Life Comes From It (LCFI) Grants

Life Comes From It (LCFI) Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Tides Foundation
Last Updated: March 12, 2026

Summary

The Life Comes From It Grant, funded by the Tides Foundation, supports grassroots initiatives focused on restorative, transformative, and indigenous justice. It prioritizes projects led by communities of color, emphasizing alternatives to incarceration and community-led solutions. Applicants must be 501c3 organizations based in the United States. This grant fosters a collaborative approach to healing and justice, aiming to shift power dynamics and promote inclusive practices across generations.

Overview

NOTE: Life Comes From It accepts proposals by invitation only, and we meet new grantee partners through our networks, gatherings and our other broadening relationships. Currently LCFI's main focus is our existing community of grantees. After reading this page, if you feel your work is strongly aligned with our mission, please send us a brief introduction via our portal. Mission & Values Life Comes From It is a grantmaking and movement-building circle where decisions over funding and other support are made by leading practitioners in restorative justice, transformative justice, indigenous peacemaking and land-based projects. These four distinct fields are cross-pollinating each other in impacting how our society responds to harm. We have come together around a shared vision of addressing harm through community solutions, without reliance on incarceration and punitive systems. We give grants and other support solely to projects and organizations led by people of color. Our Mission Life Comes From It is a grantmaking and movement-building circle. We support grassroots work, led by people of color, working in restorative justice, transformative justice, indigenous peacemaking and land-based projects. Funding Values & Criteria We aim to support projects, organizations and collaborations that embody these values: Commitment to working towards replacing criminalization and incarceration with alternative approaches to address violence and repair harm rooted in community solutionsPrioritizing peacemaking development and indigenous initiatives led by Native peopleRooting the work in the community’s own culture(s), language(s), place(s), faith(s), and belief system(s) so it reflects the people that engage in itGuided by the wisdom of people, families and communities of colorCommitment to anti-oppression practicesSupporting the creation of new thinking and language that is holistic, intersectional, interdependent, and liberatoryPromoting and sustaining collective leadership, collaboration and partnershipLiving the values of the work internally and externally to build community and heal harm within and against communitiesIntergenerational inclusivity - people of all generations: youth, adults, elders are encouraged to apply​ The Four Fields Restorative JusticeTransformative Justice Indigenous Peacemaking Land Based Projects What we Believe We believe that human relations can replace the work of institutions.​We are invested in shifting power.​We believe in doing no harm – not further victimizing people who have been victimized in the search for funding. We seek to keep an open door relationship with those who look for funding.​We believe in interdependence and creating a culture where we do not pit one against another.​We strive to build connections between restorative justice, transformative justice, indigenous peacemaking, and "justice, healing and soil."​We hold an intersectional lens​We emphasize the underlying spirit and values of the work rather than the categories we use to define our work. ​Our vision is rooted in lived experience – as community activists, formerly incarcerated people, crime survivors, indigenous persons, and people of color— and has led us to 115 years of experience in restorative justice, transformative justice and indigenous peacebuilding.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. To receive a grant, you need to be a 501c3 organization or be fiscally sponsored by a 501c3. If you are neither, we can help connect you to fiscal sponsors. Organizations must be based in the United States.