“Most of the activities available to incarcerated people are top-down affairs: They’re created by governmental and other agencies, and their goals are determined by the organizations that operate them. Inside Impact, on the other hand, takes a grassroots, bottom-up approach. Each of the activities Inside Impact is funding begins as the dream of someone living in a California prison.
Empowering people who have been stripped of agency in virtually every other area of their lives isn’t the only thing that makes Inside Impact unique: The nonprofit partners behind the fund, Impact Justice and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), have recruited a Grants Council comprising formerly incarcerated leaders and advocates to select which projects to support. The first round of requests the fund approved in July includes musical instruments for a women’s band at the Central California Women’s Facility and new white boards and book binding equipment for incarcerated grantees at Sierra Conservation Center.”