Foundation / Corporation
Open Society Foundations
02/17/21 11:59 PM PST
Fellowships to USA, Canada, and International individuals for projects that foster change and reform on issues related to the U.S. criminal justice system. The fellowships are intended to mitigate the harmful impact of current criminal justice policies on communities, families, and individuals in the United States.
Open Society-U.S.’s Soros Justice Fellowships fund outstanding individuals to undertake projects that advance reform, spur debate, and catalyze change on a range of issues facing the U.S. criminal justice system. The fellowships are part of a larger effort within the Open Society Foundations to reduce the destructive impact of current criminal justice policies on the lives of individuals, families, and communities in the United States by challenging the overreliance on incarceration and extreme punishment, and ensuring a fair and accountable system of justice.
Funding categories:
Advocacy Fellowships
The Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowships fund lawyers, advocates, grassroots organizers, researchers, and others with unique perspectives to undertake full-time criminal justice reform projects at the local, state, and national levels. Projects may range from litigation to public education to coalition building to grassroots mobilization to policy-driven research.
Media Fellowships
The Soros Justice Media Fellowships support writers, print and broadcast journalists, artists, filmmakers, and other individuals with distinctive voices proposing to complete media projects that engage and inform, spur debate and conversation, and catalyze change on important U.S. criminal justice issues. The Media Fellowships aim to mitigate the time, space, and market constraints that often discourage individuals from pursuing vital but marginalized, controversial, or unpopular topics in comprehensive and creative ways.
Eligibility Criteria
All projects must, at a minimum, relate to one or more of the following U.S. criminal justice reform goals: reducing the number of people who are incarcerated or under correctional control, challenging extreme punishment, and promoting fairness and accountability in our systems of justice.
Open Society strongly encourages applications for projects that demonstrate a clear understanding of the intersection of criminal justice issues with the particular needs of low-income communities, communities of color, immigrants, LGBTI people, women and children, and those otherwise disproportionately affected by harsh criminal justice policies, as well as applications for projects that cut across various criminal justice fields and related sectors, such as education, health and mental health, housing, and employment.
Open Society especially welcomes applications from individuals directly affected by, or with significant direct personal experience with, the policies, practices, and systems their projects seek to address (e.g., applicants who have themselves been incarcerated, applicants who have a family member or loved one who has been incarcerated and whose fellowship project emerges from that experience, or applicants who are survivors of violence or crime).
For additional details on each of the categories, and the eligibility criteria, see the Guidelines and Application documents in Supporting Documents below.
GrantWatch ID#: 161096
Individuals can apply for one of two awards in each category, depending on the applicant’s level of experience.
Advocacy Fellowships: Advocacy Track I comes with an award of $94,500. Advocacy Track II comes with an award of $127,500 over 18 months.
Media Fellowships: The award for Media Track I is $63,000. The award for Media Track II is $85,000.
Media Fellowships are 12 months in duration and can begin anytime in the fall of 2021.
Advocacy Fellowships are 18 months in duration and can begin anytime in the fall of 2021.
Applicants must be able to devote at least 35 hours per week to the project if awarded a fellowship; and the project must be the applicant’s only full-time work during the course of the fellowship. Fellows cannot be full-time students during their fellowships.
Before starting your grant application, please review the funding source's website listed below for updates/changes/addendums/conferences/LOIs.
Email inquiries to: sorosjusticefellowships@opensocietyfoundations.org
Grants inquiry form: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/inquiry
Open Society Foundations
224 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
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