Case Study
{she crew}
How Women Unite! Got Connected
{she crew} applied to be a partner in WU!’s very first cohort of partner organizations. After submitting a compelling application, the WU! Board reviewed their materials and approved them to join Midwest Access Coalition and Assata’s Daughters as our third partner.
About {she crew}
{she crew} was founded in 2014 out of the need for intersectional spaces for young thinkers, activists, and artists to learn and collaborate together. {she crew} has grown to be a home for young people from every corner of Chicago who may benefit from a little special support at a special time in their lives. One of their main programs, SHE CAST, is a podcast produced for youth by youth, empowering young people who often don’t have a voice to quite literally broadcast their ideas, opinions, and perspectives to a wide audience.
Photo courtesy of {she crew}
Photo courtesy of {she crew}
Who They Serve
{she crew} primarily serves girls, gender non-conforming youth, and adolescents from the LGBTQUIA+ community--all populations which have been traditionally marginalized, sidelined, and made to feel less-than.
The Organization’s Needs
As an organization that serves youth from communities that are often marginalized through creative expression and the arts, it was a challenge for {she crew} to find and connect with the right kind of grantmakers whose funding priorities aligned with their mission. The grassroots organization needed help finding and applying to grant opportunities; conceptualizing, strategizing, and implementing their monthly giving program; and developing a multi-pronged marketing and fundraising approach.
“A lot of funders and large foundations would want to fit organizations like ours into a specific box, and Women Unite! was like “No! I see what you’re doing and I value what you’re doing and I think that these are true progressive values and we want to help you so that you can get back to the important work that you’re trying to do without having to jump through all these hoops, without trying to fit into specific boxes,” and it was like “Wow, these people really understand what community work is about.”
— Meredith Montgomery, Co-Founder & Program Director , {she crew}
Women Unite!’s Impact
Women Unite! used its expertise in grant research and management to help develop and cultivate a pipeline of prospective foundation funders, cultivate relationships with potential donors, and write and submit proposals for funding support. Additionally, Women Unite! Was instrumental in helping {she crew} create a subscription series called The Feminist Agenda. One unexpected outcome for {she crew} was their partnership, relationship building, and idea sharing with the other WU! Partner organization in their cohort.
Mission Alignment
As Women Unite! explicitly states on our website, “We believe in the power of womxn and the key role we play in making our world a more just, compassionate place. We strive to uplift the voices of all who have been silenced or marginalized, including queer, trans, and gender nonconforming folx.” This ideology is at the heart of {she crews}’s mission, and they work to instill confidence, power, and leadership in some of our youngest disruptors.