Public Welfare Foundation

Our current criminal justice system is able to continue as it is because institutional figures often posit that change is too hard, too massive, too ambitious. But the change we’re calling for already exists in affluent communities across the country – communities that have thriving school systems and educational opportunities, access to health care, free community spaces and centers, affordable and healthy food options, and job opportunities that many of us take for granted. Local organizations across the country are working to make those same resources available for their communities through advocacy, organizing, and demonstration. Let’s #GiveLocal to invest in them to expand their capacity and reach. Learn more about #GiveLocal using #LinkInBio.

“Systems come into communities and set up the ideologies and structures that create an internalized passive perpetuation – and then these systems get to move on and do it somewhere else. When we liberate an individual to the point where they can recognize that they can fly on their own and there’s power in their own narrative, now we have a leader who can heal and create other leaders.” Alexander Landau is a?#FutureFormer?and the Executive Director of?Denver Justice Project, which prioritizes community and policy advocacy; community health and safety; collaborative education; and direct action to transform law enforcement, end mass incarceration, and seek racial justice. Denver Justice Project is among the many organizations you can?#GiveLocal?to this giving season and beyond. Learn more about?#GiveLocal: https://lnkd.in/gbF_Ujum

Youth and adult criminal justice reform is a local issue. That’s why funding hyperlocal organizations – and organizations led by those who have been most impacted by the justice system – is what will lead to #TransformativeJustice. Our investments should water seeds planted in the soil, ensuring they grow. That’s how real change comes to life.? ? Learn more #GiveLocal: https://lnkd.in/gbF_Ujum

Criminal justice systems have engulfed our communities – and their most marginalized members – with promises to create and maintain safety. The reality is that these punitive and isolating systems perpetuate cycles of harm. When we #GiveLocal, we support community-based organizations in their efforts to build localized resources that fit the needs of their neighbors. Jennifer Peacock is a #FutureFormer and the Policy Director at Michigan Center for Youth Justice, which works to advance equitable youth justice policies and practices that protect young people and help them achieve their full potential.

Vision requires investment. With all these powerful ideas to transform the criminal justice system percolating from the ground up, there’s no shortage of opportunity to join the #FutureFormers of your community and build something beautiful. Learn more about #GiveLocal: https://lnkd.in/gStTfa-U

We’re not starting from scratch. Incredible groundwork has been laid by #FutureFormers in their communities. #GiveLocal to fund the work that inspires you, that excites you, and that includes you. Images: Southern Movement Committee; FORCE Detroit; Terence Crutcher Foundation; and Women on the Rise GA Learn more about how you can #GiveLocal here: https://lnkd.in/gbF_Ujum

There are #FutureFormers in your community seeding transformative change in the criminal justice system. When you #GiveLocal and invest in their work, you’re ensuring that garden becomes fuller and more impactful.?? ? Learn more about some of the many Future Formers you can #GiveLocal to: https://futureformers.us/

Real change is seeded by those who have been most harmed by the criminal justice system. They’re the #FutureFormers, like Nicholas DeFale Buckingham of Michigan Liberation, who can see the gaps, the cracks, and the hidden crises behind closed doors and high walls. This work calls on their leadership and guidance and our investment in them.

Our criminal justice system is shrouded in secrecy. Much of what happens in police precincts, behind jail and prison walls, in prosecutors’ offices, is kept quiet, leaving the public with only the word of powerful institutional figures. #FutureFormers are meticulously and courageously changing that, allowing communities to hold these institutional figures accountable for what’s happening behind the veil.

“I'm inspired by all the people who are directly impacted in the ways that I'm not – who have felt the burden of this system in ways that I can't even describe and still have hope, who are really looking out for others and trying to use their experiences to create change.”?? ? Terrica Ganzy is a #FutureFormer and the Executive Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, which fights to protect the civil and human rights of people of color, poor people, and other disadvantaged people navigating the criminal justice system and facing the death penalty in the Deep South.