2021 Collective Network

Background

This funding originated from community advocacy for investments in alternatives to incarceration. Most recently known is the work organized by Ending the Prison Industrial Complex (EPIC) and Budget for Justice (BFJ).

In 2015, community-based organizations and coalitions, including Youth Undoing Institutional Racism (YUIR), EPIC, No New Youth Jail Campaign (NNYJ), The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), and European Dissent, engaged in campaigns that supported a vision of a City free of incarceration. This included organized resistance against the building of a new King County youth jail. As a result of community organizing, on September 21, 2015, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a resolution for zero use of detention for youth. The goal of this resolution is to make Seattle a city where detention or imprisonment is obsolete. To support community efforts and help make this resolution a meaningful reality, EPIC organized the City of Seattle to allocate $500,000 back to communities most targeted by the prison industrial complex and mass incarceration.

In 2018, advocates with Budget for Justice (BFJ) called on the City to realign its criminal legal system funding priorities. As a result of this and other organizing efforts, the City Council added $1.08 million to SOCR's 2020 budget (thus doubling the original EPIC investment) to fund community-based organizations in Seattle supporting alternatives to or addressing harm created by the criminal legal system.

Investment Strategy

This RFP will be used to fund alternatives to the harm created by the carceral state. The RFP is targeted to address the disproportionate impact of the carceral state on Black communities and families. The purpose is to build a collective network that exists beyond funding opportunities, is community centered, and is equipped to hold and support those otherwise entangled by the carceral state. We envision the collective network to be a space where the Black community in the form of families, organizations/coalitions, or as individuals can come together to develop authentic relationships, heal from internalized oppression, and explore responses to harms created by the carceral state.

Scope of Work

The selected organizations/coalitions will work to build a community owned and self-sustaining collective network. Applicants should provide applications that address both capacity building and alternatives to the carceral state, and include the following:

Capacity Building

• Demonstrate the ability to maintain and strengthen authentic relationships.
• Prioritize meeting the self-defined needs or goals of Black families and other individuals and communities most impacted by the carceral state.
• Build capacity for folks to become a part of the collective network and continue to shift resources to community to create and define safety for themselves.
• Provide capacity building for the collective network. Examples of capacity building may include, but are not limited to meals, teach-ins, healing practices, basic needs, community connection, workshops, trainings, listening sessions, and leadership development for organizers and families.

Alternatives to the Carceral State

• The collective network will explore responses to the harms created by the carceral state and/or develop transformative approaches to community crises, including COVID-19. Examples of proposals could include a blueprint, set of recommendations, People's Plan (i.e., community-owned plan of research, organizing, and implementation), or an organizing strategy. Applications should address:
  • A community owned response to safety and health; and/or The ability to create/develop a variety of healing centered practices aimed at repairing the harms created by systems of oppression that make communities vulnerable.

Priority Applicants

We encourage joint applications and collaboration between organizations/coalitions. We are prioritizing applications from organizations/coalitions that will show:

• They are led by individuals impacted by the carceral state;
• A strong connection to the priority and focus population, including the Black transgender community and the broader Black community;
• A commitment to building power in the community and/or supporting healing from the impact of oppression;
• A commitment to address internalized oppression and affirming all identities and values ending all forms of oppression, which include ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny;
• Sustained accountable relationships with individuals most impacted by the carceral state;
• Sustained accountable relationships with organizations/coalitions supporting individuals most impacted by the carceral state and engaged in movement building;
• and Sustained and continued commitment to work in collaboration with other organizations/coalitions led by Black, Indigenous, and communities of color; uplifting BIPOC queer and transgender leadership to build a strong collective network.