Towards A Democracy Rooted in Safety and Belonging: Four Shifts Philanthropy Must Make to Ensure Just Futures for All

Embedded in our country’s history is a compulsion for criminalization– and today, this propensity has reached new heights. Across state and national levels, we, the people risk being criminalized for exercising our first amendment rights, pursuing life-saving and -affirming health care, and engaging civically. This comes as no surprise. The consolidation of state power relies on suppression, with escalating acts of surveillance, imprisonment, and disenfranchisement positioned as forms of protection against difference and disagreement. 

Since the founding of our democracy, criminalization has been a stain on our history. But it has been, and continues to be, employed and nurtured by those seeking to systematically devalue the rights and dignity of certain members of society. These cumulative actions pose an existential threat to our democracy, yes; they also signal something far more concerning. Criminalizing groups of people based on their racial and ethnic identity, gender identity, legal status, or political affiliation clears the path for their exclusion from society. Today’s escalation of immigration enforcement is a prime example of this strategy: neighbors taken from their front yards; children dying in custody; protestors attacked, journalists arrested. With each new act, our country’s long-standing prison industrial complex is supplemented with a deportation industrial complex—and beneath it all, a story, new and old, is being told about who is deserving of safety and belonging in America. 

As funders, we must tell a different story–one that grounds our democracy-saving work not just to defending free and fair elections, but more broadly securing the safety of all by dismantling the conditions that allow for the discarding of any group of peoples. 

These are the beliefs which inspired Just Futures, Borealis Philanthropy’s newest funding Initiative, which aims to resource community safety and justice as a cornerstone of democracy. Based on lessons from the groundbreaking work of the Communities Transforming Policing Fund and Spark Justice Fund, Just Futures urges four strategic shifts that our sector must make to defend democracy by investing in community safety, justice, and belonging.

1. Community Innovation Works. We Must Fund It.

Communities impacted by injustice have long been the birthplaces of policy change. Over-policed communities of color often create, innovate, shape public will while organizing communities and public institutions to reimagine new strategies for safety and justice. From restorative justice hubs to non-police crisis response teams, this work is already happening–and working. 

What’s missing is sustained investment. Over the past two decades, the U.S. prison population has declined from over 2.3 million to just under 1.8 million people. This drop is not due to federal interventions; it is largely attributed to state-level reforms and community-based decarceral strategies. Yet in 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice quietly rescinded more than $800 million in funding that once supported community-led public safety initiatives, including youth development, mental health supports, and reentry services. These disinvestments punish what has been proven to work, leaving frontline organizations scrambling to do more with less, even as they’ve helped reduce recidivism, stabilize neighborhoods, and interrupt cycles of harm. 

2. Narrative Is Being Weaponized. We Must Invest In It As A Core Safety Strategy.

Safety doesn’t just live in policy; it lives in perception. The stories we tell about safety and criminalization shape who is protected, and who gets to belong. Developing a shared story about who gets to see themselves reflected, protected, and valued is central to our ability to build a truly inclusive multiracial democracy. 

In recent years, conservative campaigns—and now, algorithms—have fueled public panic about crime, despite the fact that violent crime has gone down. Still, these narratives create and capitalize on fear to enact draconian policies. False narratives about migrants as violent criminals have been used to validate the expansion of ICE and violent tactics. Similarly, false narratives about crime have been used to justify reactionary policies and budget increases for police and national guard deployment to local cities. In 2024, the homicide rate in Washington, D.C. dropped by 35%, and Chicago saw violent crime fall by more than 13%. Still, national media and conservative influencers continue to frame these cities as overrun by lawlessness, with National Guard deployments descending on these communities. 

We have not done enough to tell the real story: that undocumented people are less violent than U.S. citizens, crime is trending downwards, and we, the people, are capable of reimagining community safety on our own terms. Philanthropy must fund narrative strategists, storytellers, artists, culture builders, and media makers to reclaim the public narrative and tell the truth about who we are, and what keeps us safe.

3. Leadership Pipelines Are Under Attack. We Must Invest in the Next Generation of Movement Leaders.

Across movements, those exercising their First Amendment right to assembly are being targeted. In states like Florida and Texas, legislation has sought to limit student protest and even ban ethnic studies curricula. Meanwhile, formerly incarcerated leaders—many of whom anchor community safety efforts—face exclusion from policy tables despite their lived and learned expertise. Youth organizers have long been at the forefront of social movements, and today they are being criminalized for their activism, with more than 25 youth organizing groups reporting increased surveillance, infiltration, or criminal charges over the last three years. 

Philanthropy must invest in the development, care, and protection of directly impacted leaders who are bringing about a more inclusive future–including developing and supporting fellowship programs, legal defense, and political education efforts. 

4. Power Building Is Democracy’s Lifeline. We Must Support Coalitions That Are Building Power.

Coalition campaigns across the country have secured transformative local and state policy wins: halting jail expansions, ending youth incarceration, and redirecting public dollars from carceral systems toward care. In 2022 and 2023 alone, multiracial alliances stopped jail construction in rural Georgia, ended youth incarceration in New Jersey, restored voting rights in Arkansas, and organized powerful resistance to ICE in California. These victories were democracy in action: the result of coordination, strategy, and sustained grassroots organizing. Despite delivering measurable results, grassroots organizations leading these efforts continue to be sidelined in the work of defending and expanding upon our democracy. 

Extending belonging is one of the most powerful tools we have for ensuring community safety and strengthening true democracy. Philanthropy must recognize the critical role of proximate power-building campaigns and networks building a future where all people are worthy of safety and care–and invest in their visions. Instead, many have lost funding, with more than 550 organizations experiencing cuts, including many key players in cross-sector coalitions. As funders, we can support communities building power by funding shared tables, organizing networks, and coordinated strategies.

The Road Ahead

Democracy doesn’t disappear overnight. It erodes with the criminalization of identity; in the absence of belonging and true community safety. It falters when communities are surveilled but never seen. It crumbles when those most affected by incarceration, surveillance, and disenfranchisement are left out of the decisions made to keep us all safe.

As funders, we have an opportunity and an imperative to fund leaders building a future where every one of us is valued and safe; where we all get to experience the rule of law and are extended the right to belong. Over our work with community partners, the clearest path to this future is by investing front and center by those impacted by the criminal justice system, including formerly incarcerated leaders and community organizers.

As the very concept of safety is being weaponized to re-entrench systems of criminalization and advance an authoritarian agenda, philanthropy faces a pivotal choice: to fund grassroots efforts for belonging, or remain complicit in the erasure of this work and, along with it, our democracy. 

Learn more about the Just Futures Initiative.

Learn more about the Just Futures Initiative’s first-ever, newly-launched Request for Proposals.