Why We Fund the Future

I’m ringing in 2025 with hope.?

Research shows that hope is healthier than cynicism, and it’s better for problem-solving.?

One thing that is giving me hope right now is our organizational access to incredible leaders.?

Public Welfare Foundation invests in leaders and the visionary organizations they have launched because we know that those that preceded us in history did not have an exclusive on innovation.? Too often we cleave to the old, with unflinching reverence for the forebears of antiquated and fundamentally unjust systems.? We tinker at those existing models, adding legitimacy to their function.? Our nation is incarcerating more people than any other Western democracy at enormous cost with no benefit to public safety. It is a system known to disproportionately ensnare Black Americans as well as poor people, the mentally ill, and those battling addiction. It is a traumatizing response to persecuted people.?

PWF’s grantees and partners are building a better future by contributing to a mosaic of desperately needed solutions to create an approach to justice that actually serves everyone equally and leads to restoration rather than destruction.

They are Future Formers — leaders who are courageously shaping a better tomorrow for our communities. They see gaps and fill them with transformative solutions.?

They include Women on the Rise (WotR), led by Robyn Hasan-Simpson. WotR created a policy campaign to ensure that people with substance abuse and mental health issues don’t get tagged and dragged into the justice system for the rest of their lives. They managed to shift money from incarceration to pre-arrest diversion initiatives and turn excess jail capacity into a community treatment center. They are Future Formers.

There’s the Terence Crutcher Foundation, named for the unarmed Black man killed by police in Tulsa, Okla., in 2016, and led by his twin sister Dr. Tiffany Crutcher. She harnessed her loss and created an institution championing justice reform in the state of Oklahoma and serving youth from impacted communities.?

She has led the revitalization of a mall in Tulsa to be an incubator for small nonprofits serving and trying to create economic opportunity in the same impacted community. She’s forming a new future for Tulsans. She is a Future Former.?

D’Marria Monday of Tulsa’s Block Builderz is an example of someone the system tried to break. Instead, she now leads the charge to ensure that incarcerated women giving birth in Oklahoma prisons are no longer shackled during delivery.?

Now ,D’Marria has helped establish a safe house for women returning to the community after incarceration. She is dedicated to providing the kind of basic needs and services she didn’t have coming out of the system. She is a Future Former.?

Oklahoma Appleseed was launched a couple of years ago to address the state’s high rates of poverty, trauma, and despair. Oklahoma leads the nation in putting women behind bars, including a community of domestic abuse survivors. Through their narrative work, Oklahoma Appleseed is helping people understand the impacts of Oklahoma’s policies and how those outcomes might be improved. And they're finding that people in Oklahoma want to make different choices.

Deep Center in Savannah, Ga., where 42% of children live in poverty, has been very intentional about engaging youth. Deep actually stopped and listened to the young people most impacted by the justice system. Established in 2008, Deep Center has helped thousands of marginalized young people find their voices through writing, arts, and culture.?

Terrica Redfield Ganzy is the long-time leader of the internationally recognized Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) in Atlanta. SCHR was founded in 1976 in response to Georgia’s reinstatement of the death penalty and out of concern for the state’s prison conditions. SCHR provides civil rights representation at the individual and policy level. Terrica’s been particularly instrumental in building coalitions to bolster SCHR’s work.? Her legacy will include, amongst many courageous leadership moments, supporting partners in Georgia like Women on the Rise.?

FORCE Detroit focuses on community violence intervention in Detroit. Their founder, Alia Harvey Quinn, recognized the harmful cycle in her community and recruited system-impacted people to engage those at highest risk of being part of it —? to break the cycle. This is the credible messenger model. People who live in conditions that place them at the highest risk of experiencing or perpetrating violence are more likely to listen to someone who understands those conditions.?

Alia, her team, those credible messengers? Future Formers.?

Another is Nicholas Buckingham. He leads organizing at Michigan Liberation. He has had an extraordinary life —?from experiencing the school-to-prison pipeline himself to dedicating his life to helping others escape it. Michigan Liberation is effective at organizing returning citizens and distilling their experience into policy changes.?

The Michigan Center for Youth Justice is taking a similar path of providing trauma-informed care versus confinement. Jason Smith is the executive director. The organization has led incredible policy work to ensure youth are not being sent into the adult prison system. Now, they are working to ensure those policies are implemented successfully.

All of these organizations, leaders, and the people who support them — are Future Formers. They are not accepting the status quo. They are not giving in to despair. They understand that no one if coming to save us, we will need to save ourselves.??

I hope you have rested well into this New Year, because the work continues.?