Social Justice Fund Grants from our January and April 2022 Cycles
Basebuilding and Outreach for Campaign to Defund the Police and Invest in Communities
Organization: Youth Justice and Power Union
Grant Cycle: 2022, April
In order to build people power to win cuts to the Boston police budget and win reinvestments in Black and Brown communities, Youth Justice and Power Union (YJPU) will increase its focus on basebuilding and outreach to build sustained support from more youth and adult supporters -- reaching more people and deepening their involvement through in-person and online outreach, community and member events, trainings, and retreats. This basebuilding initiative will complement YJPU’s overall work supporting core leaders, pressuring officials with meetings and actions, and collaborating with partners.
Driving Without Fear
Organization: Dignidad Inmigrante de Athens
Grant Cycle: 2022, April
Georgia forbids drivers’ licenses for un(der)documented people, wreaking irreparable harm on Georgia immigrants. It leads to increased racial profiling, unnecessary and discriminatory arrests, and increased deportations of otherwise law-abiding residents resulting in economic devastation, family separation, and trauma for immigrants who have made a life here. In response, DIA began the Driving Without Fear campaign, a grassroots effort to change local police policies of arresting and detaining immigrants without a license. DIA is determined to replicate our success in Athens in nearby towns.
Housing is A Human Right Leadership Development Program
Organization: Freedom ROC
Grant Cycle: 2022, April
We will confront institutionalized violence against Black and low income mothers in low income unstable housing. Organizing people and designing campaigns around issues that directly affect them such as housing and violence is the only path to creating a more equitable society in Akron. We must meet people where they are and work with the residents to come up with real solutions for right now’s problems. Ensuring that everyone is registered to vote and connecting their vote to their personal experience in under-resourced communities will help educate and strengthen this base.
Injured Workers vs Multinational
Organization: Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC)
Grant Cycle: 2022, January
Injured Workers vs Multinational is the podcast chronicle of a group of South American autoworkers who decided to take on General Motors when they were fired after developing disabling injuries at work. Told as part radio play and part social justice suspense thriller, this non-fiction narrative weaves heartwarming moments, humorous travails, and creative nonviolent resistance into the high stakes reality of being an organizer in Colombia-- death threats and all. Will their scrappy determination and grassroots support from international allies be enough? Tune in to find out!
Movimiento’s Immigrant Justice Program
Organization: Movement for Justice in El Barrio
Grant Cycle: 2022, April
Movement conducted a community-driven consultation process in El Barrio and the following were the priorities chosen by our community:
1) Organize to cut funding to ICE and CBP 2) Organize for the closing of immigrant family detention centers 3) Organize for the release of immigrants in detention due to COVID-19 4) A pathway to citizenship 5) Continue strengthening immigrant community defenders, on-the-ground, who lead immigration policy change campaigns
This project we are seeking funding for will focus on the first 3 aforementioned priorities listed.
No New Prisons - Vermont
Organization: Women's Justice and Freedom Initiative, Inc.
Grant Cycle: 2022, April
Our vision is a Vermont where prisons no longer exist, and all people thrive. WJFI’s “No New Prisons” campaign is organizing to close the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, oppose building a new women’s prison and revamp reentry procedures. Our goal is to reimagine our communities by addressing the devastating impact of incarceration, harmful child welfare policies, physical health/mental health/addiction issues, and violence in our communities.
Save Millwood
Organization: Elmahaba Center
Grant Cycle: 2022, April
During the pandemic, as our people were dying, evictions rose and the housing crisis fueled by gentrification and white settlement in Nashville came to a head. We started our survey of a particular slum in Nashville that houses many Arabs and Latinx and Black immigrants in January-June 2021; we released the results and did press interviews throughout 2021, and we hosted two legal clinics on housing and three livestreams in Arabic/Spanish/English. Now, in 2022, we are gearing up to fight, with a coalition, the License Plate Readers initiative that will further displace our people.
Youth Organizing for Social Justice
Organization: Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan
Grant Cycle: 2022, January
These funds will support youth-led campaigns on issues ranging from Covid response safety and equity to the school to prison pipeline. By the 2023 school year, we hope to abolish the Detroit school's archaic, racist, and sexist uniform policy which distracts from learning time and pushes students into the prison system. Student direct actions may also include climate change marches, advocacy for mental health support systems in our schools, and other issues directly impacting Michigan youth.
Youth Voices Lead
Organization: Art and Resistance Through Education, Inc.
Grant Cycle: 2022, April
ARTE’s Youth Voices Lead program is a paid, digital community training program for 12+ youth organizers to strengthen their artistic tools and human rights knowledge to advocate for racial justice change. For around 12 weeks, these young leaders (ages 14-18) will bravely come together from diverse neighborhoods throughout New York City to learn about the important issues directly impacting their communities, including the right to housing, the right to health, the impact of mass incarceration, and the right to education, through an interactive art + activist (artivism) curriculum.