The Work — Forward Through Ferguson

St. Louis Regional Racial Healing + Justice Fund

The application for the 2022 grant cycle is now open!

Community initiatives that align with the funding priorities and activities that are Black- or Brown-led are invited to apply.

Tell us more about you. Send your videos, social media handles, or any format that shares more about you and your work to rhjf@forwardthroughferguson.org including your name and title of your project or organization with the subject line: Grant Submission Materials. We will add them to your application file! This is not a requirement, however the Community Governance Board will review every contribution submitted, so please consider sharing your story along with your application. The application closes on October 5, 2022.

Please refer to the Racial Healing + Justice Fund Cycle 3 Glossary to learn more about the terms referenced in the application. Email rhjf@forwardthroughferguson.org if you have any questions.

Learn more about:

1. The Racial Healing + Justice Fund
2. The Fund’s grant priorities 
3. The community governance board

The Fund has invested over half a million dollars into 34 Black- and Brown-led organizations. On August 22, 2022, the Community Governance Board (CGB) of the St. Louis Regional Racial Healing + Justice Fund launched the Fund’s third grant cycle with a goal of investing $800,000 this round in Black and Brown-led community healing and racial justice initiatives. The investment would mark the largest dollar amount distributed in one cycle in the history of the Fund and add to more than $550,000 already distributed to organizations in the first two cycles. 

Read the entire press release, “St. Louis Regional Racial Healing + Justice Fund Aims to Invest $800,000 in Community this Fall.”

#Transforming911

FTF is turning our attention to St. Louis’ 911 system, the front door to our public safety system. Explore the #Transforming911 project, digitally housed at transforming911.org, to learn more about how 911 works in St. Louis, and to understand why if we want to reimagine public safety, we have to transform 911.

Join Our Catalyst Network

Learn about the Forward Through Ferguson Catalyst Network community, which exists to connect people who are passionate about Racial Equity with concrete ways to transform the St. Louis region. From event volunteering, to setting up a recurring donation with our #GivingCommunity, to signing a petition—the Catalyst Network shows you how to make a meaningful impact, helps you track your progress, and celebrates you for making a difference!

If you’re ready to learn more and join this community of Catalysts, just fill out this interest form. Indicate how and where you want to impact change, and you’ll be notified about opportunities that relate to your specific interests and capacity! #RacialEquityMattersToMe

2022 Racial Equity Capacity Building Offerings

Are you and your organization ready to achieve Racial Equity and the #STL2039 vision?

Register now to join Forward Through Ferguson’s team of Catalysts for upcoming opportunities, workshops, interventions, and assessments to build your organization’s capacity to envision and achieve Racial Equity. So far, FTF has supported, trained, and built the capacity of almost 200 local leaders to grow their equity impact. Learn more and signup here.

Still Separate, Still Unequal

Still Separate, Still Unequal is our community accountability and advocacy tool that examines these inequities and serves as a call to level the education playing field in St. Louis. Explore the site to learn more about our current education landscape, and to understand why if we want to change our education outcomes, we have to go upstream.

The Still Separate Still Unequal Engagement Report-Back: Activating in Community to Achieve Education Equity is a snapshot of the community engagement FTF held through forums, presentations, and digital storytelling efforts focusing on the root causes of education inequity. It shares the community voices we heard as they envisioned education equity and what they believe it takes to achieve it. It also includes action steps for how educators, parents, and youth can be engaged as catalysts in education transformation work.  

Public Safety Power Maps — The Power Behind the Badge Series

More and more St. Louisans are demanding a transformed public safety system that moves away from the reactive arrest-and-incarcerate model to a system that invests in community members’ opportunity to thrive. We’ve released community accountability tools that residents can use to understand and advocate around public safety budgets, policies, and practices as well as the decision-makers that shape police departments.

Click to view the interactive Power Maps! 

The State of Police Reform

Read our community accountability tool in the annual State of St. Louis series on what has and hasn’t changed in St. Louis policing since the killing of Michael Brown Jr. and the release of the Ferguson Commission Report.

Organizational Overview

History & Who We Are

The Ferguson Commission’s report outlined 189 policy recommendations to address these disparities and move the region toward Racial Equity drew local and national praise., in its final act, the Commission created Forward Through Ferguson to carry on its work, to help the region turn those calls into action, and to catalyze St. Louis’ efforts toward Racial Equity.

Forward Through Ferguson is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is charting a path toward Racial Equity. We:

• Work as a catalyst, connecting and challenging stakeholders across the region to implement the 189 calls to action outlined in the Ferguson Commission report.

• Help organizations and institutions build the capacity they need to dismantle systemic racism.

• Serve people of color, who most experience inequity, through a systems approach that will strengthen the region for us all.

Our core principles:

1. We will apply (and model) a Racial Equity Lens

2. We are committed to Radical Collaboration

3. We are committed to Radical Listening

4. We are committed to Policy & Systems Change

#STL2039

The Vision

We believe St. Louis can become a region that is Racially Equitable—a state in which life outcomes are no longer predictable by race. Based on this belief, we are on a path to share a detailed #STL2039 Action Strategy proposal with the region in March 2018 and begin implementation by June 2018. The year 2039 will mark the 25th anniversary of the death of Michael Brown. We have collected vision statements from a broad set of community members to drive our work as an organization and a region in service of a transformed St. Louis in 2039.

On April 25, 2018, Forward Through Ferguson unveiled its #STL2039 Action Plan, which lays out the three Action Strategies that will guide the organization’s work for the next three years as it works to achieve a racially equitable St. Louis by the year 2039, which will mark the 25th anniversary of the death of Michael Brown.

The Action Strategy

The three prongs of our action strategy work together toward the ultimate goal of Racial Equity. Each strategy is led by a robust community governance structure made up of impacted community members of color that drives the decision making, continuous improvement, and accountability for achieving equitable results.

1. Policy/Systems Advocacy Action Strategy: Through a series of policy advocacy campaigns, we will advance three sets of Calls to Action aligned to the Signature Priority Areas of the Ferguson Commission Report.  We have partnered with PolicyLink, a national research and action institute focused on advancing economic and social equity, to support this effort.

2. Racial Equity Capacity Building Action Strategy: Equitable policy implementation rests on people and organizations. This means increasing regional understanding of the root causes of racial inequity; convening diversity, inclusion, and equity practitioners to support institutions and individuals as they enter the Path to Racial Equity; and public reporting our progress toward Racial Equity. Targeted institutions and members of the Racial Equity Community will access ongoing training, tools, and opportunities for community building, institutional transformation, reconciliation, and racial healing. 

3. Sustainability Action Strategy: To ensure the region can sustain this challenging work, we are helping to develop a 25-year Racial Equity fund, as called for in the Ferguson Commission report, to support Racial Equity efforts.

Read more about some the milestones of our work in our first two years from 2016-2017.