Smart Justice Spark Grants

Smart Justice Spark Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Michelson 20MM Foundation
Amount: Up to US $25,000
Last Updated: August 04, 2025

Summary

The Michelson Smart Justice Initiative offers Smart Justice Spark Grants aimed at reducing recidivism and supporting the re-entry of system-impacted individuals through enhanced access to education and employment. The initiative focuses on expanding pathways for incarcerated individuals pursuing firefighting careers and improving higher education programming in prisons. It seeks innovative projects that promote policy advocacy, ensure educational quality, and facilitate housing for reentering individuals, ultimately contributing to successful reintegration into society.

Overview

The Michelson Smart Justice Initiative Our Approach: We support rehabilitative models that reduce recidivism and promote the successful re-entry of system-impacted individuals through improved access to education, employment, and economic opportunities both in prison and post-release. Our Focus Areas We are interested in supporting projects that advance: Efforts that scale and increase higher education and workforce development pathways for incarcerated individuals pursuing firefighting careers. Projects that facilitate employment in firefighting careers for incarcerated firefighters, including efforts that fully certify them to pursue a firefighting career upon release and those that facilitate their employment in these careers post release. Policy advocacy work that supports incarcerated firefighters. Initiatives with innovative approaches to higher education in prison (HEP) programming Innovative efforts that address housing for individuals reentering the community including efforts centering specific underrepresented populations. Transfer pathways that help HEP programming participants with Associates degrees to seamlessly enroll in programs offering Bachelors degrees. Efforts that expand HEP programming at the California State University and/or University of California systems Policy advocacy efforts that facilitate the scaling of HEP programming across California higher education systems and carceral facilities. Projects that help ensure the quality of education being provided in HEP programs Efforts that promote/improve consistency in data collection to better understand the impact and tell the story of HEP programs. Programs that promote, ensure, or evaluate race equity in accessing HEP programs. Projects that improve training for HEP program educators and include appropriate pedagogy/practice that ensures a quality education for incarcerated students. Efforts focused on increasing higher education retention and completion rates for individuals in prison and individuals being released from prison. Policy advocacy work that help ensure the quality of education being provided in HEP programs. Efforts that analyze the landscape of HEP programming in California to support the launching of a California HEP consortium, a group that will advance recommendations on best approaches in HEP/Reentry programming and policy statewide.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. For our Spark Grant cycles, we generally focus our impact on organizations doing work in California.

Ineligibility

Organizations whose work does not impact California are likely ineligible, but please review our call for proposals each cycle.