Life Comes From ItAbout us
A circle of practitioners and elders, funding the movement
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.
Where the name comes from
If we say of law that life comes from it, then where there is hurt, there must be healing.
How it began
Founded 2018
Life Comes From It grew out of the 2017 Listening Project by the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice, which gathered practitioners across urban, rural, and Indigenous communities, and the Movement Ecology framework from the Ayni Institute. Sonya Shah, who led the listening report, and Chloe Cockburn spent close to a year shaping the fund before the first advisory circle met in June 2018. Grantmaking began in 2019.
It is, as far as anyone knows, the first of its kind: a grantmaking circle where funding decisions are made by leading practitioners and elders, not by foundation staff. Many grants begin with a recommendation from a previous grantee or someone else in the movement.
The Ahimsa Collective manages fiscal and administrative operations. A donor advised fund is held at the National Philanthropic Trust.
The four streams
Money is only part of it. We bring convenings, webinars, consulting, education, and the wisdom of elders to the movement.
Restorative 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.
What we believe
- 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.