Mission
Block Club Chicago is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.
Our Story
Block Club Chicago was created by former DNAinfo Chicago editors following the shutdown of DNAinfo and Gothamist in November of 2017. After hearing from people all over the city about how much they missed our truly local coverage, we knew we had to get back to work.
Thanks to more than 3,000 Kickstarter backers and generous support from Civil, we were able to recruit a dedicated team of reporters ready to hit the streets. Our focus remains on telling stories that matter in the neighborhoods, and growing our coverage sustainably through reader and donor support.
We decided to call ourselves the Block Club because we felt it reflected our mission: to build community through truly ground-level reporting of the city’s neighborhoods. If you don’t know about the history of Chicago’s block clubs, you can read up on them here.
If you organize a block club in your community, and are interested in receiving a sponsored subscription for your neighbors, email Jen Sabella at jen@blockclubchi.org.
Editorial Independence Policy
We subscribe to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Read the full policy here
Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.
Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.
Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards.