2024 Liberation Fund Funder's Briefing

Welcome

Host Committee

Flora Birdzell

Roth Herrlinger

Emily Williams

Julio Marcial (he/his)

Senior Vice President, Programs

Lisa Small (she/her) Director, Youth & Transformative Justice

Sarah Vail

(Click the “Q&A” button below to enter question)

Transformative Shifts in Youth Justice Since 2017

• Youth arrest rates decreased by 75%

• 10 youth prisons closed

• Youth incarceration rates decreased by 60%

• Reinvested over $300 million in government funding from punitive measures to youth development initiatives

How was this possible?

Unlocking Change

Exploring the Causes Behind the 50% Rise in Incarceration Among Girls and Gender Expansive Youth Since 2020

Highlighting the Cost It costs $750k to incarcerate one youth

Why Now?

• We’ve hit a wall, efforts stagnated, elected officials not feeling the urgency, Probation et al are gumming up the works

• Sexual abuse allegations against Probation represent an enormous opportunity to further delegitimize both juvenile probation and child welfare

• Opportunity to mobilize, organize and politicize the 1000’s that are filing claims + the 1000’s in the community who are survivors across 3 generations

• Push for change that goes beyond a class of claimants and beyond recompense for past harms; indict and take down the entire system

Catalyst for Change

Harnessing a Gender Based Approach, Championed by Survivors

• Despite strides, the quest remains: eradicating the incarceration of girls and gender expansive youth.

• A gender based approach, led by survivors, can be a key driver for a larger movement for change.

• A one size fits all approach doesn’t work

“We don’t do systems change for only one population.”

Jessica Nowlan Liberation Fund Partner

The Liberation Fund

The Liberation Fund centers a movement building vision to create a blueprint by 10 community organizations, setting the course for a deep investment in alternatives and healing for GGE young people.

The Liberation Fund

Pooled grants and contributions from funders and individual donors

Provides infrastructure funding & general operating support grants

Facilitates peer to peer learning, collaboration, relationship building & healing

Leverages inside/outside strategies

The Liberation Fund Community

“These organizations who are here–I’ve encountered so many of these and they are powerhouses, but we have never had a chance to really work together or talk to each other before now, so bringing us together this way is really exciting."—Liberation Fund Partner

The Liberation Fund Facilitators

Facilitators

Organizing Roots

Jessica Nowlan

Reimagine Freedom

Dani Kim

Organizing Roots

Tia Martinez (all pronouns)

(she/her)

(they/them)

Tia Martinez (all pronouns)

Organizing Roots

Facilitator Bios

Jessica Nowlan

(she/her)

Reimagine Freedom

Dani Kim (they/them)

Organizing Roots

Tia Elena Martinez has over 25 years’ experience working for social justice in working class communities of color in the United States. Over the decades her work spanned a wide range of issues including mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline, K 12 education, the HIV epidemic, the war on drugs, homelessness, affordable housing, disconnected youth, and immigration. She is currently the Managing Director of Organizing Roots, an organization that seeks to advance racial, gender, economic, and health justice by providing grassroots organizing groups with a potent combination of capacity building and coaching on conscious organizing and movement building, strategy development, and data.

Jessica is the previous executive director of Young Women’s Freedom Center - YWFC, where she supported the organization's growth from 5 to 45 staff members and 1 to 5 locations and increased the annual budget by over 1700%. During her tenure at YWFC, Jessica also drafted and launched a Freedom Charter with a base of over 400 formerly incarcerated women, young women, and trans people of all genders. She is driven in her work by her experiences navigating the juvenile justice system as a young person and poverty, houselessness, and intimate partner violence as a single mother.

As the president of Reimagine Freedom, Jessica is nurturing the vision of the Freedom Charter, and mobilizing the resources and power to ensure this movement is successful and sustainable.

Dani Kim is a social movement organizer with over 25 years' experience. They have organized in schools and neighborhoods, on college campuses and on the buses of Los Angeles to build the power of workingclass communities of color to transform society. Dani has nearly a decade of director and executive level leadership and is a skilled facilitator, trainer, public speaker and writer. They have a background as a professional scholar and educator, which includes teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder, the University of Denver and Georgetown University. They also served as a school district administrator in Denver Public Schools. They are currently CoManaging Director of Organizing Roots, which seeks to advance racial, gender, economic, and health justice by providing grassroots organizing groups with a potent combination of capacity building and coaching on conscious organizing and movement building, strategy development, and data.

What Is Unique About The Liberation Fund?

Not just another report Focus on Girls and GenderExpansive Youth

Addressing root causes

Not waiting on Law Enforcement

Estimated number of girls and gender expansive touched by the criminal punishment system in Los Angeles County in 2023.

4 in Secure Youth Treatment Facility

17 in Camp 23 in Juvenile Hall

114 in Private Out of Home Placement

317 Home on Probation

(Wardship, Non wardship, and Informal)

690 Referred to Probation

882 Arrested

Source: Numbers for SYTF, Camp, and Juvenile Hall from November 6. 2023 Memo to LA BOS from County of Los Angeles Probation Department; Arrest numbers are from 2022 posted on Open Justice by CA DOJ; All other numbers rely on 2018 from CA DOJ (last time county data was released) reduced by the percent drop in statewide figures between 2018 and 2022.

