California Criminal Justice Funders Group Values & Commitments

CCJFG’s Steering Committee recently engaged in a process to identify values and commitments to guide our work. We invite CCJFG members to review the following values, and the commitments they represent, and join us in embodying and striving towards these values from whatever current location and perspective you may hold. 

Anti-Oppression & Abolition

1. We work from an anti-oppression framework. We actively support work, policies, and organizations that strive to undo the racism, patriarchy, gender-based violence, transphobia and capitalism that is foundational to the criminal legal system and philanthropy.

2. We believe in and support abolitionist strategies, including: moratoriums on building new prisons, jails, and other systems of detention; decarceration by releasing people from systems of detention; and excarceration (i.e.,strategies that divert people away from the prison industrial complex to address health and safety). 

Centering Directly-Impacted People

3. We center and trust the experience, vision, and leadership of people directly impacted by incarceration and the criminal/legal systems.

4. We encourage philanthropic institutions and donors to support organizations led by people directly impacted by incarceration and people of color through meaningful partnerships and long-term investments.

5. We acknowledge that incarceration impacts communities in a range of overlapping and insidious ways, including barriers to housing, employment, community safety, citizenship status, family reunification, gender self-determination, and basic rights. We strive to highlight and support people living multi-issue lives facing multi-issue challenges. 

Learning With Humility

6. We promote a culture of inquiry and humility by learning from the expertise of people directly impacted by the criminal legal system and other community leaders working to end the criminalization of communities of color and of all people. 

7. We engage funders in collective learning about criminal justice issues, important change strategies and the movement to end prisons, criminalization, and mass incarceration. 

Collaboration, Engagement & Action

8. We value and model collaboration and partnership by building solidarity amongst funders and movement organizations. We believe that we are stronger and more effective when we are collaborating and supporting one another.

9. We transform our learning into action by creating opportunities to build meaningful partnerships with grassroots and allied organizations and the funding community.