SPARK GRANTEE PARTNER, ALABAMA JUSTICE
SPARK GRANTEE PARTNER, THE FINAL 5 CAMPAIGN
The Spark Justice Fund (SJF) resources grassroots organizing groups that are ending money bail and unjust pretrial detention policies. The Fund focuses on supporting grassroots and power-building groups to decarcerate, close jails, and advance transformative visions of pretrial justice in the communities most impacted by incarceration.
The SJF was launched in 2019 and has moved more than $10.4 million to 62 organizations!
SPARK GRANTEE PARTNER, LOUISIANA ORGANIZATION FOR REFUGEES & IMMIGRANTS
THE LATEST FROM SPARK
- Beyond Survival: Resourcing Rest to Sustain Movement Building
- TOOLKIT: The Fight Against Surveillance: Our Neighbors, Our Safety
- What We Learned: Borealis at 2023 UNITY Summit
- What We Learned: Pathways to Liberation Are Forged by Community-Led Organizing
- SJF Moves Over $1.9 Million to Grassroots Organizations Working Towards Transformative Community-Led Visions of Justice
The SJF prioritizes funding for:
- Decarcerative policy reform and/or policy implementation efforts to end cash bail and other key policy drivers of jail populations.
- Campaigns to close jails or stop jail expansion and drive investment into the communities most impacted by incarceration.
- The creation of innovative, community-driven alternatives to pretrial detention.
SPARK 2022 HIGHLIGHTS
And working on:
- Policy Reforms and Budget Advocacy: Changing standard operations in the criminal legal system through amending, repealing, or reforming laws—including work to divest from mass incarceration by encouraging city and state officials to prioritize investments in research-backed programs that reduce mass incarceration and increase public safety.
- Jail Closure Campaigns: Closing and stopping the construction of jail facilities, reducing the number of beds, and minimizing the number of individuals who can be incarcerated for low-level offenses in localities.
- Abolishing Cash Bail: Eliminating cash bail to reduce racial and economic inequities in the criminal legal system by allowing courts to ignore one’s ability to pay as a condition of release and instead focus on other factors for pretrial detention.
- Piloting Community-Led Alternatives to Safety: Creating small-scale projects intended to challenge the status quo and prove the viability of reducing incarceration through safe, effective alternatives.
- Mutual Aid and Power Building: Meeting the urgent survival needs of communities impacted by mass incarceration.
What The SJF does not fund:
- Direct services work that is not connected to advocacy/organizing to address systemic issues
- Training for police officers
- Police-Led Associations, Foundations, or Athletic Leagues
- University-led research and centers
- Individuals
- Government entities
- International projects
The SJF Grantmaking Process
The Spark Justice Fund works closely with an Advisory Committee that contributes thought leadership and insight to guide our grant-making efforts. This advisory role was established to involve a diverse array of stakeholders in meaningful discussions aimed at exploring the national landscape, incorporating best practices, identifying emerging innovations, and amplifying the voices and experiences of those most affected.
Current Funding Opportunities
The Spark Justice Fund is not currently accepting LOIs.
Donor Benefits
The Spark Justice donor collaborative offers funders:
- Learning opportunities about the grassroots campaigns SJF is supporting for pretrial justice and racial justice.
- Updates about SJF’s current grantmaking priorities and the field of pretrial justice organizing and movement-building.
- Feedback from executive directors, specifically Black EDs, about what’s happening in the movement and ways to respond to organizers’ needs.
- Access to a community of donors invested in issues such as digital surveillance, pretrial detention, as well as closing jails and prisons.