About Us

Purpose

Good Roots Chicago is a community resource that connects you with actions that you can take now to contribute to your community.

Our work centers on:

  • Mutual aid
  • Local organizations that meet unique local needs
  • Support for businesses that support their community
  • Values-based rather than faith-based organizations

Why/when we include boycotts:

  • Supporting the local economy starts with choosing local over corporate giants.
  • When a corporation acts in ways that undermine community well-being or democratic norms, choosing not to spend money with them sends a clear message: our values matter.

Process

How we find organizations

We search online, connect with community members, and draw from existing mutual aid networks. Whenever possible, we confirm that groups are active and their information is up to date.

How you can assess trustworthiness

We all have different priorities and values. It's up to you to meet the people you might be engaged with and assess their trustworthiness. We aim to empower you to decide what aligns best with your values.

Do you do any vetting?

We aim to feature only active organizations and current activities. If an organization has a public site with recent content, we’ll include it. When a group is very small or it’s unclear whether they’re still active, we try to contact them for permission to share their info and ask if they have specific needs to highlight. If they prefer not to be listed, we respect that.

Operation

Tracking

We use basic Google Analytics to see general trends in how our site is used, but we don’t collect personal data, use cookies, or track individual visitors.

Contact Us

We love hearing from neighbors. If you know an organization we should feature or a local effort we’ve missed, get in touch!

You can:

  • follow us on BlueSky @goodrootschicago.bsky.social for one-time events. (We don't have the capacity to post and maintain up to date event information here.)
  • email us at admin@goodrootschicago.com to share organizations or volunteer opportunities we should include