Your generous contributions will allow 350 Chicago to strengthen our climate advocacy efforts and further build our capacity as an organization.

We are also deeply grateful to our peer-to-peer fundraising campaigners. Each of them took the time to set up a campaign page and share it with friends and followers on social media.

Altogether, we had 60 individual donors and 7 campaigners. Congratulations, everyone, on making this fundraiser a success.

The 350 Chicago team’s top priority is having the City of Chicago divest from dirty fossil fuels.  City officials must commit to and transparently implement a clear strategy to eliminate all remaining city investments the top 200 coal, oil, and gas companies.  Our team has been meeting with city aldermen and the city treasurer along with other political leaders, vigorously seeking their commitments to have the city divest.  

Ideally, funds pulled out of fossil fuels can then be invested in 100% clean energy – the world’s energy future and a booming industry creating thousands of new jobs.  350 Chicago also continues to be an active member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition and the Ready for 100 Collective, pushing for renewable energy infrastructure and jobs in Chicago and Illinois.

Throughout this year, even during challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have continued our to educate and mobilize Chicagoans on the climate crisis, performed outreach to allies in the environmental justice community, and broadened our active volunteer base.

In addition to our advocacy work, your previous donations have helped cover costs for the filing of our 501(C)(3) application with the IRS, moving us closer to the goal of being a fully federally recognized non-profit organization. (We expect to hear from the IRS by the end of this year or early next on the approval of said status.)

This past August, we expanded our Board of Directors, adding new members Amreh Hopkins, Timmy Arnold, Ryan McKean, and Frank Zhu further strengthening our core team of effective climate advocates.  We have also reorganized our chapter into multiple committees. Among these are the Research, Fundraising, Outreach, Education, and Communications. Each committee has increased our chapter’s operational strength by spreading the work amongst committed members while promoting our goals of fighting the climate crisis through advocacy and education.

Donor generosity over the past several years has provided us the underpinnings for great success.  We believe the best for our chapter is still to come. We are so much closer to hiring our first staff member!  We are becoming an even stronger partner within the environmental and social justice community.  We continue to push for real victories in the fight against the climate crisis. Stay tuned!  

To offset the digital carbon emissions footprint from the recent Zero Emissions Day fundraiser, we are donating a small percentage of the proceeds to fund reforestation efforts in Ethiopia through Gold Standard, a global organization dedicated to sustainable development and carbon emissions reduction.

In solidarity and advocacy,