Dear Chinook Fund Community, 

I became Chinook Fund’s Executive Director in April 2018, poised to take the organization to the next level and move Chinook further toward our mission to seed community-led, systemic change by mobilizing resources for and trusting in grassroots social justice organizations across Colorado. At the time, we had a staff of two full-time employees, a Board of five, and were still in the early stages of our shift to the Giving Project model of donor organizing and community-led grantmaking. 

I write this letter to the Chinook community in January 2022, feeling struck by the tremendous growth and change this organization has experienced and embraced during this time.   

In just three years, we’ve doubled our staff to six, exponentially increased grantmaking distributing $526,000 to 80 organizations, and doubled our donor base to over 1,000 — the most grant dollars and donors in our 34-year history! 

In 2021, we moved 108 grants to groups across Colorado. Honoring our racial justice commitment, 90 percent of grantee groups were led by Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. Answering calls to action from groups like the Decolonizing Wealth Project, we leveraged our endowment to invest in Oweesta, the Longmont-based and longest-standing Native Community Development Financial Institution serving Native CDFIs and Native communities across the country.

We also bid farewell to Jess Nelson and S. Juliette Lee, two incredible staff members who played key roles in implementing our Giving Project model, increasing our grantmaking, and incorporating joy & fun into our work. We welcomed an inspiring cohort of six new BIPOC Board members, including several grantee leaders and Giving Project alumni, bringing our Board to eleven members. We leaned on leaders within our community to carry us through the staffing changes and recruited incoming staff members from our Giving Project and grantee community.

While we navigate these changes and celebrate our growth, experiencing incredible milestones, we also collectively hold and care for each other through the grief of an ongoing global pandemic, rise in political and white supremacist violence, escalating climate catastrophes, and the growing racial wealth divide. 

Protecting and nourishing seeds of hope during these times is perhaps one of the most powerful forms of resistance. On the days when hope feels out of reach, I return to the wise words of bell hooks: 

“Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.” 

I reflect on the powerful question from my dear friend, Michelle Castor: “Who benefits from our doubt, courage, worries, hope, or complacency about the future?*” These words help bring me back to the moment and to the beauty of what’s possible when we build and flex community power. These words remind me that living and taking action rooted in courage and hope are beautiful acts of resistance. 

I see the beauty of what is possible when I look to our grantees across Colorado who are cultivating communities of care and building grassroots power:

• Pine River Shares, based in Southwestern Colorado, expanded their mutual aid program providing over $15,000 in economic relief and increasing food security by building a 2,000 square foot garden and dome to grow food year-round. 
• Apprentice of Peace Youth Organization, based in Denver, held courageous conversations and took collective action to break mental health stigma and address a rise in violence impacting young people. 
• El Alba Cooperative, an Aurora-based worker-owned cooperative, paused their plans to purchase a commissary kitchen opting instead to support catering entrepreneurs by acquiring a food truck. They continue to make moves to support community wealth building and economic stability for immigrant and refugee communities. 

Showing up with love and courage, Giving Project donor organizers raised an astounding average of $4,300 per member in 2021! Collectively, they mobilized over 1,000 donors to fund $370,000 in Fall and Spring grant awards, including $100,000 in multiyear grant awards to be disbursed over the next year. We deepened our partnership with Transformative Leadership for Change through the Another World is Possible Fund, expanding the vision to fund resilience across the social justice ecosystem, distributing $256,000 in “Resilience” grants reaching 52 groups.

I believe now more than ever, we must nourish seeds of hope and fund movements like our lives depend on it, because they do. Let us imagine and build the more just and beautiful world we know is possible.

In solidarity,

Crystal Middlestadt
(they/them)
Executive Director