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desiree ferguson fund

DJC’s founding Legal Director, Desiree Ferguson, is a brilliant movement lawyer, a committed mentor, and a local leader in the fight for abolition and justice. She spent three decades defending Detroiters from the harms of the carceral system before retiring (for the second time) in 2023.

DJC launched the Desiree Ferguson Fund to honor her life’s work and to deepen our capacity to recruit, mentor, and train the next generation of freedom fighters through our national internship program.

Desiree credits Mr. Porter, her first Black grade school teacher, for encouraging her to dedicate herself to the fight against systemic oppression plaguing Black and brown communities. Mr. Porter’s words still ring in her head: “Revolution means change, aren’t you ready for change?”

Over the years, this commitment would take many forms: as a champion in court for her clients with the State Appellate Defender Office; teaching at four local law schools; taking up leadership positions with the National Lawyers Guild and National Conference of Black Lawyers–recognized as the legal arm of the Black liberation struggle.

At DJC, Desiree established our internship program which has trained 40 rising activists and provided them with real-life experience working with our clients and community partners. Interns have confronted systemic injustices within the legal system while supporting our team in fighting tax foreclosure and gentrification, building community land trusts and worker cooperatives, fighting for bail reform, implementing restorative justice programs, and more.

“After my summer internship at the Detroit Justice Center (DJC), I am convinced that Detroit’s residents are natural born revolutionaries. This summer, I got to see lawyers and activists who live in the community of Detroit work relentlessly for the city of Detroit.”

— Shirley Rivas, 2019 intern

This summer helped to solidify my career goals. I had a strong inclination that I wanted to do movement lawyering work, and now I know that I do. Working with DJC has given me the courage to hope again, and has shown me that outside of law school people are doing really cool things!”

— MADDIE BELLOW, 2023 intern

Despite significant interest in mentorship, political education, and leadership development, there remains no clearly defined pathway for aspiring movement lawyers. Your support of the Desiree Ferguson Fund helps build a pathway for students committed to racial justice, while honoring the contributions of one of Detroit’s iconic movement lawyers.

Our Fundraising Approach

Approach
Mission
Values
Gift Acceptance Policy

DJC aims to raise funds in a way that honors our values and is aligned with our mission. We describe ourselves as a movement-led organization: we leverage our gifts and talents to serve grassroots movements for racial justice and economic equity. We are particularly indebted to a long legacy of Black liberation struggles, and through strategic organizing across communities, we cultivate resources to advance the unfinished fight for freedom.

In Detroit, we have experienced the impacts of organized abandonment [1] by the state. For decades, our people have faced the negative repercussions of structural racism as money and other resources have fled our communities. At the same time, public funding has been channeled into harmful systems like mass incarceration. It is in this context that we pursue wealth reclamation[2]: “the process of rehabilitating extracted and privately controlled wealth to restore and nurture community health and vitality.” [3]

We follow the Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) model which has been developed by Black, indigenous, and fundraisers of color. This approach is grounded in equity and social justice and prioritizes the communities we serve over individual organizations. We do our best to implement CCF principles, including advocating for transformative (as opposed to transactional) giving, because we believe that we all have a stake in building truly just cities, where everyone has what they need to care for one another.

Instead of dividing our clients or programs into “discrete units supported by different individual donors,” we encourage unrestricted support, which gives us the agility and freedom to determine how to spend resources in ways that advance our community’s needs. This is especially important given that Black-led organizations’ unrestricted net assets are 76% smaller than white-led counterparts. [4]

Bold and trust-based unrestricted gifts also enable us to invest in both defensive and offensive strategies to rebuild our cities. At DJC, we do everything we can to alleviate present-day suffering caused by the harms of the carceral system. At the same time, we are clear about what we’re fighting for and we are committed to creating new socio-economic infrastructures that will make prisons and policing obsolete.

DJC relies on a broad community of donors to sustain our expansive work. In addition to financial contributions, our donors share their experiences, insights, community relationships, and creativity with DJC. We strive to build strong, personal donor relationships based on clear communication, trust, and a shared vision. We take seriously the responsibility to put each gift to the best possible use. DJC and our donors dream of a better future–and then work to build it together.

To help promote our values and guide our decision-making process, our Board of Directors has approved the following Gift Acceptance Policy.

 
 [1] Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation. (NYC: Verso Books, 2022).
 [2] “Just Transition,” Movement Generation, movementgeneration.org/justtransition/. 
 [3] “CCF’s 10 Principles,” Community Centric Fundraising, communitycentricfundraising.org/ccf-principles/
 [4] “Racial Equity and Philanthropy: Disparities in Funding for Leaders of Color Leave Impact on the Table,” The Bridgespan Group, bridgespan.org/insights/disparities-nonprofit-funding-for-leaders-of-color 

The Detroit Justice Center (DJC) is a non-profit law firm working alongside communities to create economic opportunities, transform the justice system, and promote equitable and just cities.

  • We are committed to individual and collective liberation—and recognize the two as inseparable.
  • We come to this work with a sense of responsibility, and a deep desire to use our training and talents to serve our community.
  • We work with our clients in a way that cultivates dignity and autonomy. We respect and honor each person’s humanity, we seek to understand their stories and circumstances, and we hold their freedom dreams as sacred.
  • We are committed to democratizing access to the law. We regard clients as partners in our mission. Rather than serving as gatekeepers, we aim to share tools so that people can understand, navigate, and transform disempowering systems.
  • We approach our work with a sense of joy, creativity, and purpose. We are nimble problem-solvers who look for innovative ways to respond to our community’s needs and expand our collective understanding of what is possible.
  • We value our relationships above all. We work at a pace that allows us to build deep trust with our partners and clients. We reach out to others for support and direction, and we communicate with self-awareness, empathy, and humility. Should conflicts arise, we are committed to calling each other in using practices that restore rather than punish.
  • We are hopeful; we believe that the best possible outcome is attainable and we work toward it.
  • We help our clients gain economic independence, and work to redistribute power and wealth. We work toward a society in which abundance is shared for the collective good.
  • We take our cues from movements that are fighting for racial justice and economic equity.
  • We are committed to cultivating the leadership of marginalized individuals and groups, including Black people, people of color, indigenous people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, people involved in the criminal legal system, and people who have loved ones currently or formerly in the criminal legal system.
  • We value the collective wisdom of intergenerational experiences, and harness the power it brings to our work.
  • We seek a balance of “defense, offense, and dreaming.” We must do what we can to alleviate present suffering. We are also committed to transformational change and building a template for a more just society. It is not enough to focus on what we are fighting against; we must focus on what we are fighting for. We invite people to dream of a better future and to work toward it with us.

DJC accepts gifts primarily from individuals, foundations, and organizations that share a commitment to our values. We reserve the right to decline gifts from individuals or institutions that advocate viewpoints or take actions that fundamentally contradict those values.

DJC does not generally accept direct corporate donations. However, DJC will consider employee recommended gifts including matching contributions, donor advised funds, employee designations and support from employee sponsored resource and affinity groups. In some specific instances, such as mission-aligned social justice focused funds, DJC may accept or pursue financial contributions or grants from corporations. These considerations are made on a case by case basis with the members of the development team. Considerations above $50,000 are reviewed with and approved by DJC’s Executive Director. Considerations of $250,000 or above are reviewed and approved by DJC’s Executive Director and the DJC Board of Directors.

This policy may be amended from time to time at the Detroit Justice Center’s discretion.