Borealis Philanthropy’s Spark Justice Fund Awards $1 Million to Grassroots Organizations Working Towards Transformative Community-Led Visions of Safety and Justice

Since its founding in 2019, Borealis Philanthropy’s Spark Justice Fund (SJF) has proudly resourced grassroots leaders and power-building organizations working to dismantle the harms of the carceral system while creating a new vision of safety rooted in care, dignity, and community. This month, the fund awarded $466,500 in unrestricted grants to ten organizations advancing pretrial justice reforms, ending money bail, closing jails, and redirecting public investments toward the communities most harmed by criminalization and incarceration. This brings the fund’s 2025 grantmaking total to over $1 million, including $90,000 in stipends to our BlackPrint Fellows.

Over the past several years, we’ve witnessed the dissolution of our fundamental freedoms—from attacks on bodily sovereignty to the uptick of mass surveillance—and heightened criminalization of marginalized communities and protestors of injustice. In their day-to-day work, SJF grantee partners are organizing against not only carceral systems but also the forces that bolster them. 

Please join us in celebrating and supporting the critical work of our partners! 

These grassroots organizations are working at the regional, state, and local levels to ensure greater safety, care, and belonging for all. This year, the Fund continued to prioritize groups operating in the Midwest, South, and rural areas due to a lack of traditional philanthropic dollars being directed towards these communities.

The SJF is deeply grateful for the donors and partners whose support makes this work possible. 

Responding to urgent and shifting needs at the frontlines of grassroots movements, including policies and programs that expand criminalization, in 2026, the work of the SJF will expand into Borealis Philanthropy’s Community Safety and Justice pillar, which supports frontline leaders that are transforming society by expanding opportunity and advancing critical advocacy such as community-led innovation, narrative change, leadership and power-building to create a just and inclusive democracy.

Criminalization and incarceration are wide-reaching issues that intersect with almost every facet of our lives. As we work to sustain our democracy and build towards our collective liberation, funders must listen to, trust, and invest in the leadership of those most impacted, and provide long-term, stable, and flexible funding to sustain and strengthen their work. 

We invite funders to join the Borealis community to pool and move resources to these grassroots movements defending democracy. To learn more about partnering with us, please connect with us at development@borealisphilanthropy.org.