Case Study
Assata’s Daughters
Fundraising, Communications, and Design
Photo courtesy of Assata’s Daughters
How Women Unite! Got Connected
WU!’s board of directors selected Assata’s Daughters (AD) as one of its three partner organizations for 2019. Over the course of the 12 month collaboration, AD was given access to WU!’s free services, which span fundraising and communications, graphic design and marketing, and professional training and development.
Photo courtesy of Assata’s Daughters
About Assata’s Daughters
AD is an abolitionist organization rooted in the Black Radical Tradition, which uses a Black queer feminist lens and relationship-based tactics to organize bases of Black youth in Chicago, including Black women, femmes, and gender non-conforming folx. While it was initially founded as a volunteer-based collective in 2015, it transformed into a formal organization with a board and staff in 2018.
AD centers young Black people in the fight for Black liberation by providing resources and programming on political education, leadership development, mentorship, and revolutionary services. Overall, it leads with a system dictated by three pillars: Deepen (political education), Escalate (organize), and Sustain (revolutionary services).
The organization first assembled under the shared respect, love, and study of the activist Assata Shakur. AD continues to strive for freedom through holistic investment in Chicago’s young Black people; through base-building; through building relationships block-by-block; through organized and coordinated campaigns against oppressive forces; and through celebrating, exploring, stretching, shattering, re-building, recreating, and re-imagining who they are and who they can be as people and as community.
Photo courtesy of Assata’s Daughters
Who They Serve
ADs’ youth-driven work serves Black people, ages 6–24. Their core focus is on young people who are predominantly poor, women, gender-nonconforming people, femmes, and now boys—many queer—and from the South Side of the city.
At its founding in 2015, the organization’s immediate aim was to create community and programming for women-identified, femme, and gender non-conforming young Black people in Chicago. In 2018, AD heard calls from its community to broaden its scope and began providing lessons to young men and boys on toxic notions of masculinity, dismantling patriarchal systems of oppression, and understanding the impact of both on interpersonal relationships. The continued goal of AD’s work is to facilitate young Black people becoming advocates, organizers, and activists for the self-determination and freedom for Black people.
The Organization’s Needs
As AD continued to grow, it sought graphic design support to further its message and boost fundraising. This is where WU! stepped in and designed monthly donor email templates, new merchandise, and zine templates. With this graphic design support, AD could focus its energies on the crucial work of revolutionizing its community.
“Women Unite! helped us with quite a few projects. One that was just so helpful is the designs for our newsletter. They were able to give us a few templates—print material that we just don’t have the capacity to do in-house. But that thought work alone really showed us that they understood our style and understood what we were trying to convey.”
—Christian Snow, Executive Director, Assata’s Daughters
Women Unite!’s Impact
WU! assisted AD by helping to expand its funding to support its organizational growth. In addition to providing direct service to AD over the course of the year, WU! donated just over $3,000 in direct cash and helped AD raise over $50,000 for a match through the Cash App company. WU! also organized an in-kind item drive that resulted in nearly $2,500 worth of donated items—including hand sanitizer, diapers, non-perishables, and cleaning supplies—which will be distributed to those whom AD serves.
Mission Alignment
With AD’s focus on Black women, femmes, and gender non-conforming people, the struggle for Black liberation, and educating and organizing Chicago’s Black youth, its partnership with WU! was a perfect match. WU!’s work hinges on collaborating with organizations that know what’s best for the communities they serve. AD and WU! found common ground as two organizations seeking to uplift marginalized voices as a means to create a more compassionate and free world.
“Our organization is really, really deeply built on relationships and on moving at the speed of trust. And that is something we’ve been able to accomplish with Women Unite!”
—Christian Snow, Executive Director, Assata’s Daughters