The Chicago Community Trust is a charitable foundation dedicated to improving the Chicago Region through strategic grant making, civic engagement and inspiring philanthropy. In keeping with their mission, last year they generously offered Streetsblog Chicago a $25K challenge grant so that we could reboot our website and continue advocating for better transportation options for Chicagoland.
Readers, sponsors and advertisers then rose to the occasion, helping us raise the $50K we needed to win the grant and relaunch the city's leading source of news about sustainable transportation and livable streets. Thanks to loyal SBC supporters like you, we reached the goal, won the $25K, and relaunched the site in April 2015.
This week the Trust gave us another vote of confidence by offering us the same deal: If we can raise $50K in donations, other grants, and advertising by May 30, they will kick in another $25K. Along with the $6K we have raised in recent months, this funding would allow us to keep publishing through spring 2017. We're very grateful to the Trust for continuing to champion our work.
But now we need your assistance. If you value SBC's hard-hitting coverage of local walking, biking, transit, traffic safety and development issues, please make a donation today. You'll help us win the Trust grant and ensure that we can keep bringing you to latest in Chicago's movement for livable streets.
To celebrate this exciting opportunity to keep SBC rolling, as well as to kickstart our fundraising effort, we invite you to join us for our third monthly reader meet-up next Wednesday, March 2, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Jaks Tap, 901 West Jackson in the West Loop. We'll be hanging out in the "green room." If you like, RSVP for the meet-up on Facebook.
If you've already donated in recent months, thanks so much for your support. And thanks in advance to those of you who plan to help us win the grant and secure the future of Streetsblog Chicago. Together, we can make sure that our city continues to have a voice for safe, efficient, and vibrant streets.
