California Isn’t as Progressive as You Think: Guidance for Funding Justice When, Where, and How It Matters Most
By California Criminal Justice Funders Members: Iris Garcia, Fela Thomas, and Adrienne Skye Roberts; and Movement Advisors: Dr. Tanisha Cannon, Claudia Gonzalez, and Sandy Valenciano
The 2024 election results revealed a far less progressive California than is often characterized. This regressive and dangerous political landscape raises many questions for state funders committed to investing in communities impacted by prisons, policing, and criminalization. How do we most effectively orient ourselves and our work in this context? What relationships do we need to nourish and build to sustain our collective efforts? What is the courageous stance for California funders now? Donald Trump’s presidency has already begun to cause devastating impacts on our movements and communities throughout the country, and we must look no further than California’s elections to understand what the fight for safety and justice looks like in our own state. The defeat of Proposition 6 (removing slavery from the state constitution) and passage of Proposition 36 (changes misdemeanors to felony charges for possession of certain drugs and theft) make evident the Democratic Party’s investment in returning to tough-on-crime rhetoric and policies that will fracture communities and increase incarceration and its dehumanizing effects. In the face of this escalation of punishment and repression, California funders have an obligation to recommit to bold actions rooted in our solidarity with grassroots movements.
Since the election, members of the California Criminal Justice Funders Group and three grassroots organizers (who also serve the group’s Movement Advisors) met to discuss what is needed from California funders now. Based on these conversations, we offer the following guidance for funders to reimagine how they support grassroots movements for safety and justice as we come together for the long and difficult fight ahead.
1. Support the Needs of Grassroots Organizations and the People Powering These Movements
Invest in Movement Infrastructure
For formerly incarcerated people working in criminal justice reform, this isn’t just a job—it’s personal. Many of us are in this fight because we’ve lived through mass incarceration. And yet, we are left behind when it comes to basic financial security. Nonprofit wages are already low, and most of us do not have access to retirement benefits, comprehensive health coverage, Social Security, or other safety nets. This career also comes with personal sacrifices: advocates work beyond 9-to-5, organize in their communities, and show up for impacted families. This work becomes emotionally and physically exhausting.
Without real investment in the infrastructure of our organizations, we are losing some of our most experienced and knowledgeable leaders to burnout or financial instability. They are left struggling financially when it’s time for them to step back, and often hesitate to do so as a result. This is a failure of the systems we claim to be building for justice. We need funding to build real infrastructure: retirement plans, additional health benefits, and resources to help create stability for people and their families. These investments are about the future of this movement: a secure, supported workforce means we are better equipped and healthy enough to keep fighting.
Build Power and Leadership Development of Directly Impacted People
For too long, the voices of people directly impacted by prisons, policing, and criminalization have been pushed to the margins. Decisions are made without the input of those who understand the stakes firsthand. When directly impacted people lead, the work becomes sharper, more grounded, and deeply connected to the realities of those most affected. Building power and leadership for directly impacted people isn’t just about creating opportunities; it’s about dismantling the barriers that have historically kept them out of leadership spaces. These barriers include everything from discrimination in hiring to stigma that follows them after incarceration. Even within our movements, there can be unspoken hierarchies and dichotomies that sideline directly impacted voices. Developing leadership means providing tangible support, such as leadership pipelines that include training, mentorship, and access to resources that help people lead with confidence.
Funders who are serious about dismantling systemic harm must prioritize grants that support pathways for directly impacted individuals to rise into leadership. When we center directly impacted leaders, we also send a powerful message: their voices matter, their experiences are a source of power, and they are not defined by the systems that tried to break them. This is about more than representation; it’s about shifting the balance of power and ensuring that the solutions to mass incarceration come from those who’ve lived through it.
Fund Healing and Rest for Grassroots Organizers
Directly impacted leaders experience multiple forms of trauma, including discreet and ongoing incidents that occur within the system, intergenerational trauma, and the re-traumatization of continued exposure to systemic oppression through movement work itself. This often results in serious health concerns, forcing organizers to leave the movement. Funders must shift their priorities and values to take into account the whole lives of organizers. How are funders contributing to harmful conditions that cause re-traumatization of our movement leaders? The culture of philanthropy often asks directly impacted people to perform their trauma in order to receive money and pressures organizers to deliver outcomes that may promote a foundation’s reputation at a cost to the organizers themselves. Within this context, people’s bodies, spirits, and humanity are overlooked for the perpetuation of insidious power dynamics.
The current political landscape is perpetuating trauma in all its forms, therefore, healing must play a critical role in funders’ support. We must invest in the trauma healing of directly impacted leaders and demonstrate care for the well-being and sustainability of the people doing this work and not just deliverables. This can include funding sabbaticals, culturally relevant mental health support, cultural work that transforms trauma, and offering supplemental healing justice grants for groups to determine how they want to engage in collective care.
Create Spaces to Support Collective Strategy and Coalition Building
The Trump administration and California’s tough-on-crime policies will make organizing for community safety and decarceration even more burdensome. Right-wing groups are emboldened and will continue to attempt to dismantle and undermine our movements’ local wins. It is crucial to develop a collective strategy and alignment amongst allied organizations in order to create a strong defensive front against the Trump administration. This will allow us to build the people power necessary to hold people in power accountable, including the Democratic Party for their complicity and collusion with tough-on-crime policies and the overall shift to the Right. As a movement, we must challenge their values and make sure our vision is reflected in their policies.
