Our 2024 Year in Review

Published on Feb 16, 2025 by Sean Watland, Derek Eder, and Michael Chladek

Ahead of our sixth annual Member Meeting and Board Elections on Feb 18, 2025, we’re publishing our 2024 year in review to share with our Members and our community (that’s you!).

As we look ahead to 2025, we also look back at what we did in 2024. Here we go …

For those newer to Chi Hack Night, this is the tenth “year in review” that we have done. Take a look at our year-in-review posts from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014 to follow along how we got here.

In that tradition, here are the high-level statistics for Chi Hack Night in 2024:

Presentations Breakdown

Below is every presentation from 2024, organized by topic. You can also watch all 33 of them in one YouTube playlist.

All 33 Chi Hack Night presentations from 2024

Presentations by category

Climate Change and Environment

Transportation

Justice, Policing and Incarceration

Housing and Shelter

Chi Hack Night Community Projects

Equity

Jobs and Professional Development

Miscellaneous

List of organizations represented

In these presentations, we heard from individuals from an array of organization types, including local government, journalism, academia, nonprofits, and business:

Government

Argonne National Lab
City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
Illinois Office of Broadband
MBTA

Academia

Chicago Research Group
Discovery Partners Institute
University of Illinois
University of Washington

Journalism

The Appeal
Borderless
City Bureau
Injustice Watch
Illinois Answers Project
Northwestern University

Nonprofit

Alliance for Civic Technologists
Center for Neighborhood Technology
g0v Taiwan
Urban Institute
U.S. Digital Response
World Business Chicago

Advocacy

Bike Lane Uprising
Invisible Institute
Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

Companies

GTI Energy
TransitOPS

Finances

Chi Hack Night continues to remain financially stable and is in a good position to continue covering our remote as well as hybrid remote/in-person events well into 2025.

In 2024, we saw a noticable uptick in donations received from individuals throughout the year (thank you to those who donated, especially those donated multiple times or are contributing on a monthly basis!). We also had additional organizations provide sponsorship donations to Chi Hack Night (thank you, CompTIA, For Good Advisory, and DataMade!).

In-person events remained the main expense for 2024, which included professionally recording and editing the in-person presentations as well as providing food, snacks, and supplies at such events. We also saw presenters continuing to take advantage of Chi Hack Night’s honorarium for speakers.

Cash on Hand Beginning of 2024	$ 16,613.39
Income
Individual Donations	3,320.00
Sponsorship Donations	10,300.00
Total Income	$ 13,620.00
Expenses
Advertising & Marketing	7,366.09
Event Supplies	185.33
Food for In-Person Chi Hack Night	5,759.00
Legal & Professional Services	343.00
Office Supplies & Software	1,230.37
PayPal Fees	100.07
Speaker Honorarium	2,600.00
Board Retreat Food	114.21
Taxes & Licenses	26.00
Total Expenses	$ 17,724.07
Net Operating Income	$ –4,104.07
Cash on Hand End of 2024	$ 12,509.32

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

For our 5th year, the Board has been using OKRs to prioritize what we’ve determined to be areas to focus our efforts to improve our event & build our community. Below, we will recap how we are doing halfway into our 2024 - 25 OKRs.

Progress Key

Whether we will achieve this by June 30, 2025

ON TRACK we will likely achieve this key result
IN PROGRESS we can still achieve this key result, but it will take some extra effort
NOT ON TRACK we will likely not achieve this key result

Objective 1 - Run the event

Produce a live, weekly civic engagement event that meaningfully includes diverse speakers and attendees

IN PROGRESS Key Result 1.1: 80% of events have details published to web & Eventbrite at least 2 weeks in advance

ON TRACK Key Result 1.2: Book at least 3 presentations from each of the following groups: government, journalism, academia, nonprofit, and advocacy

IN PROGRESS Key Result 1.3: Ensure that the composition of presenters is at least 60% persons underrepresented in tech, including BIPOC, women and gender minorities

Objective 2 - Grow the value of Membership & Volunteering

Build & maintain a sustainable infrastructure for weekly operations engaging volunteers and expanding our organization’s capacity

NOT ON TRACK Key Result 2.1: More than 10% of volunteer roles available (non-board required) are filled by non-board attendees

NOT ON TRACK Key Result 2.2: Grow the total number of members by 10%

IN PROGRESS Key Result 2.3: Have 4 non Hack Night events (1 member meeting and 3 social events)

Objective 3 - Increase Chi Hack Night Awareness to drive Engagement and Support

Promote and share Chi Hack Night presentations, events, and projects to a wider audience

IN PROGRESS Key Result 3.1: Increase Net Monthly LinkedIn Followers Gained by 33%

NOT ON TRACK Key Result 3.2: Increase Eventbrite RSVPs by 12%

IN PROGRESS Key Result 3.3: Increase All Attendance by 20%

Thus concludes our 2024 recap. Thanks for reading it. Here’s to a great 2025 for Chicago’s civic tech community! See you Tuesday!

About the author

Sean Watland, Derek Eder, and Michael Chladek