In November 2023, former Chicago Documenter Sebastian Gonzalez de Leon founded the San Pedro Gazette in St. Petersburg, Florida, and was accepted into the Google News Initiative Pre-Launch Lab. His time as a Documenter was a major influence for him and he’s interested in launching Documenters in his community in the future.

Samantha Smylie came to City Bureau with no formal journalism experience and is now the state education reporter at Chalkbeat Chicago covering daily news, breaking stories, and investigative pieces on K-12 education, citing the impact the fellowship had on giving them a full understanding of what it takes to turn an idea into a news product.

In 2020, an investigation we published in partnership with WBEZ revealed stark racial disparities in home lending practices in Chicago by major banks. The story sparked a protest that led Chase Bank to invest $600 million in new home mortgage lending for Black and Latinx families across the city, and prompted policy changes at the city and state level. The story was directly informed by the lived experiences of the reporters: one had worked as a community banker on the South Side, and another’s family had personally navigated racist home lending practices when purchasing his childhood home. It reached a broad audience because of our longstanding partnership with WBEZ, and we organized a free workshop for people looking to move their money into financial institutions that support their communities and align with their values.

In 2022, City Bureau released a special project informed and led byCivic Reporting Fellows,, our Community Benefits Agreement Zine. The zine is a resource guide that explores tools for equitable community development and we have distributed 8,460 copies in English and Spanish. We distributed the zine for free by mail and in-person through partnerships with Chicago Public Libraries, mutual aid organizations, and local businesses. Since its publication, Warehouse Workers for Justice shared copies with community members as an educational and organizing tool, and Alderman Rossana Rodriguez shared English-language guides with Community Driven Zoning and Development partners in the 33rd Ward. Our former reporting resident and Trace engagement reporter Justin Agrelo is also in the process of creating a zine for gun violence survivors and their families in Chicago, modeled after the CBA zine.