Leadership Circle Grant Program

Leadership Circle Grant Program is sponsored by Circle for Justice Innovations (CJI). CJI's Leadership Circle Grant Program seeks proposals from grassroots organizations led by formerly incarcerated and directly impacted individuals. The program aims to create community-based solutions that address the injustices of the U.S. criminal legal system, emphasizing alternatives to incarceration and promoting community safety.

CJI prioritizes funding for organizations that empower these communities to lead change, ensuring they are at the forefront of developing innovative solutions for justice reform.

Strategic Opportunities Support – Rapid Response Circle As an incubator for Criminal Justice Movement organizations led by the people most directly impacted by the criminal legal and immigration systems they seek to transform, the CJI funding model represents a truly diverse and innovative grantmaking community.

CJI review panels bridge social gaps like gender and class, and our giving Circle includes members whose experiences are informed by contact with mass incarceration. All share a deep concern and passion for meaningful, systemic change.

We currently operate three grantmaking Circles, each endowed with a vital scope of work: Engaged in movement-building for systemic change supporting organizations across the spectrum of criminal justice issues from police interactions, to pre-trial justice, to conditions of confinement, through re-entry.

Supports women, girls, trans women, and trans girls, gender-non-conforming people, and LGBTQIA-led organizations addressing the unique ways these communities are harmed by violence, incarceration, immigration detention, and deportation. Strategic Opportunities Support (SOS) Rapid Response Circle Meets emergency needs and provides flexible funding for urgent movement actions.

Philanthropic Partnerships CJI endeavors to leverage its unique position in the world of philanthropy to assist peer grantmakers with the delivery of strategic, targeted, and effective grant support to advance the fundamental transformation of policing and carceral systems, coupled with community-based approaches to safety and healing on a national scale.

As an incubator for Criminal Justice Movement organizations led by the people most directly impacted by the criminal legal and immigration systems they seek to transform, the CJI funding model represents a truly diverse and innovative grantmaking community. CJI review panels bridge social gaps like gender and class, and our giving Circle includes members whose experiences are informed by contact with mass incarceration.

All share a deep concern and passion for meaningful, systemic change. We currently operate four grantmaking Circles, each endowed with a vital scope of work: Engaged in movement-building for systemic change supporting organizations across the spectrum of criminal justice issues from police interactions, to pre-trial justice, to conditions of confinement, through re-entry.

Supports women, girls, trans women, and trans girls, gender-non-conforming people, and LGBTQIA-led organizations addressing the unique ways these communities are harmed by violence, incarceration, immigration detention, and deportation. Strategic Opportunities Support (SOS) Rapid Response Circle Meets emergency needs and provides flexible funding for urgent movement actions.

Philanthropic Partnerships CJI endeavors to leverage its unique position in the world of philanthropy to assist peer grantmakers with the delivery of strategic, targeted, and effective grant support to advance the fundamental transformation of policing and carceral systems, coupled with community-based approaches to safety and healing on a national scale.