475* girls and gender expansive youth are incarcerated, in inadequate placements, or home on probation

*comprised of youth in probation camps, halls and SYTF, out of-home placements, and home on probation

Creating the Story of Hope

Hope turns 18 and enters the adult system

The Story of “Hope”: The Big Picture

GENERATIONS

Racism

Poverty

Gender Violence (Historic, Systemic, Structural)

MOTHERS

Housing and Economic Instability

Family Separation

GGE YOUTH

Hope becomes a parent

Abuse in Foster Care

Criminalize

Hope’s Survival Strategies

Criminalize and Demonize

Parents and Guardians

School Pushout

Hope is arrested

Detention / Incarceration

Root Causes System Response System Trap Programming Gap

Harmful “out of home” Congregate Placement and Supervision

Run Away / Violate Conditions

Bench Warrant / Reoffend

Deeper Involvement in the Street Economy

The state has failed in its duty to protect 3,800 Children

“Experts say the volume is unlike anything they’ve heard of in local government.”

—Los Angeles Times, 4/8/23

“The thing that’s so disturbing from our perspective is they throw this out as a line item in some budget document and, if it’s true, it would be the most massive sex abuse scandal imaginable.”

—Attorney Stewart Mollrich, with a firm representing some of the claims in Los Angeles Times, 5/1/23

Ka’Lee Mathew’s Story

“We need to stop incarcerating these youth. These facilities are causing harm…Please consider us as you would your own children; you wouldn't wish for them to be subjected to these facilities.”

The New Story of Hope

Root Causes System Response

MOTHERS GENERATIONS

Close alignment with groups working to keep her in school and out of group care through CPS

GGE YOUTH

Racism

Poverty Gender Violence (Historic, Systemic, Structural)

Housing and Economic Instability

Family Separation

Abuse in Foster Care

Criminalize Hope’s Survival Strategies

School Pushout

Hope turns 18 and enters the adult system

Hope and her family break the cycle. Self determination is restored to three generations: Grandma, Hope and her siblings, and the grand babies

Break the System Trap and fill the Program gap with GGE-Specific Interventions + Power Building

Criminalize Parents and Guardians

Resourcing young people so they don’t need to return to the street economy and families so they don’t need to give up thier children

Close the front door

Hope is arrested

…makelongpromised diversion,areality

Hope becomes a parent X X X X

Hope and her guardians go to gender specific YES teams and community led restorative & transformative justice processes…

…never gets placed in juvenile hall, a camp, or congregate care…

Detention / Incarceration

Building the alternative to Probation

Expanded alternatives to incarceration for

GGE Youth

Harmful “out of home” Congregate Placement and Supervision

…and free up the money needed to support and grow this alternative system of healing, love, and home care.

Run Away / Violate Conditions

Bench Warrant / Reoffend

Close the back door

Credible messengers and YES teams provide circles of support and healing … and address structural drivers –income, jobs, and housing

Deeper Involvement in the Street Economy

Advocacy and organizing partners work to put an end to bench warrants for probation violations…

…has the root causes of her challenges addressed comprehensively…

Liberation Fund Blueprint and Strategies

Abigail Richards (she/her)

Co Executive Director

Young Women’s Freedom Center

Liberation Fund Blueprint and Strategies

Youth & Community

Power Building

Systems Change

Advocacy

Capacity Building Programs & Service

Delivery

Community Partners Aligning Priorities

Intersectional Strategies for Liberatory Pathways

GGE youth face multiple forms of injustice and inequity. To solve these pressing problems, we are working together to build the world these young people deserve.

• Family & family like housing

• Safe & inclusive schools

• Jobs

• Mentors & case managers

• LGBTQI+ advocates & service providers

• Family reunification specialists

• Organizers & power builders

• Immigration advocates

• Reproductive justice practitioners

• Legal aid and advocates

• Data and evaluation experts

• Arts/healing/wellness facilitators

Supporting the Liberation Fund

Why This Works

What This Costs

• Field building, activating the ecosystem

• Strengthening the organizational capacity for survivors

• Facilitators team

• Convenings and trust building

• Narrative infrastructure

• Youth leadership development

• Planning and Implementation support

• Sustainability

• Program Replication, State and National Impact

$3 million (2024)

• Implementation grants

• Continued facilitation

• Healing & renewal spaces

$5 million (2025 2027)

• Multi year campaign grants & service provision

$10 million (2028 2030)

• Sustainability & Implementation of national models

Join The Liberation Fund

As a funder and donor collaborative, the Liberation Fund offers funders and donors:

• Deep knowledge and insight about girl/women/GE led movement strategy and tactics

• Relationships with expert staff who are connected to local movement organizations in Los Angeles County and California

• Knowledge exchange with allied funders and donors

• Giving that is aligned with the movement’s needs

• Capacity building for individual groups and the Liberation Fund ecosystem

• Deepening existing social justice commitments to include and center gender justice through trust and relationship building.

What’s Next?

Liberation Fund Networking Reception (May 2024)

Blueprint Release (June 2024)

Participatory Grantmaking Process (July 2024)

Implementation Grants (September 2024)

Questions?

(Click the “Q&A” button below to enter question)