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A version of this article was published in The People’s Practice Issue 08: Safety Isn’t a Privilege, It’s a Prerequisite. which investigates the intersection of community development and safety, and what true community safety might look like.

May 25, 2025 marks the five-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. And in that time, as the Program Director of the Communities Transforming Policing Fund (CTPF) at Borealis Philanthropy, I’ve had the great honor of supporting dedicated and strategic movement organizers across the country who are working tirelessly to move us from daily tragedy to new lived reality.

The life and painful death of George Floyd sparked national protests for racial justice, accountability, and new visions of community safety. They also brought the legacy of police violence against Black Americans into sharper view. According to Mapping Police Violence, in 2025, Black people remain 2.8 times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans. Many majority Black cities also spend a high proportion of their overall budget on police. In 2020, Milwaukee spent a staggering 58% of its budget on policing, and other cities like Memphis (38%), Wilmington (34%), Newark (29%), and Baltimore (26%), spent over a quarter of their budgets on policing. The demand to shift power and resources to community-based safety strategies as opposed to policing, surveillance, and incarceration was a strong anti-racist community development demand led by Black, Indigenous, Latine, and people of color organizers across the country.

These activists and organizers have faced unrelenting backlash and a political climate unlike any we’ve seen in generations. But in the words of the poet Dinos Christianopoulos – words adapted by the revolutionary Zapatistas: “they tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” In the face of antagonism, deepening networks of community care and safety have taken root and bloomed in new communities across the country: bail funds, mutual aid funds, community defense, and community-led safety programs.

Look to the folks closest to the problems to lead the solutions. CTPF supported the growth of The Black Response Cambridge which developed and helped incubate Cambridge HEART, a grassroots organization led by individuals with lived experience serving as a holistic emergency alternative response to police. The Black Response worked with organizations across Massachusetts to map the landscape of community-based alternatives to policing.

Resource community power building. CTPF also resourced Embody Transformation, an organization led by women of color who were a part of successfully advocating for resources to be shifted from the Austin Police Department budget back to community. One of their recommendations was to shift resources to a guaranteed income pilot. This pilot has had a profound impact on the individuals and families who received the support, including substantial improvement in housing stability and food security. As a result, Embody Transformation is building on the pilot to create a Roots of Care Project, which will combine guaranteed income support with community power building and leadership development to support caregivers in advocating for the community they want to see.

Center a healing justice framework. CTPF has also supported community-safety work grounded in a healing justice framework. Individuals who have been directly impacted by policing, surveillance, and criminalization lead many of the organizations that we support. As a result, their organizing comes from a place of passion and also deep pain. In addition to working together to advocate for significant changes in policing, these changemakers have developed networks of healing support programs for other families who have lost loved ones to police violence. Michael Brown Sr. Chosen For Change, The Miles Hall Foundation, Cary on the Ball, and Faith for Justice are just a few examples of our partners who are leading their work with healing at the center.

Share the decision-making power with leaders who have been impacted by police violence. Through resourcing this work and engaging in deep partnership with movement leaders, we recognized that the demand to shift power and resources to communities was not only a demand of police, but also a demand of philanthropy. In the fall of 2021, CTPF shifted to become a participatory grantmaking fund. Today, all of our multi-year grantee partners are selected by a participatory grantmaking committee composed of individuals who have been directly impacted by criminalization, policing, and incarceration, and who have led, worked within, or served alongside organizations working to decriminalize communities, end police violence, and improve community safety. For the past four years, their leadership has reshaped our grantmaking portfolio in beautiful and profound ways.

Half a decade after the loss of George Floyd to police violence and the racial justice uprisings that followed, we have an opportunity – and obligation – to reflect on the space between the harmful narratives that exist about communities and the anti-racist demands of the movement that has seeded transformative approaches to community safety. CTPF is deeply honored to support the brilliant and liberatory organizations co-creating a world in which the needs of communities are prioritized, and their visions of health, healing, and safety are resourced in abundance.

The People’s Practice is dedicated to anyone who cares about anti-racist community development work and wants to be part of the movement to move anti-racist practice forward in the sector. This work attempts to build an understanding of structural racism in community development and pathways to racially equitable outcomes that promote health equity. This work was produced with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of RWJF.

About ThirdSpace Action Lab: ThirdSpace Action Lab was created to disrupt the vicious cycle of disinvestment + displacement that negatively impacts the vitality of communities of color with low incomes. ThirdSpace is a grassroots solutions studio dedicated to prototyping creative, place-based solutions to complex socio-economic problems. The organization works as institutional + community organizers, turning multidisciplinary research into evidence-based strategies and activating “third places” to co-create more liberated spaces for people of color.

This post was originally published on Next City.