The book “Chicago Is Not Broke. Funding the City We Deserve” has been published thanks to the 193 donors who pitched in as of June 5, 2016! Order the book here.
SUPPORT THE CIVICLAB BY DONATING VIA ACTION NETWORK. WE ARE A TAX-EXEMPT 501 C 3 NONPROFIT.
Here are results from past crowdfunding campaigns-> [List of all our donors + behind scenes pix]
The TIF Illumination Project was started in 2012 and went public at a town meeting at the Chopin Theater on February 12, 2013. Some 230 people attended and we Illuminated the 27th Ward’s 12 TIFs. We asked the attendees to go back to their communities to organize TIF town meetings or Illuminations if they found the information we shared useful. What a response! The first Illumination happened three weeks later (the 6th Ward) and on January 15 we will do our 28th public meeting – Illuminating the 33th Ward. So far we’ve Illuminated – that is, exposed the full history, details and impacts – of 134 TIFs across 31 wards in front of over 4,600 people. The full record of all these meetings is here. Over 80 stories have been written about our work, including the cover story in the July 22, 2013 issue of The Nation, “Chicago Rising!” We’ve impacted the policy and political landscape in several important ways. We urged that TIF numbers be put on county property tax bills (they were shockingly omitted) – and that has happened!
Our research broke the news that the city was holding $1.71 BILLION in property taxes in TIF accounts at the beginning of 2014. And now that figure is part of every political discussion regarding Chicago’s financial health – are we broke or not? We have an online petition urging the Mayor to Empty The TIFs! and over 3,500 people ave signed (with no marketing of any kind). And now, as we approach the 2015 municipal elections, we see a number of candidates sponsoring TIF Illuminations and making this issue a major part of their campaigns. But only a tiny fraction of people whose property taxes are extracted by TIFs have seen these materials. Every resident of Chicago is impacted by the city’s 152 TIF districts which pull almost ONE HALF BILLION DOLLARS in property taxes annually and place them into a black box controlled by the Mayor. We want this material available to EVERYONE. The CivicLab has closed but this work can continue. But only if YOU contribute via our crowdfunding campaign. CLICK HERE to support The TIF Illumination Project
We launched our first crowdfunding campaign in November 2014 and we raised $3,555 to produce our first video, “TIF 101”! Our second campaign to produce “TIFs Off the Rails” raised $1,160 from 44 donors. Our first campaign to support our overall research wrapped up on August 3, 2015. Thanks to the 124 donors who invested a total of $5,053.
Thanks to all the donors who made this possible.
