Deadline: 11-Feb-21
The Seed Fund supports new, emerging and small community-based organizations that are actively engaged in social change work. Funding is provided for general operating, start-up costs, or project expenses.
Priority is given to organizations that are:
- Collaborative or working in alliance with other progressive groups as a way to build multiple strategies for bringing social change;
- Risk-taking by doing work that may be controversial, marginalized, and/or new and emerging;
- Strategic and working with a long-term vision which clearly links to current plans;
- Achieving concrete success which has positively impacted the community;
- Raise money from multiple sources throughout the community, such as foundations, businesses, individuals, special events, and income generating projects.
Funding Information
The maximum grant in this program is $10,000.
Funding Criteria
All applicants must meet the following criteria to be considered for funding:
- Working for Social Change: Crossroads Fund supports organizations working to examine and challenge the underlying causes of injustice affecting their communities. They seek to change the conditions, institutions, and policies that create and maintain inequality and oppression.
- Cross-Issue Organizing: Their grantees work with an understanding of the connectedness among the various people and issues that make up the whole community.
- Grassroots Leadership: They support groups that involve the people who are directly affected by an issue at all levels of the organization – in planning, organizing and leading, and working to continue building leadership within the grassroots community.
- Solid Plan: They fund groups whose work is driven by the following:
- a clear purpose with well-planned goals, objectives, activities and a tool to measure outcomes and impact;
- a timeline and budget that reflects the proposed objectives and activities;
- a realistic fundraising plan.
- Work in the Chicago Metropolitan Area: Crossroads Fund supports organizations rooted in communities in the Chicago metropolitan area, including Northwestern Indiana, which we define as the area between the state border and Gary, IN.
- Budget: Groups with previous year annual expenses under $300,000.
Eligibility Criteria
- Chicago area organizations with annual expenses under $300,000 which meet Crossroads Fund’s Funding Criteria.
- Crossroads Fund supports non-profit organizations, including those that do not have 501(c)3 status. Fiscal sponsorship for those organizations without tax-exempt status is recommended but not required. An organizational bank account is required for those groups not using a fiscal sponsor.
Types of Work Supported for All Grants
Crossroads supports many different forms of social change organizing, such as (but not limited to):
- Direct Action Organizing;
- Public Policy Advocacy;
- Art & Cultural work that is community-based and linked to activism;
- Economic Development;
- International Solidarity;
- Action Research as an organizing strategy to identify, document and analyze information, in partnership with a community group;
- Media Advocacy that promotes greater public understanding of critical issues and increasing organizing outreach efforts;
- Social Services linked with Activism;
- Leadership Development and Training;
- Providing Resources for Local Activists;
- Working Collaboratively Across Issues and Communities;
- Gatherings and Conferences
For more information, visit https://www.crossroadsfund.org/content/seed-fund