Forward Impact

MISSION
Represent Justice’s mission is to turn stories into action to change the justice system, while building the capacity of system-impacted communities.

VISION
Represent Justice’s vision is a fair legal system, dignity for system-impacted individuals and communities, and an end to extreme sentencing and mass incarceration.

NARRATIVE CHANGE
Changing the way people talk about the issue and the language that they use.

CULTURAL CHANGE
Changing the way people publicly engage on the issue and mobilizing them to act differently. Redefining how they see their own role in affecting change — whether that’s to buy or boycott, donate, or volunteer.

CHANGING STRUCTURE
Top down change, whether in business or politics, directly influencing law and policy to change future outcomes.

GRASSROOTS CAPACITY BUILDING
Supporting the work of national and local advocacy organizations who have been doing, and will continue to do, the important work on the ground once the film has come and gone.

STORYTELLING AND NARRATIVE CHANGE
Our goal is to shift culture and transform public opinion of incarcerated individuals through values-based human conversations focused on redemption, forgiveness, and the possibility of a second chance. Through this, we aim to engage people with content and experiences that bring them proximate to injustice and the role that race plays in the system; sparking empathy and public action.

IMPACT DISTRIBUTION AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
Our goal is to increase the reach and audience engagement of film and multimedia projects among core audiences. In doing this, we plan to support the growth of impact media and system-impacted storytellers, with a focus on stories of hope and redemption.

AMBASSADOR PROGRAM
The ambassador programs aims to collaborate with 16 system-impacted Ambassadors as advisors and advocates on strategic efforts, storytelling, and grassroots activism for Represent Justice. The ambassadors will continue to be the core spokespeople and voice of Represent Justice and appear at events and share their story and perspective. Represent Justice wants to support innovation and growth for impact films and system-impacted storytellers, with a focus on content that shares stories of hope and redemption. Through this program, we hope to build capacity and skills for Ambassadors as advocates through trainings, collaboration and workshops.

PARTNERSHIP AND CAPACITY-BUILDING
Our partnerships program is designed to Identify current and new organizations for partnerships, focusing on small and local grassroots organizations for whom the support of grants serves as a capacity builder in the success of their programs. Represent Justice seeks to support a broader coalition of partner organizations by creating and sharing educational resources for digital storytelling. Lastly, we will continue to identify opportunities to support local organizations engaged in “tipping point” policy changes.

PLAY FOR JUSTICE
Produced by PLUS ONE Society and Executive Produced by Kristen Ingram.

In partnership with the NBA, Anti-Recidivism Coalition, and local teams, players, and community based organizations and partners, REPRESENT JUSTICE facilitates a series of basketball games and intimate roundtable discussions that highlight stories of hope, redemption, and the power of sports and community inside prison facilities across the United States.

The games and discussions include currently incarcerated men and women; REPRESENT JUSTICE Surrogates; current and former NBA and WNBA players; and elected officials. In select prison facilities, family members are invited to attend and watch the game in addition to celebrity guests, media, and other residents of the prison facility.

IMPACT DISTRIBUTION PROGRAM
- Total Screenings: 496
- Theatrical Screenings: 438
- Non-theatrical Screenings: 58
- Grassroots Screenings: 288
- Educational Screenings: 139
- Policy Screenings: 25
- Sports Team Screenings: 44
- States Engaged: 40
- Cities/Towns Engaged: 218
- Audience Reach: 65,000

STATE-BASED POLICY WORK
Together with partner organizations, Represent Justice pushed to advance policy change in at least two target states toward abolishing the death penalty, ending extreme sentencing, and/or eliminating life without parole for juveniles.

- On October 12th, 2020, Michigan Governor Whitmer signed Clean Slate legislation expanding opportunities for expungement into law.

- Play for Justice was a turning point in the journey of SB 3 as it opened the door for members of the Ohio House of Representatives to interact with incarcerated people and gain proximity to the very circumstances they had the potential to transform. They were able to hear directly from system-impacted people about the unaddressed trauma they experienced as youth that led them to prison, and the fears they had about being released from prison with inadequate services. In July 2020, the Ohio senate passed SB-3 with a 25-4 vote after more than a year of committee hearings.

- In March 2020, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill to abolish the death penalty and commuted the sentences of three men on death row.

PARTNERSHIPS ENGAGEMENT
The partnerships team served as the liaison between the campaign and over 200 partner contacts. By the end of the campaign, we will have distributed close to $2.7 Million to more than 25 different organizations engaged in criminal justice reform nationwide.

LOOKING FORWARD
Plans for the immediate future include continued focus on our storytelling and narrative change work, with a particular interest in persuading the public on the “redemption” narrative, and scaling our Surrogate and Ambassador program as a means to achieve that narrative work. We will focus on impact distribution by extending the reach of JUST MERCY further into educational settings, but partnering with other content creators as well to provide packages of relevant content and lesson plans for each. We are also working with the NBA to re-launch a COVID-19 appropriate version of Play for Justice, our programmatic crown jewel program of the campaign. The program brought together affiliate teams with celebrity guests, state and local policymakers, and incarcerated individuals in correctional facilities for a series of basketball pickup games and intimate roundtable discussions. These events highlighted stories of hope and redemption, and leveraged the power of sports to bring decision makers proximate to the issue by connecting with those most directly affected by the system. We facilitated games with the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings, Milwaukee Bucks, and Cleveland Cavaliers.