Warehoused Prisoners”) investigates the problems faced by prisoners serving virtual to actual life sentences in Illinois prisons, and pushes for changes in law, policies, and practice to promote offender rehabilitation and public safety. $5,000 (Seed)

Prison Reform, Inc. is made up of ex-offenders who organize for increased opportunities for ex-prisoners in Illinois and for change in legislation and public policy in order to reduce recidivism. $3,000 (Seed)

DISABILITY RIGHTS
Chicago ADAPT engages in direct action and grassroots organizing to advocate for the independence of people with disabilities from institutional and cultural barriers in everyday life. $500 (DA)

ENVIRONMENT & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Center for Labor and Community Research works with labor, communities, and businesses to pursue high road economic development practices that ensure wealth creation while advocating for wealth redistribution. $1,000 (TA)

Climate Chicago is a multi-issue coalition working to reframe global warming as a grassroots issue connected not only to the environment but also to jobs, human rights, and social justice. $2,000 (Seed)

Coalition to Protect Public Housing is part of the Northeast Illinois Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, a national campaign aimed at securing poor people’s fundamental right to reside in urban America. $3,000 (TA)

Community Media Workshop offered a daylong training in media justice and new forms of media and their relevance to community organizing as part of the Crossroads Fund Media Justice Initiative. $5,000 (MJF)

Developing Government Accountability to the People is a network of 30 community groups addressing corruption and advocating increased transparency and accountability from Chicago’s local government. $9,000 (Seed, TA)

Rogers Park Section 8 Tenants Council is an organization of Section 8 voucher holders who work with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, landlords, and community members to maintain and increase housing available to Section 8 voucher holders. $3,000 (Seed)

Grassroots Collaborative is a collaboration of diverse groups who campaigned and won a “Living Wage” ordinance. Later vetoed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, the ordinance was a defining issue for city residents and leadership. Grant is for an analysis of campaign coverage by mainstream media. $5,000 (MJF)

Lakeview Action Coalition, a multi-issue coalition of individuals and organizations in the Lakeview neighborhood, organizes around affordable housing, healthcare, sustainable development, and police repression of homeless youth. $4,000 (Seed, DA)

Logan Square Community Technology Center provides basic computer literacy to grassroots organizations and individuals with limited access to technology. $1,000 (DA)

Pilsen Alliance organizes community residents on issues relating to public transport, housing, and education. $3,000 (TA)

Puerto Rican Cultural Center is comprised of an alternative high school, childcare center, literacy program for women and children, a museum of Puerto Rican culture, Batey Urbano café and cultural space for youth, and the Vida/SIDA HIV/STD prevention project. $3,000 (DA)

Senn Referendum Follow up Group requires the Chicago Board of Education to establish a formal process to receive community input regarding Rickover Military Academy at Senn High School. $500 (EM)

HUMAN & WORKER RIGHTS
Chicago Area Friends of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee aims to preserve the 1960 to 1966 student movement history through archiving material at the Woodson Regional Library and an oral history project featuring the original members. $3,000 (Seed)

Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights provides education, advocacy, and coalition building in defense of the Bill of Rights. Their recent focus is on unconstitutional police infiltration and surveillance. $1,000 (DA)

Chicago Jobs With Justice works to improve working people’s standard of living, fight for job security, and stand up for workers’ right to organize. $1,000 (EM)

Chicago Workers’ Collaborative, a coalition of workers and groups, organizes for day laborers and immigrant rights through public education, worker trainings, and litigation on behalf of adversely affected workers. $10,500 (Seed, DA)

Hands Off Assata Campaign brings together organizations and individuals concerned with Assata Shakur’s situation and use her case in discussions/ education on issues ranging from the prison industrial complex to current U.S. foreign policy. $710 (TA)

National Boricua Human Rights Network works to raise awareness of human rights issues facing the Puerto Rican community, including the situation of political prisoners, and emphasizes building youth leadership. $5,500 (Seed, DA)

No More Deaths is a humanitarian organization comprised of individuals, faith communities, human rights advocates, and grassroots organizations working for social justice in the borderlands. $4,000 (DA)

