About Breakin' It Down Chicago

For twenty years, the Breakin' It Down Planning Committee has held conferences focused on engaging diverse nonprofit and fundraising professionals in empowering conversations about the present state and future of the nonprofit, philanthropic, and fundraising sector and its impact on under-represented and underserved communities in the Chicago area.  At that time, the field of nonprofit, philanthropy, and fundraising was undergoing noticeable professionalization, making nonprofits and the under-represented and underserved they sought to help more vulnerable to new institutional pressures and expectations as well as goal displacement, resource dependencies, and career quality of BIPOC professionals in the field.  A group of nonprofit and philanthropic leaders, including Denise Stennis, spearheaded an inaugural conference in 2003.

The Breakin' It Down conference brings together seasoned and emerging nonprofit professionals and administrators, academics, community activists, students, and other stakeholders who serve under-represented and underserved communities, with experts and distinguished philanthropic, nonprofit, and community leaders for a day of speakers, plenary panels, workshops, and professional speed networking with funders.  It uses an interactive agenda that seeks to bring balance to expressive and instrumental elements and focuses on key challenges in the field, encouraging professional excellence, promoting professional opportunity through networking and collaboration, and exploring best practices and different sustainability strategies.  Participants leave with an increased understanding of a substantive range of pertinent issues and an increased ability to be agents of change in our field.  

The history and success of the Breakin' It Down conference are grounded in the culture of volunteerism and empathy embodied by its founders and committee members over the years.  In honor of dedicated, tenured service to under-represented and underserved communities in the Chicago area, and for championing and leading the efforts to advance racial equity in the field of nonprofit, philanthropy, and fundraising, these award  are named in memory and honor of Denise Stennis.

Breakin’ It Down is 20! To commemorate this milestone, Breakin’ It Down is celebrating its community in a series of digital stories titled "Celebrating 20 Years of Breakin’ It Down: Looking Back to Look Forward."  We would  like your perspective on BID’s shining moments and how it has contributed to advancing racial equity in the field of nonprofit, philanthropy, and fundraising over the years; also, how it has benefited you both personally and professionally. 

The BID conference has been at the forefront for mobilizing, empowering discourse, and information-sharing with a racial equity lens. It is our hope that the conference will ignite human potential and galvanize philanthropic and community leaders, educators, policymakers, and professionals to keep taking the steps to advance racial equity in the field and to expand opportunities to diverse communities and  professionals in the field.  In particular, we hope to embolden BIPOC community members and students to pursue careers and leadership in the field of nonprofit, philanthropy, and fundraising.