Funders must invest in local, regional, and statewide coalitions that can support strategy cohesion and alignment. Funders can do more than just write checks; they can play a key role in strengthening coalitions working on criminal justice reform. Coalitions need support with capacity building, technical assistance, and connections to key networks, including elected officials. We need funders to think bigger, create spaces where organizations can come together, and build collective strategies.
Providing multi-year, flexible funding would give coalitions the stability to adapt and grow rather than being stuck chasing short-term dollars. Funders can also offer program staff to join coalitions, providing additional capacity and helping bridge gaps between different efforts to create the stronger, more unified front that this moment requires.
2. Adopt Funding Practices that Respond to the Urgency and Complexity of the Moment
Fund Beyond the Coasts and the “Usual Suspects”
The 2024 California election results show us that the majority of the counties beyond the coastline voted for Trump, against Proposition 6, and for Proposition 36. These results challenge the perception of California as a progressive state. There is a direct correlation between these results and what regions of the state receive philanthropic dollars for community organizing. Funders continue to focus their investments within the progressive hubs of the Bay Area and Los Angeles County. While we want to ensure the sustainability of seasoned organizations, we need new funding strategies that reach the regions of the state most impacted by prisons and detention centers.
Counties like Kern, San Joaquin, and Fresno voted against removing slavery from the state constitution because they lacked the outreach and education needed to understand the issue. These are the same communities most impacted by prisons and detention centers, yet they are overlooked when it comes to resources for organizing. Without real investment, misinformation and systemic barriers will persist. The failure of Prop 6 makes it clear: we need to invest where it matters most.
Fund Alternatives to the Prison Industrial Complex
Overcriminalization, capitalism, and the war on poverty is the root cause of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). Why is it that we continue to pull people out of the river without identifying why they are falling in in the first place? Beneath the surface lies a complex nexus of socio-economic and political harm that leaves the true root causes unaddressed. Given the return to aggressive, tough-on-crime policies, it is more important than ever to fund alternatives to the PIC. Doing so demonstrates a commitment to a world that does not rely on incarceration and criminalization to solve its problems. Many abolitionist organizations are actively creating these alternatives, such as youth programming, supportive housing, mental health programs, and mutual aid structures such as bail funds and eviction defense.
Funders must be intentional about investing in these alternatives, including divestment and investment campaigns, diversion programs at every level, early community interventions that will reduce interactions between communities and the police, and law enforcement accountability groups. In addition to funding these alternatives, we need investment in the statewide coordination of these efforts for greater alignment. Furthermore, we must invest in a narrative strategy that gives these alternatives to incarceration visibility and legitimacy by uplifting their impact and successes.
Lean Into the Intersections and Break Out of Funding Silos
Too many philanthropic institutions are organized in issue-based silos that undermine the cross-sectional support that organizations need to build and support their bases, and engage them in fights. This moment invites us to explore cross-sector connections, such as the connection between education and the criminal injustice system, climate change and housing. The current funding dynamic constricts organizations’ ability to explore solutions that are interconnected. For example, the Blue Sky Climate and Emergency Response Reform highlights the urgent need to address the intersection of climate change, labor rights, and prison conditions.
Trump’s denial of climate science and rollbacks on environmental protections will exacerbate these issues. In response, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, environmental advocates, and WorkSafe are partnering to push for policies that protect incarcerated individuals from climate dangers, ensuring emergency response plans that prioritize human dignity. By learning from organizations and leaders that work across issue areas, philanthropic organizations can reshape themselves to better serve this moment. If done with intention, philanthropic organizations can engage in new, intersectional ways of grant-making while continuing to support individual organizations and communities.
3. Be Prepared to Proactively Respond to Emergent Needs of Frontline Organizers
Support Defensive Strategies that Create Safety for Organizers
Community organizers put themselves on the line every day. The risk is especially high for directly impacted leaders. We already see an increase in surveillance, political repression, and threats to the careers and lives of our movement leaders. The likelihood of organizers fighting legal cases will increase with Trump’s policies and the intensification of policing and political repression. Philanthropy often doesn’t respond quickly enough to support people facing these circumstances.
We must ensure that the people doing this work are protected legally and be proactive in preparing for what is to come. We need funders who are thinking long-term about defensive strategies for organizers and communities vulnerable to arrest and criminalization of their resistance. We need funders to be innovative in developing legal infrastructure, including funding bail money and legal retainers for organizations. And we must consider how philanthropic institutions can put their own necks on the line as a defensive strategy for the people in our movements who are most vulnerable.
Conclusion
Octavia Butler wrote, “All that you touch You change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” The question is not whether California will change - it already has. The question is: Will we shape that change in ways that advance justice, or will we allow fear, complacency, and systemic oppression to dictate the future? Now is the time for California funders to move beyond “business as usual.” This means investing in the infrastructure of grassroots organizations, ensuring the sustainability of directly impacted leaders, prioritizing the regions and communities that have been historically underfunded, funding movement strategy and coalition building, and breaking out of funding silos. Funders have an essential role to play in being true partners in the fight for justice. We call you in to take action now:
- Assess your portfolio and ask: does it reflect the needs of the political moment?
- Never make decisions in isolation; always engage organizations and communities in any and all choices.
- Make funding commitments that are flexible, multi-year, and responsive to emergent needs.
- Do the work to restructure how philanthropic institutions are organized in regards to communities and not issues. Do the internal learning to understand how to make these changes in thoughtful ways.