IMMIGRANT ISSUES
Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance is inspired by the 1980’s Sanctuary Movement, which offered shelter to Central American refugees. It brings together a diverse group of religious leaders and congregations to create a network of support for immigrant families facing deportation and to raise awareness of mmigrant issues in different communities. $2,000 (DA)

La Familia Latina Unida is composed of and serves families facing separation due to current immigration laws. $500 (EM)

Southeast Chicago Community for Immigrant Rights organizes the immigrant community of Southeast Chicago and parts of Indiana to push for comprehensive immigration reform, respond to immigration raids and deportation, and protect the human rights of immigrants. $4,000 (Seed, DA)

United African Organization, a coalition of African organizations in Chicago, works on social justice, civil rights, civic participation, and empowerment of African immigrants and refugees. $3,000 (Seed)

INTERNATIONAL POLICY & ADVOCACY
Chicago Palestine Film Festival exhibits and promotes films about Palestine or by Palestinian directors to encourage objective public dialogue. $2,500 (DA)

Committee for a Just Peace in Israel & Palestine works toward a better understanding of and resolution to the continued Israeli-Palestinian conflict through public education forums, an annual walk for justice, and a Community Friendship project. $4,000 (Seed)

8th Day Center for Justice is part of the Encuentro project, an annual gathering of North and Latin American peace and human rights activists working on issues of environmental degradation and the illegal seizure/use of land. $1,000 (TA)

LESBIAN/GAY/BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDERED ISSUES
Affinity Community Services serves African American lesbian and bisexual women and youth in Chicago by providing a safe space while addressing issues related to race, health, poverty, and education. $7,000 (Seed)

Amigas Latinas advocates and provides services for the Latina lesbian, bisexual, and questioning (LBQ) community of metropolitan Chicago. $3,000 (Seed)

Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (Formerly Coalition for Education on Sexual Orientation and GLSEN Chicago) have merged to further their shared mission of training school personnel, social service providers, government employees, youth, and community members to address anti-gay violence in Illinois schools. $9,500 (Seed, DA, TA)

None on Record, an audio documentary oral history project, gathers histories and stories told by and about LBGTQ Africans all over the world – from neighborhoods within large cities like Chicago to smaller towns and villages of African countries. $1,000 (FTT)

Yellow Armbands organizes in solidarity with transwomen by educating attendees of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival on the benefits of inclusion, and encourages their participation and comfort at what is thought to be the pinnacle of women’s free space in the U.S. $1,000 (FTT)

WOMEN & GIRLS
All Hail Project engages African American women in a broad spectrum of issues that affect them and their well being. $1,000 (TA)

Beyondmedia Education partners with under-represented women, youth, and communities to create and distribute alternative media and arts. $10,000 (MJF, DA)

Chicago Abortion Fund provides low-income women of color access to safe, affordable abortion services while advocating for reproductive and social justice. $3,000 (TA)

Chicago Friends of WE-ACTx - Rwanda is a pooled fund to benefit the WE-ACTx HIV/AIDS clinics in Rwanda. WE-ACTx serves HIV positive genocide widows, rape survivors, and orphans and is a model of care and of international/local collaboration. $211,000 (DA)

Chicago Women’s AIDS Project — through the “Give a Day to World AIDS” Campaign, Crossroads Fund partnered with Chicago Women’s AIDS Project and WE-ACTx — Rwanda to raise money for women living with AIDS in Chicago and Rwanda. $19,000 (DA)

Chicago Women’s Health Center is a collective of health workers who provide health education, advocacy, and affordable, accessible gynecological and mental health care to women in the Chicago area. $2,500 (Ron Sable Award)

Female Storytellers Igniting Revolution to End Violence is a multiracial and intergenerational grassroots anti-violence organization working with women and girls. $1,000 (FTT)

Global Girls, Inc. uses performing arts as a medium to develop strong communication, leadership, and life skills for girls between the ages of 8–18. $2,500 (DA)

Women & Girls Collective Action Network raises awareness of images in the media that promote violence against women and encourages young people to hold corporate media responsible for negative representations of women and minorities. $6,000 (TA, MJF)

Women’s Voices Fund provides programs that promote feminist dialogue through book discussions, author readings, and community events. $3,056.85 (DA)

Young Women’s Empowerment Project is run by and for women and girls with life experience in the sex trade and street economies. $1,000 (FTT)

