Abolitionist Grant Application Form

Transform Your Abolitionist Vision Into Funded Reality

The abolitionist movement requires dedicated resources to build alternatives to incarceration, develop community-based accountability systems, and reinvest in communities most impacted by mass incarceration. This Abolitionist Grant Application Form is designed specifically for organizations, collectives, and community groups seeking funding to advance decarceration strategies, prison closure planning, and transformative justice initiatives.

Why This Grant Application Template Works for Abolitionist Organizations

Whether you're a grassroots collective working on community defense, an established nonprofit planning prison closure strategies, or a mutual aid network building alternatives to policing, this form captures the nuanced information funders need to understand your abolitionist work. The template recognizes that abolitionist organizing looks different across communities and centers the voices of those most impacted by carceral systems.

Built for social justice funders and abolitionist organizations, this template moves beyond traditional grant applications to ask questions that matter: How does your work center those most impacted? What does community accountability look like in practice? How will you measure success beyond punitive metrics?

Streamline Your Grant Management Process

With Paperform, you can customize this template to match your foundation's values and funding priorities. Add conditional logic to show different questions based on project type, collect supporting documents seamlessly, and use calculation fields for budget planning. The form works beautifully on any device, ensuring applicants from all communities can access and complete it with dignity.

Connect with Stepper (stepper.io) to automate your grant review workflow—route applications to review committees, send acknowledgment emails with culturally relevant messaging, update your CRM or Airtable base, and trigger next steps based on application status. This means your small team can focus on supporting transformative work rather than managing spreadsheets.

Perfect for Abolitionist Funders and Social Justice Foundations

This template is ideal for:

• Abolitionist and decarceration-focused foundations funding strategies to reduce prison populations and close carceral facilities
• Community-based funders supporting alternatives to policing, courts, and incarceration
• Social justice organizations with regranting programs focused on transformative justice
• Mutual aid networks distributing resources to grassroots abolitionist work
• Participatory grantmaking collectives where community members make funding decisions

Designed With Abolitionist Values at the Center

Traditional grant applications often replicate harmful power dynamics and demand extractive reporting. This template takes a different approach, asking applicants about their theory of change, community accountability practices, and how success is defined by those most impacted—not by carceral metrics.

Questions are designed to surface:

• Direct community involvement and leadership by people who have experienced incarceration
• Concrete decarceration strategies including bail funds, sentence reduction campaigns, and reentry support
• Alternatives to punishment such as transformative justice processes, community accountability circles, and restorative practices
• Prison closure planning including facility closure campaigns and just transition planning for workers
• Community reinvestment in housing, healthcare, education, employment, and healing-centered services
• Coalition building and movement alignment with broader struggles for liberation

The form also recognizes that many abolitionist organizations operate outside traditional nonprofit structures, with flexible questions about organizational type and fiscal sponsorship.

Collect Everything You Need, Nothing You Don't

Gather comprehensive application materials including:

• Organization information and leadership demographics
• Project narrative with specific decarceration goals
• Budget breakdown with transparent line items
• Theory of change and community accountability framework
• Timeline and measurable outcomes (defined by community values)
• Letters of support from impacted community members
• Previous outcomes and lessons learned

Use Papersign (papersign.com) to collect electronic signatures on grant agreements that reflect partnership rather than surveillance, keeping all documentation connected to the original application for a complete audit trail.

Built for Nonprofits, Trusted by Movement Funders

Paperform is trusted by over 500,000 organizations worldwide and is SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliant, giving applicants confidence that their sensitive information is protected. With Paperform, you're not just collecting applications—you're building relationships with organizations doing the most critical work of our time.

This template helps ensure your grantmaking process reflects abolitionist values: transparency, accessibility, community accountability, and trust-based philanthropy. Customize questions to match your funding priorities, add your foundation's branding, and create a grant application process that honors the dignity and expertise of grassroots organizers working toward a world without prisons.

Start funding abolitionist work today with a grant application form that respects the movement and the people leading it.