News

Crossroads Fund, in partnership with Chicago Foundation for Women and the Woods Fund of Chicago, recently completed the first pilot of a women of color leadership collaborative. The year long leadership project brought together 13 women of color working across issues in various Chicago neighborhoods to share, learn and build community.

In fiscal year 2013, Crossroads Fund gave out $326,929 in direct grants, training, consultation and public programs, supporting over 76 organizations working across a broad range of issues and communities. In our Seed Fund grant cycle alone, we received 98 applications, a new record for Crossroads Fund! As a funder of new and emerging grassroots groups, Crossroads Fund’s grantees’ areas of work mirror the most pressing issues of the day. We saw a large increase in grants for work around education justice, including first time funding for Raise Your Hand, a grassroots group focused on school closings, education funding and Tax Increment Financing or TIF resources.

We are all gathered tonight – and, in fact, we all enjoy many of the rights we enjoy – because of Robert C. Howard. If you dared to attend an event precisely like this one thirty years ago, you would have ended up with a dossier in the infamous Red Squad files.  As if intimidation was not enough, the Red Squad also planted undercover provocateurs in community and policy organizations, provoking disruption and violence, including at the 1968 Democratic convention.  It was Bob and his colleagues who took on the Chicago Police Department, the U.S. Army, the FBI and the CIA to successfully prohibit this political spying and harassment. If you were an airline stewardess in the 1970s, and got married, pregnant or gained weight – you were fired.  It was Bob who took the airlines to the Supreme Court to establish these fundamental rights of women.

Get your holiday shopping done early and support grassroots groups working for racial, social and economic justice! Enjoy snacks and live music while you shop from local artists and artisans. Buy art prints, clothing, housewares, jewelry, purses, knit goods and more!

Join the Crossroads Fund Upstart Board for an evening of socializing and social justice!

Enjoy $5 drink specials, delicious treats, prize drawings, Halloween games and music while you mingle with other progressive folks and raise money for grassroots groups working for racial, social and economic justice in Chicago.

Matilda
3101 North Sheffield
Thursday October 24
6:30-9:30 pm