Each grant is $17,160.
Black Prisoners Caucus (Monroe, WA) – Founded in 1972, BPC organizes inside the Washington State Reformatory to provide a medium for African American prisoners to work collectively to improve their family relationships, their facility, and the communities they are absent from but still belong to. This grant will support three projects: preserving and communicating the BPC’s legacy through written and video media; workshops to promote holistic understanding of and healing from the root causes of incarceration; and education and advocacy to bring back the parole board in Washington State.
Gallatin Valley Human Rights Task Force (Bozeman, MT) – GVHRTF works to make Gallatin Valley a better home for all by promoting, defending, and securing the full range of human rights. This grant will fund the work of the Salud y Comunidad Community Advisory Board, including collaborating with other organizations to establish an Immigrant Rights Center and fight LR121 (a referendum which would “deny certain state services to illegal aliens”), and its ongoing organizing and leadership development in the migrant community.
Racial Disparity Project (Seattle, WA) – The Racial Disparity Project works to reduce the harm caused by the war on drugs to communities of color. RDP is beginning to organize active and former drug users, along the lines of “users’ unions” established in Vancouver, San Francisco, and New York. Our grant will fund a women’s program within that organizing model, which will address the root causes of their street involvement, incorporating an analysis of gender, sexism, and exploitation, as they develop leadership and build power.
Native Action (Lame Deer, MT) –Native Action is a leading model for citizen empowerment on Indian Reservations, bridging the racial, socio-economic, and environmental barriers by empowering, challenging, and educating people in order to protect the environment and enhance the quality of life for future generations. This grant will support a campaign to organize the five villages of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation to collectively create a groundbreaking Tribal Guardian Ad Litem program. Currently vulnerable Cheyenne children are unrepresented in tribal courts due to their parents’ criminalization; the GAL program will train and empower tribal members to give those children a voice in the courts.
Rural Organizing Project (Scappoose, OR) – ROP works to strengthen the skills, resources and vision of primary leadership in local, autonomous human dignity groups across the state with the goal of keeping such groups a vibrant source for a just democracy. This grant will support ROP’s work statewide and with 5 small-town human dignity groups to respond to the deportations crisis and the criminalization of immigrants in Oregon using a “safe and welcoming communities” approach that combines long-term culture shift of rural Oregon communities with strategic intervention to challenge local practices that sweep immigrants towards the deportations pipeline.
Seattle Young People’s Project (Seattle, WA) – Seattle Young People’s Project is a youth-led, adult supported social justice organization that empowers youth (ages 13-18) to express themselves and to take action on the issues that affect their lives. At SYPP, young people gain an anti-oppression analysis, learn grassroots community organizing skills, and take action for positive community change. This grant will provide general operating support for its ongoing movement building work, including its two-pronged attack on the school-to-prison pipeline: 1) organizing for a Restorative Justice pilot program in Seattle schools, and 2) the Social Justice Leadership Pipeline.