Streetsblog Chicago’s 2026 fund drive comes to the end of the line tomorrow. We’ve got enough money to survive. Will any other “angel” donors help us thrive?
Good afternoon Chicagoland Sustainable Transportation Advocacy Nation (C-STAN). I hope you’re staying reasonably conmfortable as the mercury rises to the mid-nineties Fahrenheit again today.
I actually sort of like this weather, and for me yesterday was a good example of how to use bike and transit to get around Chicago efficiently and enjoyably on a hot day. After doing the headlines and a few other tasks for this website at SBC headquarters in Uptown, I pedaled to Wilson Station and caught the Red Line with my bike to the Loop. As a result, I was able to show up to the Illinois attorney general’s office relatively sweat-free to drop off some paperwork by the deadline.
This annual trip always reminds me of the climactic scene from the 1980 Chicago-set film “The Blues Brothers.” Jake and Elroy desperately storm the Daley Center, chased by the authorities, to drop off tax payments to save the orphanage where they grew up. Their stacks of cash are received by a mild-mannered Cook County clerk played by director Steven Spielberg. He stamps their receipt just before the Chicago Police Department and Illinois National Guard break in to arrest the two musicians.
Afterward, I checked out the moving “Riley O’Neil Memorial Station,” honoring the Chicago Department of Transportation employee who tragically lost his life while cycling on June 5. It turned out to be at a different set of Divvy docks near City Hall than I’d originally assumed.
After that, I headed to a cafe to edit and post Cameron Bolton’s writeup of the previous day’s North Lawndale Ride, hosted by the mobility justice nonprofit Equiticity. Cameron did a nice job with the piece.
I published that article just in time to make the weekday 4 p.m. cutoff to enter the CTA rail system with a bicycle. I rode the Orange Line to 35th/Archer Station and rode a mile or two further to report on the weekly gathering to support the controversial Archer Avenue traffic safety project in Brighton Park, taking place in front of the 12th Ward office.
Since early December, there have been dueling rallies between the boosters and politically-motivated opponents. But after Riley O’Neil was fatally “doored” while riding in a paint-only bike lane on Halsted Street earlier this month, down the road from Brighton Park in Bridgeport, the NIMBYs have stopped showing up to protest the protected lanes. I’ll run a full writeup of yesterday’s event soon.
After that, I pedaled a few miles east on 35th Street with a nice tailwind, rolled past Sox Park, and went to the local ‘L’ stop to catch the Red Line back north to Argyle Street. I was just in time for the Chicago Full Moon Jam, a free drumming and fire dancing event that take place monthly at locations around the city, a wonderful way to cap off a hot day.
All this is evidence of why I love my job running this site reporting on and advocating for better walk/bike/transit in Chicago and beyond. But as I discussed last November when we launched our current fund drive, it wasn’t long ago that it looked like SBC might not survive for another year. At the end of summer 2025, after the annual foundation grant that we relied on had ended, and the charitable landscape was looking bleak due to Trump administration cuts, a trusted colleague said, “I wonder if Streetsblog Chicago’s job is done.”
I but I pushed back that I didn’t think this site’s mission has ended. “You’ve got the fire,” the advocate responded. “Go for it.”
After that, Streetsblog Chicago Cofounder Steven Vance (currently spending most of his time running the real estate data website Chicago Cityscape) and I agreed SBC should trim our budget by reducing staff hours. I then made a last-ditch pitch to a loyal longtime major donor. With incredible generosity, that person agreed to cover almost half of our slimmer annual costs annually, a similar situation as at least one other Streetsblog Network site. Obviously I’m very grateful for that help!
That fall, longtime supporters personal injury firms FK Law Illinois and Keating Law Offices, magnanimously agreed to renew their ads at higher rates. As such SBC was in a position where another $50K in ads, sponsorships, and contributions from readers like you would get us through 2026 with full funding.
After launching this fund drive last November 12, we’re now halfway through 2026, with almost $36K raised. That’s enough for us to make it to New Year’s Day on a shoestring budget, but obviously it’s not what I hoped for. That’s largely due to another major contribution we’d gotten the previous two years not materializing so far in 2026. Whether or not that donor chooses to help out again this year, we’re very thankful for their past support.
To give Streetsblog Chicago’s readers and ourselves a few fund-drive-free months before we start working on raising money for 2027, we’re going to end this campaign tomorrow. But of course it would be wonderful if any other “angel” contributors step up to help us fill that $14K gap.
That would allow us to expand our freelance budget. Currently I’m trying to stick to only one freelancer article a week. That’s challenging, because our roster of contributing writers includes lots of talented people with great story ideas that I hate to have to turn down.
If we can hit $50K, that would also allow Streetsblog Chicago to provide health benefits. That would be the first time we’ve been able to do that since we were laid off from the NYC-based mothership in 2015, and relaunched as an independent non-profit.
Thanks a lot for reading, and considering chipping in if you haven’t already. We spend the rest of 2026 with a relatively austere budget, or hopefully a robust one. Either way, you can count on Streetsblog Chicago to keep providing the sidewalk/handlebar/transit window POV on local transportation issues that our readers have depended on for the last 13 years.
– John Greenfield, editor
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