YOUTH
Chicago Freedom School was founded to develop and support a new generation of critical and independent youth activists through an annual summer freedom school, mentorship, and youth-focused social justice activities. $3,000 (Seed)

Cooperative Image Group creates public art education for youth while connecting them to local groups who support youth media. Grant supports their mobile media lab, an after-school program in which youth use portable audio equipment to create sound projects about their lives. $1,000 (FTT)

Crib Collective brings together Latino youth from Little Village and African American youth from North Lawndale, a geographic area that is divided by race. Youth are involved in performance art, philanthropy, and program development. $2,000 (FTT, TA)

CURE Foundation, a hip-hop music program in three Chicago Public Schools, allows students to create a positive alternative to what mainstream music offers to define their life and culture. $2,000 (Seed)

Education for Liberation Conference brought together students, educators, parents, and community members from across the country to share strategies for connecting education, social justice, and activism. $2,000 (TA)

Kuumba Lynx is a youth development program that preserves, promotes, and presents urban (hip- op) culture as an art and a social justice movement. Grant supported their Arts Explosion Day, which used activism workshops and civic engagement discussions to focus on immigrant rights for youth. $1,000 (FTT)

Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team is a youth-led, adult-supported social change organization involved in leadership development and youth organizing around street harassment and violence against women and girls. $4,500 (Seed, DA)

Southwest Youth Collaborative, a network of youth and community development organizations, works in five diverse neighborhoods on the southwest side of Chicago to provide opportunities for youth to be activists. $2,500 (DA)

Teen Living Program partnered with the Chicago Park District to hold workshops and distribute message oriented CDs by youth to youth. The project was geared towards encouraging youth to avoid dropping out of school, expressing themselves, and building healthier relationships. $1,000 (FTT)

Young Chicago Authors encourages self-expression and literacy through creative writing, performance, and publication. Grant supports the Kings of Poetry workshop series in which young men explore gender sensitivity and write essays and poems commemorating the lives of women for web and print publication. $1,000 (FTT)

2006 Grantees

In 2006, Crossroads Fund gave out $361,526 in grants, to 45 groups working for social change across a spectrum of issues. We are particularly interested in groups with a racial justice and anti-oppression analysis.

In the following list, grantees are categorized based on one primary focus of their work. The listed grantees received funding from any of our four grantmaking programs, or the Chicago Community Organizing Capacity Building Initiative, a funders’ collaborative of which we were a member. A notation to their name indicates from which program(s) they received funding. The programs include the Seed Fund (Seed), Donor Advised (DA), Emergency Fund (EF), Technical Assistance Fund (TA) or the Chicago Community Organizing Capacity Building Initiative (CCBI). Unless noted, grants were used for general operating support.

ARTS & CULTURE
Center for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts (CIRCA) $4,000 (Seed)
CIRCA develops and popularizes community arts programs that speak to the immigrant experience within the changing multicultural landscape of America and that are produced and performed by youth.

Chicago Palestine Film Festival $6,500 (Seed, DA)
Chicago Palestinian Film Festival exhibits and promotes films about Palestine or by Palestinian directors to promote objective public dialogue. Grants will support interracial dialogue through hip-hop by bringing together local and Middle Eastern hip-hop artists at a screening of the documentary SlingShot Hip-Hop.

HotHouse Center for Performance & Exhibition $15,000 (DA)
HotHouse provides a venue and support for local and international art forms, artists and progressive social movements whose work would otherwise remain under-recognized and isolated.

Neighborhood Writing Alliance $500 (DA)
The Neighborhood Writing Alliance encourages adults to write, publish and perform works about their lives, to identify issues facing them as individuals and their community which then leads to collective social action and community involvement.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Ad Hoc Committee on Chicago Police Torture $400 (EF)
The Ad Hoc Committee on Chicago Police Torture works in coalition to bring justice to the cases involving use of torture by former Chicago Police Commander John Burge and his officers. The grant assisted the committee in presenting their case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Citizens Alert $7,500 (Seed, DA)
Citizens Alert holds Chicago metropolitan police accountable and works for systemic change in law enforcement agencies while advocating for victims of police brutality and misconduct.

