October 22nd is the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation. The Communities Transforming Policing Fund, CS Fund, Democratizing Justice Initiative, Funders for Justice, and the Piper Fund, encourage our philanthropic colleagues to join us in moving in solidarity with movements across the country protesting police brutality, experiencing repression in the form of political prosecutions, and confronting increased surveillance and criminalization.
In 2024, as philanthropy seeks to resource “democracy saving work,” we ask the question: Democracy for who – just some, most, or all? We call on our peers to ensure our democracy includes the rights and freedoms of everyone–particularly Black and Brown, Queer and Trans, Disabled, and unhoused communities. Furthermore, we ask our peers to commit to strategies of democracy-making through a long-term power building ethos rooted in the community-driven leadership and multidisciplinary justice movements.
U.S. organizers and activists have observed the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality since 1995. Over the past nearly three decades, Black, Indigenous, and people of color-led movements have worked incredibly hard to forefront police violence and the dangerous trendline of authoritarian and nationalist movements weaponizing police against communities and their political opponents. These movement groups have made progress raising public consciousness despite overwhelming political odds and without consistent funding support.
While the fight to end police violence has existed for generations, widespread recognition of its harmful impact is relatively recent. Since 2014, the murders of Eric Garner, Michael Brown Jr., Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tyre Nichols, and Sonya Massey have gained national recognition. The African American Policy Forum launched #SayHerName to raise awareness of invisibilized police violence against Black women and girls. This growing and more widespread recognition is the result of years of deep community organizing, strategic communications and narrative work, litigation, and policy advocacy led largely by survivors of police violence and their family members, both before and after the mass demonstrations in Ferguson, Baltimore, and the 2020 uprisings.
Despite crime decreasing, the number of police and resident initiated contacts being down, and greater public awareness of police brutality over the past decade, police violence persists and has only risen since 2020. According to Mapping Police Violence, U.S. Police use force on at least 300,000 people per year. 2023 was the deadliest year on record for police shootings with 1,163 people shot to death by police, surpassing the previous record set in 2022 of 1,097 people. Since 2020, there has also been the rise of expensive militarized police training facilities called Cop Cities. In 2023, Georgia state police shot and killed the first environmental activist for their protest of Atlanta’s proposed Cop City. Later on that year, the Georgia State Attorney General indicted 61 Stop Cop City activists under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Why have police and our criminal legal system become more prone to violence and criminalization in the wake of the 2020 uprisings? And what is the role of philanthropy to support a future where all communities are free from police brutality?
This is a call to action for philanthropy to intervene and resource work in alignment with the crisis at hand which includes: record levels of police brutality, the criminalization of the right to protest, political prosecutions of activists, increasing police budgets, and decreasing support for movement groups doing critical criminal justice work from policing to bail to decarceration and sentencing.
In solidarity with protesters and movement groups who are standing up for their community’s right to not be brutalized and murdered by government actors charged with public safety, philanthropy must support efforts to stop this violence and not retreat.
- Resource groups led by those most impacted by police violence. Particularly, those groups addressing the material conditions and lived experiences of members of their community outside of carceral systems. Moving in solidarity with movements and communities means resourcing grantee partners whose lives have been directly impacted by criminalization and incarceration.
- Resource collaborative efforts to organize against the proliferation of militarized policing of Black and Brown communities. The Movement 4 Black Lives is coordinating a Stop Cop Nation Coalition to support local organizations pushing back against the building of expensive and harmful facilities that shift resources away from true community safety needs. They are raising $2.5 million by the Spring of 2025 to aid groups in this effort. Contact Ron Goines at ron@m4bl.org to learn more about how you can support.
- Proactively fortify movement groups against safety and security threats rather than only reactively providing support after a foreseeable attack and harm has occurred. A holistic approach to safety and security recognizes that philanthropy should not only support groups when they experience physical and digital security threats, but rather they should provide groups with proactive support that helps them strengthen and develop their organizations. This includes support to ensure their finances are in order, that they are able to fundraise for ongoing support, that they can resolve internal and external conflicts that arise, and that they have time and space for collective healing. To learn more about supporting safety and security needs visit and sign on to Funders for Justice Safety and Security Pledge.
- Support long-term legal defense and legal strategy development for movements. The political prosecution of movement groups is not going away. In fact, it has rapidly escalated since 2020. Democratic and Republican administrations at the local, state, and federal level have expanded criminalization, increased punishment and collaboration across jurisdictions to target, disrupt, and dismantle mutual aid formations, direct service providers, policy advocacy coalitions, and protesters. Movement activists on the frontline need long-term legal defense support that recognizes the growing complexity of attacks including an increase of laws criminalizing protests and attempting to legislate bail funds out of existence. Models like the Southern Center for Human Rights First Amendment Lawyer Bridge and its partnership with the Community Justice Exchange are critical. The Community Justice Exchange needs to raise $1 million by February 2025 to support the 61 Stop Cop City activists in the next phase of their legal defense. Please contact Pilar Weiss at pilar@communityjusticeexchange.org to learn more about how to donate to this effort.
- Join the In Defense of Movement Project, an ongoing funder organizing and resource mobilization project focused on how philanthropy can better support movements at risk of political prosecutions. This collaborative funder and practitioner project will focus on what is needed to build the long-term movement infrastructure necessary to anticipate, intervene in, and prevent repressive tactics against social movements.
2025 will mark the 30th Anniversary of the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality and the 5th Anniversary of the murder of George Floyd and the racial justice uprisings. Will we reflect on these anniversaries and say we’ve done everything we could do to stop police brutality and create true community safety? We hope you will join us in this difficult, but critical work.