About Crossroads Fund
Crossroads Fund Inc’s largest recent grant went to Chicago Torture Justice Memorials for general operations, a signal of how deeply the funder backs Chicago-based movement work through unrestricted support. Across recent awards, the foundation repeatedly funds organizations tied to racial justice, immigration justice, housing justice, youth organizing, and criminal justice accountability, with many grants centered on community-led organizing in Chicago and nearby suburbs. The pattern is not limited to one issue area: recent recipients include Circles and Ciphers in Berwyn, Blue Tin Production in Chicago, Organized Communities Against Deportation in Chicago, and Holistic Birth Collective Nfp in Chicago.
The funder’s work is rooted in pooled, community-oriented grantmaking and support for grassroots organizations working on social, economic, and racial justice. Its recent grants show a strong preference for operating support, with several organizations receiving substantial general-operations awards across multiple years. That mix of movement-building support and flexible funding helps explain why the foundation appears repeatedly alongside groups working on neighborhood advocacy, public accountability, and locally led social change in the Chicago metropolitan area.
What Crossroads Fund Funds
Crossroads Fund Inc supports a broad set of justice-oriented causes, but the recent grants make a few themes especially clear. In immigrant-rights work, it gave $110,000 to Org Comm Against Deportation for general operations, aligning with its stated immigration justice and immigrant-rights focus. In housing and neighborhood organizing, it awarded $94,000 to Pilsen Alliance for general operations, reflecting support for community-based advocacy tied to local conditions.
The foundation also backs youth-led and media-related organizing. Borderless Magazine NFP received $98,000 for general operations, while People Matter received $98,000 for general operations and $73,000 in another recent award. Together with funding to groups such as Not Me We and TGi Movement, these grants show a consistent emphasis on organizations that combine advocacy, public voice, and movement infrastructure. Arts-linked activism also appears in the grant record through Blue Tin Production.
How Crossroads Fund Gives
Typical grants cluster around a median of $15,000, with a lower quartile of $10,000 and an upper quartile of $40,000. The recent award list also includes substantially larger operating grants, which suggests that the foundation supports both core funding for established groups and smaller awards across a wider field of organizations. Most recipients appear repeatedly across years, including Circles and Ciphers, Southside Together, Not Me We, People Matter, and Alliance of the Southeast, pointing to continuing support rather than one-off relationships. Crossroads Fund Inc is a regular funder, not a donor-advised fund, and it uses pooled and cohort-based programs alongside unrestricted operating support. Several active programs accept unsolicited applications, including the Giving Project, Solidarity Fund, Critical Response Fund, Chicago Racial Justice Pooled Fund, Cultivate, and the Lisa Fittko Internship.