Reforming the Housing and Justice Systems

(Jan. 26, 2024) In December 2023, the Community Foundation’s Board of Governors voted to approve $475,000 in grants in a new funding category, Reforming the Housing and Justice Systems. Through this initiative, we invest in tackling the root causes of some of our biggest issues to create transformational change. Grantees include:

Greater Memphis Housing Justice Project (an initiative of the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis and the Memphis Public Interest Law Center) · $165,000
to address the housing crisis in Memphis

Just City · $100,000
to transform our local criminal justice system

Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH) · $210,000
to address the root causes of inequality

Process & Decision-Making

Making the grant awards was the culmination of a year-long process in which our volunteer Community Initiatives committee examined where best to direct our attention, dollars, and convening capacity going forward. With the facilitation of consultants Shannon M.B. Dixon and Cardell Orrin, committee members learned more about the philanthropic and nonprofit landscape, including exploring collective impact and trust-based philanthropy models and fostering funding equity.

The committee decided that the Community Foundation will invest in innovations and solutions that attack root causes of complex issues and launched an application process soliciting applications from area nonprofits working to produce systems-level change.

Through a process that included deep conversations and site visits to applicant organizations, the committee narrowed its funding focus to two systems, Housing and Justice, and further refined the applicant pool to a selection of three grantees.

Click here for the perspective of Community Initiatives committee chair Amanda Lee Keikialoha Savage on the importance of community-voiced grantmaking and the development of the Reforming the Housing and Justice Systems initiative.

Grantee Impact & Relationship Building

Over 2024 and in the coming years, the Community Foundation and the Community Initiatives committee will remain in close relationship with these grantees by offering both financial and non-monetary support.

We intend to support them with multiyear, non-restricted grants to propel their work, which includes:

Greater Memphis Housing Justice Project (an initiative of the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis and the Memphis Public Interest Law Center) · $165,000
The Greater Memphis Housing Justice Project is a multi-year advocacy project designed to conduct research, raise awareness, tell renters’ stories, and explore policy and structural changes to address the housing crisis in Memphis. With this grant, its co-grantees will change attitudes, practices, and structural barriers that are impediments to housing security for Memphians by shaping narrative, building community power, and advocating for changes in policy and practice.

Just City · $100,000
Just City will use this grant to contribute to reducing the complex community problem of crime and poverty by transforming our local criminal justice system so it fair for all people, regardless of wealth, race, or ethnicity. Each of its program areas—Clean Slate, Bail Fund, and Court Watch—is designed to directly support people, but more importantly, to further inform its advocacy efforts and address the root causes of harmful policies.

Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH) · $210,000
With this grant, MICAH will address root causes of inequity in our economic, education, and legal/justice systems through a dual approach of organizing issue-based campaigns for social justice and developing leaders who are powerful agents of change in their communities. Its goal is to deepen organizing work by increasing staff and volunteer leader capacity to develop more long-term strategic issue campaigns, expanding its impact from the local to the state level.

Additionally, we commit to:

• leveraging our committees and connections to advocate for their work
• offering fundraising training and skills development as requested
• convening the necessary stakeholders within the systems they seek to reform
• offering communications support to clarify the mission and work of grantees to our donors and the greater Memphis community

We look forward to sharing more about the initiative and its successes in the future.