MacKenzie Scott's latest grants
Mackenzie Scott announced last week that she has made another round of major grants to hundreds of organizations working to increase domestic and global equity. She emphasized the need to fund underrepresented voices and to fund leaders directly impacted by the problems they are working on. The portfolio was wide ranging, and included several groups focusing on criminal justice reform. A number of these are current or former grantees of ours.
Scott’s funding is going to be incredibly helpful for the work, as multi-year, $1mil+ funding is very rare in this field, especially for work that’s close to the ground (the heavy-duty funding usually goes to policy and litigation groups). She’s started out with a handful of groups that I hope will grow in number as she continues her giving. We are in serious need of more funders to give these $1mil+ a year grants, or to put money into pools of money (such as our fund at Just Impact) that give those grants.
Here are groups I’m especially excited to see recognized on MacKenzie Scott’s list. These ones stand out due to the strength of their work and leadership and how much room they have for funding:
Susan Burton, author of Becoming Ms. Burton and founder of A New Way of Life, has devoted years to building reentry houses for women coming home from prison in Los Angeles. More recently, she has also built the S.A.F.E. national network of reentry houses around the country, all led by formerly incarcerated women. I especially respect how Ms. Burton integrates civic engagement work into her housing support work. She’s not just giving women a roof over their heads, caring, and support (all very important), but also working to build that leadership into political power.
The Community Justice Exchange, led by Pilar Weiss, provides technical assistance to local organizers around the country and runs the National Bail Fund Network. CJE helps local leaders and groups assess and implement strategies like court watching, participatory defense, and other creative local tactics. Pilar draws on her very deep experience as a labor organizer to help very local, often very scrappy groups do really good strategic assessments and build effective organizations.
Recidiviz, led by Clementine Jacoby, uses high-powered data analysis show state Departments of Correction that they can and should release a lot more people. Among other things, they help departments see how current laws allow or even require them to release people or move them to a less restrictive kind of prison or supervision. Recidiviz also monitors outcomes to show that releasing people can be done safely, and they work with leaders on the ground to ensure that this information is disseminated and can be used for future policy change. I’m not usually that excited about data projects, since our problem tends to be lack of power rather than lack of information; Recidiviz is a welcome exception.
The Essie Justice Group, led by Gina Clayton, trains and organizes women with incarcerated loved ones. Women come together in circles that do a 9 week course together and then continue to meet and take action together. This personal transformation and leadership development program led by and for directly impacted women is built to scale.
Here are four of the many leaders and groups that I would love to see on a future list like this. All are doing creative, impactful work to increase equity. They are led by people directly impacted by the issue and designing solutions that serve communities most affected. And they are ready for major cash infusions:
Dignity and Power Now, led by Mark-Anthony Clayton-Johnson, deftly integrates organizing and service work, including a robust mutual aid program, and has led the charge on work to shrink the footprint of harmful criminal legal systems in Los Angeles. DPN centers a vision of healing justice that inflects all of their work, from their mutual aid program in communities, to organizing against jail abuses, to partnering deeply with county officials to transform practices in L.A. and invest in projects like the Care First Village. DPN has an extremely strong bench of leaders who are directly impacted by incarceration and has an ambitious vision for L.A. county, where 1 in 33 Americans live (the county’s population is larger than the state of Michigan). They are one of the strongest groups in the country and are ready to grow significantly.
Dawn Harrington leads Free Hearts, a powerful statewide organizing, policy, and leadership development group in Tennessee called Free Hearts, which provides support and education to families impacted by incarceration. Free Hearts is poised to anchor transformative change in Tennesse, under the leadership of formerly incarcerated women. Dawn is an especially sophisticated and competent leader who is rapidly translating the best organizing and other lessons from around the country into robust plans for Tennessee.
Life Comes From It is a fund run by long-time practitioners that makes small grants to restorative, transformative, and indigenous peacemaking justice organizations around the country. It’s one of the best ways to turn big monney into small money (which can be hard to do). One of the key parts of the solution to mass incarceration is to find more impactful and more healing ways to address serious harm when it happens. The projects funded by LCFI do that work, and it needs to grow, as for years many of these projects have been volunteer-run and small. Check out their website - it’s really inspiring!
Especially for those seeking to invest in the leadership of women, the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, led by Andrea James, stands out for its transformative work towards equity on a broad scale. The Council convenes a network of thousands of presently and formerly incarcerated women around the country, who together are building solutions for their communities. For example, the Council’s hyper-local “reimagining communities” projects are setting up hydroponic farms for local members to grow and sell food, training their leaders in transformative harm resolution, and setting up guaranteed income projects.