CJI Launches Campaign to Support Formerly Incarcerated Women & Girls who are Transforming the Movement to End Mass Incarceration Brooklyn, NEW YORK, February 1, 2020 – The Circle for Justice Innovations (CJI) is an organization that works to end mass incarceration and criminalization throughout the country. It does this by forming giving circles…
CJI welcomes a new fiscal sponsor, NEO Philanthropy in January 2019! We’re excited that our partnership with NEO will make it possible for us to work with organizations that don’t have 501(c)(3)s! Wider reach and faster processing of grants will allow CJI to better impact the movement! Welcome to your blog post. Use this space…
From October 2-6, 2019 the CJI team was in Montgomery, Alabama, to launch the newest and first fund of its kind in CJI history, the FreeHer Circle. Focused on ending the mass criminalization and incarceration of women and girls, the CJI FreeHer Circle commenced at the third annual FreeHer National Conference, organized by Andrea James…
CJI Celebrates Andrea James & the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women & Girls Deborah Peterson Small Last week, CJI staff and FreeHer Circle members traveled to Montgomery, Alabama to join more than 500 formerly incarcerated women and girls and other criminal justice activists at the Second Annual Conference of the…
227 Duffield St., located on Abolitionist Place in downtown Brooklyn, is the last known standing historic site in Brooklyn where well-known abolitionists lived and where people found freedom through the Underground Railroad. Its demolition is imminent. Since the City’s downtown Brooklyn development plan demolished all other Duffield Street historic residences, 227 Duffield represents the last…
GRANTEE HIGHLIGHT: The Ordinary People’s Society, and Kenny Glasgow, E. D.Let My People Vote! In 2001, Kenny Glasgow began asking an important question: How do we change society to make it fair for ordinary people? His organization, The Ordinary People Society, (TOPS), funded by CJI since 2003, exists to do just that. Recognizing the…
CJIs Q4D Committee at work reviwing more than 80 grant applications. The Circle for Justice Innovations (CJI) is pleased to announce that in partnership with the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Prisoners and Families Movement (FICPFM) awarded $440,000 through the Quest for Democracy Fund (Q4D). Funding will support 20 non-profit organizations led by formerly incarcerated people.…
We are taking the “Criminal” out of our Name Beginning in January 2019, the Criminal Justice Initiative (CJI) will be the Circle for Justice Innovations (CJI). It may seem like a small change, but the shift is a significant one – and denotes what sets us apart in the philanthropic world. This name…
“Right of Return Co-Chairs Jesse Krimes and Russell Craig and The Soze Agency is proud to announce the second year of the Right of Return USA Fellowship, generously funded by the Open Philanthropy Project. The fellowship program will continue to invest in formerly incarcerated artists, supporting the creation of original works produced in partnership with…
The FICPFM (Formerly Incarcerated, Convicted People and Families Movement) Conference was amazing with almost 10,000 attendees! We announced the new Quest for Democracy grants program during the plenary and held our Political Education Meeting with Circle Members, along with Dorsey Nunn from Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Susan Burton from A New Way of…