Human Rights

Overview

The Foundation’s Human Rights program seeks to center people impacted by mass criminalization; dismantle systems of punishment in the United States; and invest in communities rather than prisons and surveillance, promoting practices of healing and community accountability rooted in our common humanity.

To meet these goals, the Human Rights program invests in three key areas:

1. Building the power and capacity of grassroots movements to fight to dismantle systems of punishment,
2. Supporting healthy ecosystems that center grassroots community organizing within and across movements addressing mass criminalization of people, and
3. Advancing reimagined approaches to safety, justice, and accountability that are not rooted in or appended to current punishment systems.

The program invests in the leadership of people who have been directly impacted by these systems and who are seeking transformational change of the current notion of safety and well-being. The program makes grants nationally and in California, Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina—four key states in the movement to reimagine new approaches to safety, justice, and accountability.