This International Day Against Police Brutality, we reaffirm our commitment to resourcing the grassroots organizers and movement leaders working tirelessly to end state-sanctioned violence, and fortify democracy, safety, and wellness through community-built and -led initiatives. Over the past year, our Communities Transforming Policing Fund (CTPF) and Spark Justice Fund (SJF), have collectively moved over $7 million to more than 100 grassroots groups across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Beyond funding, our CTPF and SJF also provided grantee partners with organizational resiliency learning opportunities focused on narrative powerbuilding, healing justice, finance and fundraising, and safety and security—because we understand the need for knowledge sharing and network building amidst mounting threats to the movement for justice.

In that spirit, today we are sharing a list of the resources that have informed our funding and programming practice over the years, as an invitation to other funders to invest in the leaders whose vital work is decriminalizing and decarcerating our communities.

On May 26, 2021, our CTPF, SJF, and Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), along with Funders for Justice, hosted the donor learning session, Fund Safe Futures: Lessons from Organizing Since the 2020 Uprisings, where movement partners Mariame Kaba of Project Nia and Interrupting Criminalization, Andrea Ritchie of Interrupting Criminalization, Rachel Herzing of Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Miski Noor of Black Visions, Kayla Reed of Action St. Louis, and Karissa Lewis of Movement for Black Lives called funders into a deeper commitment to divest from policing and invest in advocating for services that truly make communities safe. Highlights from the session are rounded up in our funder toolkit.

On November 30, 2022, our SJF hosted the donor learning session, The Fight Against Surveillance: Our Neighbors, Our Safety, where along with funders and grantee partners—including Sam Van Doran and Albert Fox Cahn of S.T.O.P., Lucy Blumberg and Marvin Arnold of Eye on Surveillance, and Jacinta González of Mijente—explored the impact of mass surveillance on marginalized communities, organizing efforts to tackle this rising threat against our neighbors, and how funders can support the frontline fight against mass surveillance and incarceration. See highlights from the session in our recap blog.

Read the full article about police and state violence at Borealis Philanthropy.