Mobilizing Money for Black Communities in Chicago

Over the past week, we have all witnessed the ongoing protests in response to the murders of George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor, among countless incidents of police violence that have gone unreported. These problems are not new and these protests have not emerged out of nowhere. The police, white supremacist groups, and racist institutions continue to kill, surveil, lock up, and systematically discriminate against Black folks, and we cannot keep standing by.

As white people, we know it is our job to take action. For too long, we’ve stayed comfortable and criticized protests or any reactions that seem aggressive or “too extreme.” We must participate in this movement with our bodies, voices, and wallets. 

Solidarity Co-Op began in response to the need we are seeing across our city. We are a community of 15 young white jews who recognize the urgency of this time and the deep inequities in Chicago and across the United States. Amidst all of the anger, chaos, and fear, we see the potential for deep, systemic change. White jews have oftentimes failed to stand in solidarity with black communities. We have fallen short in our capacity to organize ourselves and our money for justice work. Given this pattern, we are asking friends and family to step up and support our efforts to organize, rebuild, and fight for progress.

We are distributing any funds we raise among four critical issue areas: repairing black-owned businesses, assisting Black-led grassroots community efforts, buying food and medical supplies for Black communities and contributing to bail funds and legal advocacy efforts. So, far we have distributed food, hygiene products, and medical supplies to Healthy Hood (http://www.healthyhoodchi.com), Street Youth Rise UP! (https://youarepriceless.org/our-work/our-campaign/), and jail support in Cook County. We have also donated to  Assata's Daughter's (https://www.assatasdaughters.org), Chicago Community Bond Fund (https://chicagobond.org), and Brave Space Alliance (https://www.bravespacealliance.org). 

We are making donations daily and we will donate 100% of the funds. 

If you are already donating to bail funds, black-led organizations in your area, and large scale responses to police violence, PLEASE continue to do so. The last thing we would want is for our fundraising and organizing efforts to divert money from these crucial projects. However, if you are unsure of where to donate, or are interested in seeing your money utilized dynamically on the neighborhood level, we encourage you to donate to our fundraiser.

As a group, we have spent the past year working to get to know the Chicago social justice ecosystem: we are paralegals, case managers, organizers, social service providers, and community advocates for many different populations in Chicago. As the needs shift even hourly, we are ready to meet them with the funds we raise. We want to combine our knowledge with the power our Jewish community has. 

If you decide to contribute to our giving campaign, you can designate which of these categories you would like to support, or give a general gift that we will allocate where we see the highest need. You can donate via this page, or directly to our Venmo @chisolidaritycoop to avoid fees. Also, we will be hosting workshops and send out educational resources in the near future. Please join our email list for resources and fundraising updates (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdN4DSjAozSM01d7eqlBm980XIe8pP-zobpwWdM-719rOERmQ/viewform) and check out our website at: linktr.ee/chisolidaritycoop

Please consider supporting our efforts to fight racism and white supremacy!