Long Term Prisoner Policy Project (“Warehoused Prisoners”) $5,000 (Seed)
Long Term Prisoner Policy Project investigates the problems faced by prisoners serving virtual to actual life sentences in Illinois prisons, and pushes for changes in law, policies, and practice to promote offender rehabilitation and public safety.

DISABILITY RIGHTS
Chicago ADAPT $2,000 (TA)
ADAPT engages in direct action and grassroots organizing to advocate for the independence of people with disabilities from institutional and cultural barriers in everyday life. Grant will be used to provide website maintenance training in an effort to better utilize their website in campaigns.

Next Steps, NFP $2,000 (TA)
Next Steps organizes homeless and/or mentally ill individuals to be advocates in public programs designed to serve them. Grant will assist in strategic planning efforts.

ENVIRONMENT & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Chicago Community Organizing Capacity Building Initiative (CCBI) $5,000 (Seed)
The CCBI initiative supports community organizing groups in the Chicago Metro area through convening, information sharing, collaboration and capacity building. CCBI is a funders’ collaborative which includes support from Ford Foundation and local foundation partners.

Digital Development Corporation & Oversight Committee $2,500 (Seed)
Digital Development works with Chicago’s west side community residents, technology providers, and school personnel to demand community access and training in digital technology.

Fund for Southern Communities $7,000 (Seed, DA)
The grant supports an initiative of the Funding Exchange network for Hurricane Katrina relief. The initiative will re-grant to grassroots groups in the hurricane-affected Gulf Coast region to support relief efforts and social change organizing.

Grassroots Collaborative $500 (EF)
Grassroots Collaborative works in a coalition of ten community organizing groups and unions. The grant supported their efforts to convene a city-wide meeting to establish an agenda for all of Chicago’s residents and increase electoral engagement for the 2007 municipal elections.

Imagine Englewood if…NFP $3,000 (Seed)
Imagine Englewood if…organizes residents around issues related to finding a long-term solution to address lead contamination in the Englewood area.

Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), $4,250 (CCBI)
KOCO provides community development programs in the Kenwood/Oakland neighborhoods of Chicago. Grant will be used to study the impact felt when neighborhood schools are closed.

Organization of the NorthEast (ONE), $11,750 (CCBI)
ONE endeavors to build and sustain a successful mixed economic, multi-ethnic community on the north lakefront of Chicago. Grant will support the Balanced Development Coalition in their campaign for affordable housing.

People for Community Recovery, Inc. $6,000 (Seed)
People for Community Recovery engages community members in public housing (Altgeld Gardens) on tenant rights as well as on environmental justice.

Rogers Park Community Action Network (RPCAN), $3,000 (TA)
RPCAN organizes residents of Rogers Park on multiple fronts ranging from community control on Tax Increment Financing, affordable/accessible housing and tenants’ rights to ensuring the lakefront is saved for public use. Grant will be used for strategic planning.

Student/Tenant Organizing Project (STOP) $3,000 (Seed)
STOP confronts gentrification/displacement in Kenwood/Oakland through tenant organizing, action research, and alliance-building between tenants, homeowners and students.

Tax Reform Action Coalition (TRAC) $3,000 (Seed)
TRAC is a coalition of community groups, institutions and individuals organizing for fundamental changes in Illinois’ property tax system.

HUMAN & WORKER RIGHTS
Applied Research Center (ARC) $1,000 (TA)
ARC provides training to advance racial justice through research and advocacy. The grant provided scholarships for Crossroads Fund grantees to attend a two-day national conference on race, equity and policy.

Chicago Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)
$11,750 (CCBI)
ACORN organizes communities in Chicago neighborhoods around a number of social and economic issues. Grant will support the Living Wage Coalition, a coalition of organizations working on living wage as it relates to large retailers.

Chicago Area Friends of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee $1,000 (TA)
Grant supported a conference commemorating the history of the civil rights movement and its connection to Chicago with an emphasis on bringing elders and students together for dialogue.

Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights (CCDBR) $500 (DA)
CCDBR provides educational, advocacy and coalition building in defense of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution. Recently, they have focused on unconstitutional police infiltration and surveillance.

Chicago Worker’s Collaborative $9,500 (Seed, DA, EM)
Chicago Worker’s Collaborative trains workers and develops worker leadership, while organizing for comprehensive changes in the day labor industry to end illegal and exploitative practices.

