The Crossroads Fund is currently accepting applications for the Critical Response Fund.
Donor Name: Crossroads Fund
State: Indiana and Illinois
County: Selected Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 11/13/2023
Size of the Grant: $3,000 – $5,000
Grant Duration: 6 months
Details:
Funding Request Types
- Unexpected policy changes that place community members in harm’s way, and that require an immediate response.
- Training and convening people to strategize, build their power, promote healing and create community solidarity (including virtual strategies).
- Forward-thinking initiatives focused on long-term transformation, new experiments in building the world that they want.
- Building organizational capacity to do strategic base building that grows the organizing community, and also to build new coalitions and partnerships.
- Supporting an organization’s digital infrastructure.
Funding Information
- Applicants may request between $3,000 – $5,000.
- Funding should be used within 6 months.
Eligibility 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.
- 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: The 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. Counties include: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will, along with Lake County, Indiana.
- Budget: Groups with previous year annual expenses under $500,000.
- 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.
Ineligibility
Crossroads Fund does not fund:
- Organizations involved in electoral campaigns
- Contribute substantially to support lobbying at the federal, state, or local levels
- Support private or individual interests, in contrast to public interests
- Direct service work/social services (Food, Clothing, Shelter, Self-Help/Empowerment Programs, School Supplies, etc.)
- Scholarships, fellowships, or grants to individuals.
For more information, visit Crossroads Fund.
