Crossroads Fund
OVERVIEW: The Crossroads Fund supports community-based LGBTQ organizations in the Chicago area.
IP TAKE: The Crossroads Fund supports LGBTQ organizations across all of its grantmaking programs. This funder emphasizes youth organizations and marginalized communities and provides application guidelines for its Seed Fund, Technical Assistance Grants, Critical Response Fund and Youth Fund on individual grantmaking program pages. The foundation’s average grant size is about $10,000, and grantmaking is mainly limited to organizations operating in Chicago.
PROFILE: A group of 12 likeminded activists got together to found the Crossroads Fund in 1979 to support “[c]ommunity organizations working on issues of racial, social, and economic justice in the Chicago area.” Current grantmaking focuses on organizations working for social change, cross-issue organizing and the development of grassroots leadership. The foundation prioritizes applications from “historically marginalized communities.” In addition to LGBTQ causes, the foundation expressed interest in criminal justice, disability rights, the environment, community development, workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, women and girls and youth development.
In the LGBT rights space, Crossroads “[h]as been an ally and supporter of a broad-based LGBT movement” for decades and continues to provide funding for new and emerging LGBT organizations in Chicago. Past grantees include the 750 Club, which received funding for its work providing stable housing for queer youth, and the Transgender Oral History Project, which received a grant for its community project promoting diverse stories from within transgender and gender variant communities. To learn more about the types of LGBTQ organizations the Crossroads Fund supports, explore its list of past grantees.
In recent years, Crossroads has made between $500,000 and $700,000 a year in grants. Grants are generally awarded in amounts of up to $100,000, with an average grant size of about $10,000. With only a few exceptions, grantmaking is limited to the greater Chicago area.
At this writing, the Crossroads Foundation accepts applications for four funding programs. The Seed Fund provides start-up grants of up to $10,000 to new organizations working in the foundation’s areas of interest. Technical assistance grants provide up to $5,000 to organizations for projects including technology upgrades, training, conferences and events. The Critical Response Fund prioritizes existing Crossroads grantees and provides emergency grants of up to $10,000, and the Youth Fund provides grants of up to $15,000 to youth groups working toward social justice in their communities. Guidelines and due dates for each program are provided on individual program pages.
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