Funders Back an Organization that Puts People Impacted by the Justice System in Front
/
DeAnna Hoskins, President & CEO of JustLeadershipUSA, introduces its Building The Table collaborative national initiative to advance race equity at the National League of Cities conference. Photo credit: JLUSA
JustLeadershipUSA isn’t yet 10 years old. It’s an organization founded and led by members of perhaps the country’s most marginalized demographic: folks with previous criminal convictions. But far from being on its back foot next to older criminal justice groups or nonprofits led by people with far more privilege, JLUSA has recently announced two back-to-back criminal justice reform efforts with participation from virtually every sector that either operates within or influences that system — including the Biden administration.
The story of how these efforts came together, and what they may achieve, is something of a masterclass in what can happen when funders let directly impacted people take the lead in finding solutions to the problems that affect them.
A funder, a convening and a report
Last June, with the financial support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, JustLeadershipUSA convened representatives of virtually every professional stakeholder in the criminal justice system, along with directly impacted people, corporate leaders and victims of violent crimes. The goal? To collaborate on proposals to address racial inequities at every level of the system, from local police and prosecutors to the federal government. Biden administration participants, who were present as observers, included representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the White House.
Last month, the results of that convening were published as “Building the Table: Advancing Race Equity in the Criminal Legal System.” Rather than focusing on specific legislative proposals, the report calls for overall changes to the systemic policies and practices that cause such a disproportionate effect on communities of color. It recommends strategies that include building relationships and coordinating action among all of the stakeholders involved in an area’s criminal justice system, from victims and prosecutors to formerly convicted people and families of those who are currently incarcerated, and coordinating action across multiple segments of an area’s criminal justice system.
Along with broad recommendations, the report includes specific examples like the Multi-Cultural Community Council in Yolo County, California, a group of community leaders recruited by that county’s district attorney to offer advice on policy decisions.
JustLeadershipUSA President and CEO DeAnna Hoskins said that MacArthur supported the effort as a kind of pilot project to see what would happen if an organization of, by and for justice-system-impacted people were to take the lead in creating and shepherding such a gathering.
“Could we do it, could we get the respect of prosecutors, victims’ services, the Department of Justice?” Hoskins said. “And not only were we able to get them to the table, we were able to navigate and build consensus with them.” Of course, it didn’t hurt that Hoskins, who took over JLUSA in 2018, previously served as a senior policy advisor in former President Obama’s Justice Department.
MacArthur didn’t back the convening and subsequent report — to the tune of an estimated mid-six figures — on a whim. According to JLUSA, MacArthur has funded the organization since 2016, spending well into seven figures. But while Hoskins is unsurprisingly complementary to the foundation, note what she says about how MacArthur came forward to support her organization’s moonshot. It’s undoubtedly something every nonprofit leader wishes they could say about their own funders’ approach to ambitious projects.
“We had a gut feeling that this would work — we just needed the opportunity for a funder to trust in us to do it,” Hoskins said. “I think that’s really important, because a lot of times, funders want to tell grantees what to do, it has to fit in their priorities. And [MacArthur] was willing to say, ‘Let’s think outside the box with how we still accomplish our mission and vision around criminal justice, but support our grantees to authentically be themselves.’”
A new “sustainable entity” for justice system reform
Last June’s convening wasn’t the only such gathering that JLUSA had a hand in. Blue Meridian Partners, the well-resourced antipoverty collaborative launched by some of the nation’s biggest funders, also held a criminal-justice-related gathering last year in partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities. Its focus was on engaging the federal government to advance social and economic opportunity for people with past criminal convictions. Blue Meridian asked Hoskins of JLUSA to lead that conversation.
The ultimate result of that convening is the upcoming debut of a new organization, the Just Us Coordinating Council, which will be formally launched on April 29. Its initial goals include pushing for the White House, Congress and federal agencies to move $10 billion in already-allocated American Rescue Plan Act money to provide comprehensive, sustainable funding for reentry and workforce development initiatives benefiting currently and formerly incarcerated people — and to remove the barriers that make it more difficult for such programs to access federal money. The report that resulted from the Blue Meridian convening, “Building the Table,” was announced with a press conference on March 21.
Blue Meridian funded that convening, and the resulting report, through its Justice and Mobility Fund collaboration with the Ford Foundation and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. According to JLUSA, Blue Meridian has committed a seven-figure investment to support the new organization’s work.
Le’Ann Duran, Blue Meridian’s senior director of portfolio strategy and management, said that JLUSA is uniquely positioned to “bring a deep understanding of federal agencies to bear on this issue.” Equally important, though, Duran said Blue Meridian doesn’t believe it can achieve its goals of creating economic and social mobility for people and families in poverty without considering people who have been impacted by the criminal legal system. That includes providing support to impacted people so they can advocate for the solutions that will actually help them. As we’ve seen, those are themes both national and regional justice reform funders have been paying attention to.
“Just Leadership’s commitment to centering and elevating people directly impacted by the criminal legal system, and their commitment to hiring leaders with lived experience, helps us feel confident that the solutions they would bring to bear would be responsive to the communities we’re all trying to help,” Duran said.
For her part, Hoskins is looking ahead both to the new council’s immediate work on workforce development and economic mobility and to what she hopes will come next. “We want the JCC to be a sustainable entity so that these issues are always at the forefront and so we can keep pushing the envelope,” she said, just as the NAACP and AARP continue to work for their constituents no matter who’s in the White House or Congress. “We’re looking to become a civil rights entity that speaks specifically for this population.”
