Criminal Justice Grants

Several large philanthropies have dedicated grantmaking programs related to criminal justice, including legacy foundations, funder collaboratives, philanthropic LLCs and demographic community foundations. Grassroots groups find support from social-justice intermediaries such as the Spark Justice Fund and the Communities Transforming Policing Fund at Borealis Philanthropy.

Some corporate funders are getting involved, though many of the big companies that made pledges amid the national reckoning around racism and police violence in 2020 funded initiatives focused on economic equality rather than criminal justice reform, the Washington Post reported.

Key and intersecting issues in philanthropy for criminal justice

Funders who give for criminal justice reform or abolition support a range of organizations doing many kinds of work, from direct services around re-entry to bail reform to advocacy, movement building, and narrative change. Between 2014 and 2018, the most funded area in criminal justice philanthropy was services for offenders. In recent years, some funders have started shifting support to efforts led by system-impacted people and local organizing.

Funders increasingly understand that criminal justice is an issue that overlaps with many of their priority grantmaking areas, including racial justice, poverty and economic justice, mental health, substance use and addiction, immigrant rights, education, jobs, human rights, democracy and civic engagement, violence prevention and women’s and LGBTQ+ issues.

Place-based giving for criminal justice

The carceral system operates at the federal, state and local levels, and there is significant difference across states and municipalities. While there are national organizations advocating for criminal justice reform, many nonprofits working to change the criminal legal system or to serve system-impacted people do important work at the state or local levels. Local communities often have the best idea of what is needed – and what kind of advocacy or campaign will be effective – in their area. Funders who understand this engage in place-based funding in a particular area or support local campaigns in multiple areas. For example, the New York Community Trust, Brooklyn Community Foundation and North Star Fund backed advocacy that led to the New York City Council’s adoption of a plan to overhaul NYC’s correctional system, IP reported in our State of American Philanthropy brief. The MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge focused on local justice system reform.

Gaps in criminal justice grants

Grassroots movement-building tends to receive less support than direct services. Bridgespan found that funding is “especially needed across the South and Midwest where philanthropic resources are lower and criminal justice system challenges more daunting.” Bridgespan also found gaps in funding for small and early-stage organizations, movement building, and advocacy, especially 501(c)4 funding.

Gaps also exist in funding for particular groups. For example, not much funding goes to children of incarcerated parents, although “an estimated 2.7 million children have at least one incarcerated parent and 5 million have dealt with parental incarceration at some point,” IP’s Connie Matthiessen writes. Funding for women and LGBTQ+ people impacted by the carceral system is increasing, but remains underfunded compared to what is needed, IP found in our SAP report.

The Symposium on Prison Research and Innovation, marking the culmination of the Urban Institute’s Prison Research and Innovation Initiative (PRII), is a six-year effort launched in 2019 to build evidence and innovation to make prisons more humane and rehabilitative and funded by Arnold Ventures. The initiative has helped redefine “how research can be conducted in prisons by fostering partnerships between correctional agencies, local research organizations, incarcerated people, and community stakeholders.” This work has worked to develop and test models in research, as well as identify opportunities that philanthropists can further address in this space.

Grants for Criminal Justice: an emergent field

“Large-scale criminal justice philanthropy — funders who think of themselves as tied to these issues in the ways that housing or education funders focus their giving — has come into prominence only in the past five or six years,” Bridgespan says. The developing field is likely to evolve in the coming years. This could mean more funding as well as shifts in funding practices.

Funders for Justice – a national network of funders supporting grassroots groups addressing the intersection of racial justice, gender justice, community safety, and policing – suggests a divest/invest approach to grantmaking: funding campaigns and projects working to move resources out of the policing/prison system and into “the public safety net and infrastructure that actually keep our communities safe: quality, affordable public education, housing, healthcare, infrastructure, childcare, etc.”