Interfaith Federation $5,250 (CCBI)
Interfaith brings different churches and races to address issues affecting the Northwestern Indiana region. Their current campaign involves increasing and improving public transit to allow access to better jobs for people in low income and minority neighborhoods.

Jane Addams Senior Caucus $7,250 (TA, CCBI)
Jane Addams Senior Caucus organizes low-income northside seniors to improve their quality of life and build a strong community voice. Grants will be used to upgrade their computer equipment and to advocate for increased homecare for seniors and people with disabilities.

National Boricua Human Rights Network $5,500 (DA, TA)
Grants support the overall work of a campaign to raise awareness of human rights issues facing the community with particular emphasis on building the leadership of youth.

San Lucas Workers Center $4,000 (Seed)
San Lucas Workers Center organizes U.S. born and immigrant day laborers around their rights in the workplace and access to permanent and regular work.

TARGET Area Development Corporation $8,250 (CCBI)
TARGET works on economic and public safety issues in the Auburn Gresham and Englewood neighborhoods of Chicago. Grant issued is for the Developing Justice Coalition, a coalition of social change and faith based organizations working on policies related to the administration of justice in Illinois.

IMMIGRANT ISSUES
Coalition for African, Arab, Asian, European & Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAAELII) $15,750 (DA, TA, CCBI)
CAAAELII is comprised of 20 agencies serving immigrants and refugees in the Chicago Metropolitan area. CAAAELII organizes immigrants around issues that affect them locally and nationally. Funding provided is for dialogues between immigrant communities and African-American communities, and to support an apprenticeship program.

Korean American Resource and Cultural Center $6,000 (Ron Sable, DA)
KRCC challenges Koreans in the greater Chicago area to engage in meaningful civic participation to solve community issues, with a particular emphasis placed on youth programs and intergenerational activities.

INTERNATIONAL POLICY & ADVOCACY
Chicago Friends of WE-ACTx – Rwanda $151,161 (DA)
This is a pooled fund to benefit the WE-ACTx HIV/AIDS clinics in Rwanda. WE-ACTx serves HIV+ genocide widows, rape survivors and orphans and is a model of care and of international/local collaboration.

Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine (CJPIP) $4,000 (Seed)
CJPIP works toward a better understanding of and resolution to the continued Israeli-Palestinian conflict through public education forums, an annual walk for justice and a Community Friendship project.

LESBIAN/GAY/BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDERED ISSUES
Affinity Community Services $7,000 (Seed)
Affinity serves lesbians and bisexual African American women by providing a safe space while addressing issues related to health, poverty and education.

Amigas Latinas $3,000 (TA)
Amigas Latinas serves the Latina lesbian, bisexual and questioning (LBQ) community of Chicago and suburbs. The grant will be used to conduct a Latina community profile survey to gather more information and assess community needs around which to organize and advocate.

Coalition for Education on Sexual Orientation (CESO) $2,500 (DA)
CESO works in a statewide in a coalition of 41 organizations to train school personnel, social service providers, government employees, youth and community members to address anti-gay violence in Illinois schools.

WOMEN & GIRLS
Beyondmedia Education $5,000 (DA)
Beyondmedia Education partners with under-represented women, youth and communities to create and distribute alternative media and arts, including videos and websites, performances and exhibitions.

Chicago Abortion Fund $3,000 (TA)
Chicago Abortion Fund provides low-income women of color access to safe, affordable abortion services. Grant will be used to stregthen the internal structure of the organization.

Global Girls, Inc $2,500 (DA)
Global Girls uses performing arts as a medium to develop strong communication, leadership and life skills for girls between the ages of 8-18.

Women’s Voices Fund $4,215 (DA)
The Women’s Voices Fund provides programs that promote feminist dialogue through book discussions and author readings.

YOUTH
Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization, Inc. (MAGIC) $3,500 (Seed)
MAGIC organizes residents of Woodlawn and the surrounding areas to fight gentrification and racism while addressing the impact of the same on youth. Funding will be used in a youth led initiative that seeks to identify needs and resources available to youth in the community

Southwest Youth Collaborative $2,500 (DA)
Southwest Youth Collaborative challenges youth from five diverse neighborhoods on the southwest side of Chicago to be activists and take up issues that affect their communities.

Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (Y-WAT) $2,500 (DA)
Y-WAT is a youth-led, adult-supported social change project. It empowers young women to take action on issues with particular interest in addressing violence against women and girls.

Young Asians with Power! (YAWP!) $3,000 (TA)
YAWP! cultivates a new generation of Asian/Pacific Islander American (APIA) leaders, activists and artists. Grant will be used to develop curriculum.

2005 Seed Fund Grants

Affinity Community Services
Serving lesbian & bisexual women of African descent in the Chicago area, focusing on the intersection of race, class, gender and sexual orientation. Current work is on developing an advocacy agenda, which includes organizing for domestic partner insurance for IL and access to healthcare for uninsured workers. $6,000

Beyondmedia Education
Beyondmedia collaborates with under-represented women, youth and communities to create alternative media and arts, from video and websites, to performances and exhibitions. Current collaborations include work work with girls with disabilities and women & prisons. $8,000

Chicago ADAPT
Chicago ADAPT uses direct-action and grassroots organizing to advocate for the independence of people with disabilities. Their current campaign aims to change Illinois’ policies of institutionalizing people with disabilities rather than supporting cheaper and more humane home or community care. $3,000

Chicago Palestine Film Festival
The Chicago Palestine Film Festival counters mainstream media by giving voice to Palestinians and the Palestinian story. The Festival hosts filmmakers and scholars at its annual event, has screenings throughout the year, and is creating an online database and an archive to further promote Palestinian work. $3,000

Citizens Alert
Organizes Chicago-area residents for progressive, systemic change in law enforcement. Citizens Alert is currently leading a city-wide effort to document and track incidents of police brutality and to strategize for bringing change in police practice. $5,000

Committee for a Just Peace in Israel & Palestine
Organizes public forums to educate and promote dialogue around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. CJPIP also advocates for change in US foreign policy in Israel and Palestine through meetings with legislators and community education. $2,000

Community Film Workshop of Chicago
A media arts group focusing on African American youth, Community Film Workshop offers programs in computer and digital technology, media production, community services projects, and individual media and multi-media productions. $4,000 www.cfwchicago.org

Day Laborer Collaboration
Trains workers and develops worker leadership, while organizing for comprehensive changes in the day labor industry to end illegal and exploitative practices. This year, they are focusing on building a legal services program and a worker cooperative, as well as participating in Governor’s panel to legislate safety regulations for day laborers. $5,000

GLSEN Chicago (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educator’s Network)
Works with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender & questioning students across the Chicago area through support of student-led gay-straight alliances and semi-annual youth summits. $3,000

Jane Addams Senior Caucus
Organizes the Northside senior community to advocate for their rights to affordable housing, affordable and just home health care, and increased access to social services. $8,000

Korean American Resource & Cultural Center
Nurtures Korean American community leadership and activism to solve critical problems the community faces such as poverty, language barriers, socio-political discrimination, and under representation. $6,000

Latino Union of Chicago
Organizes workers to improve working conditions of low-income and immigrant workers and day laborers, and to address systemic injustices in the day labor industry. Latino Union recently opened a workers’ center in Albany Park, a landmark victory. $5,000

Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization (MAGIC)
A Woodlawn community-based organization that works to fight gentrification and racism and their impact on youth. Current work involves training youth on web design, community organizing and political analysis. $4,000

National Boricua Human Rights Network
Works in the Puerto Rican community on human rights issues, ranging from de-militarization of Vieques, and work on civil liberties in Chicago, to building a local political agenda for the Chicago Puerto Rican community. $5,000

People for Community Recovery
An environmental justice organization located in the Southeast Chicago public housing community of Altgeld Gardens/Murray Homes. PCR targets economic development, housing advocacy, resident education, pollution prevention and resident organizing and empowerment. $5,000

Pilsen Alliance
Organizes grassroots campaigns in the Pilsen community to fight gentrification and bring a community voice to development issues. Pilsen Alliance is currently conducting an independent zoning survey of the area to prevent future gentrification. $5,000

Warehoused Prisoners: Long Term Prisoner Policy Project
Investigates and highlights the problems faced by the growing number of prisoners serving life sentences in IL prisons, and pushes for changes in laws, policies and practices to promote offender rehabilitation and public safety. $3,000