Life Comes From ItA grantmaking and movement-building circle
Life Comes From It
Life Comes From It supports grassroots and community driven work rooted in restorative justice, transformative justice, Indigenous peacemaking, and land-based projects. As practitioners and elders of color, we work alongside local projects to meet their needs, with a minimum of bureaucracy.
What we fund
How funding worksRestorative justice
Practices that respond to harm by repairing relationships and meeting the needs of the people affected, rather than relying on punishment.
Transformative justice
Community responses to violence that prevent harm and address its roots, without relying on policing or prisons.
Indigenous peacemaking
Justice and healing rooted in the traditions, languages, and lifeways of Indigenous peoples.
Land-based projects
Work that heals people and communities through relationship with land, place, food, and the practices that connect them.
Through the 2025 funding round
What we have grown
- $19M+
- Granted to the movement since 2019
- 275+
- Projects and organizations supported
- 7
- Funding rounds, 2019 through 2025
- 4
- Streams of work funded
Move through the movement
How we work
- Human relations can replace the work of institutions.
- We are invested in shifting power toward the people closest to the harm.
- We believe in interdependence and a culture where we do not pit one against another.
- We do no harm: we will not further victimize people who have already been victimized in the search for funding.
- We root the work in each community's own cultures, languages, places, faiths, and belief systems.
Read more about Life Comes From It and where the name comes from.
How funding works
The full picture- Small grants
- Up to $25,000.
- Midrange grants
- Multi-year, from $50,000 to $200,000, by invitation.
- Typical terms
- Grants are usually unrestricted, for general operating costs, with minimal proposal writing and reporting.
- Who can receive
- A 501c3 organization, or a project fiscally sponsored by one. If you are neither, the circle can help connect you to a fiscal sponsor.
Convenings since 2021
The work gathers in person
We convene practitioners on the land: peacemaking circles, elder gatherings, and movement schools across the country.
- Mississippi
- Maine
- Chicago
- Hawaii
- New York
- Texas
- Massachusetts
- New Mexico
- California
In the movement
All media- Native American Rights Fund, Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative
Life Comes From It: a first of its kind grantmaking circle
September 2018 - Restorative Justice on the Rise
Life Comes From It: a panel discussion
October 2018 - Native American Rights Fund, Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative
Apply now for the Life Comes From It grant
September 2020