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Invisible Institute

Chicago, Illinois

Grants

2023 ( 6 months)
$2,500


The Invisible Institute is an independent journalism production nonprofit on the South Side of Chicago that works to enhance the capacity of citizens to exercise co-responsibility with government to maintain human rights and redress violations of constitutional rights. Specifically, it supports efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department through documentation, disclosure, transparency, and investigative reporting. This X-Grant supports fees for training in financial and data management trainings for the staff of Invisible Institute. 

2022 (2 years)
$500,000

The Invisible Institute is an independent journalism production nonprofit on the South Side of Chicago that works to enhance the capacity of citizens to exercise co-responsibility with the government to maintain human rights and redress violations of constitutional rights. This award for general operating support enables the Invisible Institute to engage the public in exposing inequity in Chicago communities that historically have been most acutely affected by systemic violations of rights.   

2020 (2 years)
$450,000

The Invisible Institute is an independent journalism production nonprofit on the South Side of Chicago that works to enhance the capacity of citizens to exercise co-responsibility with government to maintain human rights and redress violations of constitutional rights. Specifically, it supports efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department through documentation, disclosure, transparency, and investigative reporting. This award for general operating support enables the Invisible Institute to engage the public in exposing inequity in Chicago communities that historically have been most acutely affected by systemic violations of rights.   

2020 ( 1 month)
$50,000

The Invisible Institute supports efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department through documentation, disclosure, transparency, and investigative reporting. The Institute obtains police records through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, and releases police abuse allegations in an easily searchable online database, called the Citizens Police Data Project. (CPDP). The CPDP provides individual citizens with data and tools to obtain official records, and documents the experiences of young Chicagoans’ interaction with officers, facilitating the public’s ability to advocate for reform. With this award, the Invisible Institute incorporates nine years of police misconduct settlement and lawsuit data into the CPDP in collaboration with The Chicago Reporter.

2018 ( 1 month)
$30,000

Invisible Institute is a journalism production company on the South Side of Chicago. Its mission is to enhance the capacity of citizens to hold public institutions accountable through the use of human rights documentation, investigative reporting, civil rights litigation, the curating of public information, conceptual art projects, and the orchestration of difficult public conversations. The Invisible Institute will partner with, WITNESS -- a New York-based human rights organization that works with community groups to use new media tools and practices to document and seek redress for civil rights violations in the U.S. -- to host a two-day summit in Chicago to explore community-based police accountability strategies. It will bring together journalists, data analysts, legal experts, community-based police accountability advocates and archivists to explore strategies for making data related to police violence more visible and accountable to communities, especially those with a heavy police presence.

2016 (2 years)
$500,000

The Invisible Institute supports efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department through documentation, disclosure, transparency, and investigative reporting. The Institute obtains police records through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, and releases police abuse allegations in easily searchable online formats. It provides individual citizens with data and tools to obtain official records, and documents the experiences of young Chicagoans’ interaction with officers, facilitating the public’s ability to advocate for reform. Through investigative reporting, it scrutinizes police actions and presses for greater accountability to the public. General operating support enables the Invisible Institute to pursue these efforts and build its internal capacity in an era of greater public demand for information.