History in the Making: CSI Receives Landmark Commitment Through The Audacious Project
Blog Post by Sheena Meade, CEO
In the last three years, six states have passed Clean Slate laws with strategic support from the Clean Slate Initiative (CSI) – Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Michigan, Connecticut and Delaware. Together, those efforts will enable record clearance for more than 3 million Americans, with many more set to be cleared in coming years. It’s clear that Clean Slate policies have created an indelible impact in the legal system reform field.
That scale of second chances is unprecedented — and thanks to the hard work of CSI’s team, our state partners, and every person who has supported this work, it’s just the beginning. We are thrilled to announce that CSI has received a landmark financial commitment through The Audacious Project — a historic step toward fully funding our six-year plan to clear records for up to 14 million additional people.
The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED that catalyzes social impact on a grand scale. Every year, the project selects and nurtures a group of big, bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges and with the support of an inspiring group of donors and supporters, comes together to help those projects grow. Previous grantees include Code for America, Environmental Defense Fund, GirlTrek, International Refugee Assistance Project, The Bail Project, The Nature Conservancy, and more.
This year, donors at The Audacious Project saw the clear value in adding record clearance automation to their long list of successfully-funded projects. Our proposal outlined the problem that millions of people in America face, how our work addresses that problem, why it’s successful, and why it’s important. Read more about our strategy on our project page.
The Audacious Project commitment is a historic investment in second chances – one that we’re incredibly grateful for – but it’s important to recognize that we still have more fundraising work to be done. The Audacious Project funding provides a large portion of the resources we need to implement our 50-state strategy, and we will continue to seek additional resources to ensure we can successfully and fully implement our plan.
This investment validates the CSI model of building state and national partnerships to execute strategic state-level campaigns. It does not change what we do or how we do it. Rather, it allows us to initiate pre-planned work sooner than we would otherwise be able to.
And we plan to do just that. Throughout the course of the grant period, CSI aims to:
Support Clean Slate implementation in states that have already passed Clean Slate laws;
Pass legislation in 15 states total, which, once implemented, will result in up to 14 million people receiving full or partial record clearance; and
Lay the groundwork for future passage of Clean Slate policies in every other state.
This incredible opportunity doesn’t change our day-to-day work but allows us to expand that work. We will continue to invest in community-building and collaboration among state and national partners, finding solutions for emerging needs related to Clean Slate efforts. We intend to expand support for data analysis and measurement, research, lobbying, strategic communications, implementation, and more capacities upon which our campaigns rely.
Most importantly, we intend to advance our strategy, until automatic record clearance is the norm, not the exception. And we plan to do that with all of our partners by our side, just like it’s been from the start.