JMLF works to replace a broken, prison-centered, discriminatory justice system

through healing, justice, and trust-based relationships with grass-roots organizations.

A group of protestors of various genders, ages, and skin colors, most wearing COVID-era masks, stand in front of a 20-foot-tall, windowless, beige cinder-block building topped by razor wire. A chain-link fence stands between the building and the protestors, and the protestors have hung two large banners on the fence. The left banner reads "COMMUNITIES NOT CAGES," and the right banner has two images: on the left side, a woman reaches out for a child who is gripped in an oversized hand with ICE written on the sleeve; on the right side, two men look out from the windows of a prison, underneath a sky made out of red hand prints. — California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance

Three people looking at an alter — California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance

A group of young people wearing COVID-era face masks are gathered before a municipal building. Most are standing, but three people in the foreground are kneeling. Most of the protestors are holding homemade signs with messages such as, PRISONS DON'T KEEP PEOPLE SAFE, CARE NOT CAGES, INVEST IN COMMUNITIES, and PRISONS ARE TOXIC. — Courtesy of #CloseCAPrisons Campaign

Two people, a man on the left and a woman wearing sunglasses on the right, both dark skinned, stand outside a municipal building on a sunny day, holding white cardboard boxes with lids. Taped to the front of each box is a sign that reads in part, CLOSE AT LEAST 8 PRISONS BY 2025! The man is raising his right fist in a symbolic gesture, and the woman is smiling. They are both staring off to the left of the camera lens. — Courtesy of #CloseCAPrisons Campaign

A crowd of protestors of various ages, skin colors, and genders, some wearing COVID-era face masks, are gathered outside in a public space as part of a Justice L.A. event. A dark-skinned man in an orange t-shirt and pink blazer is holding a microphone and addressing the crowd, while a dark-skinned woman in a blue polo shirt and black, partially unzipped hoodie stands to his right and interprets his words into sign language. Behind them, several people hold up signs, and several people in the audience have their heads down as if in prayer. — JusticeLA. Photo: Graham Smith

Two brown-skinned women with dark, approximately shoulder-length curly hair, sit on either side of a hand-made altar on the stone steps of a public building. They are looking at the camera with serene expressions. The woman on the left is wearing a white dress or frock over a long-sleeved red shirt, and she has a thick blue fabric scarf draped loosely around her neck. The woman on the right is wearing a red dress and a white blouse with red trim, as well as a black and white poncho. She is wearing sunglasses and a white bandana that pushes her hair back from her face and shoulders. The altar consists of a red cloth draped over several steps, with lemons and herbs placed on the top step on either side of a small yarn doll and two wooden bowls. The steps below that are covered in flowers, bowls, another lemon, corn with the husks attached, roses, a fan, and other small items that are not easily identifiable from a distance. — Justice Teams Network. Photo: Malaika H Kambon, PEOPLE’S EYE PHOTOGRAPHY

About Us

The John M. Lloyd Foundation (JMLF) is a small family foundation based in Los Angeles, CA. We fund organizations working to address the incarceration crisis in Los Angeles and the state of California. Primarily the foundation supports grassroots organizations led by and for those most impacted by incarceration.

The foundation places a high value on being flexible to meet the needs of the field and to have the capacity to support new and innovative approaches. The values that primarily guide us are:

Healing
Justice
Trust-based relationships

Our Priorities

The people most impacted by the crisis of incarceration are the ones to develop solutions. The foundation prioritizes funding organizations led by and for those most impacted, i.e. communities of color, people who are or have been incarcerated or those with loved ones who are or have been incarcerated. To ensure our grantmaking is guided by the wisdom and experience of those most impacted, our board includes people who are either formerly incarcerated or whose loved ones have been incarcerated.

Trauma-informed solutions are centered in healing justice. True safety and justice require society to value the health and well-being of each human being, each family, and each community. JMLF supports organizations that are leading the field in integrating healing justice within all facets of programming and internal operations.

Incarceration in the US is rooted in racism. JMLF recognizes the deep-seated racism at the core of the incarceration crisis and consequentially strives to support organizations and strategies that intentionally focus on deconstructing the racism that roots the incarceration crisis.

The people most impacted by the crisis of incarceration are the ones to develop solutions.

Smaller, grassroots organizations are most in need of support. JMLF mainly supports organizations that do not have easy access to larger funders and do not have large or high-level development teams.

Foundation support must nurture trusting relationships. JMLF endeavors to limit onerous proposal applications and reporting, in order for our partners to focus their energy on ending the incarceration crisis. We believe in trust-based relational partnerships. Such relationships are fostered in conversations, so JMLF does not require formal written proposals year after year, and reporting is conducted through informal conversations.

The learning journey never ends. In 2013 JMLF began its transition from funding HIV/AIDS policy and advocacy to a focus on the criminal legal system with a learning journey. Years later, the foundation continues to deepen our understanding of the criminal legal system – its roots, its extended impact on individuals, families, and communities, how it can be addressed, and how it can be replaced with healing justice-based systems. Our grantee partners are leaders in the field. Their expertise enlightens, guides, and inspires us on this journey.

The Mary Lloyd Estrin Leadership Award

Mary Lloyd Estrin was John M. Lloyd’s sister, a founding director of the John M. Lloyd Foundation, and highly instrumental in the development and growth of the foundation. She was also a life-long advocate for human rights and social justice.

Mary’s spirit was mighty and audacious. She was never one to mince words and had a profound capacity to cut to the core of any issue, but she did so with impeccable wit. Mary held a deep reverence for learning and humor. And beneath everything else was her sensitive heart, a foundation of vulnerability and authenticity. Mary’s empathy and compassion towards those who have been incarcerated and struggle to return to their community helped JMLF clarify our vision of justice.

Mary prized strong leadership within the social justice movements she supported. She possessed steely strength and resiliency, and valued the same in others. She saw tenacious resolve, humor, and optimism as key components of effective leadership.

In 2020 Mary passed away after a long battle with cancer and COPD. In 2021 the JMLF board launched the Mary Lloyd Estrin Leadership Award in her honor to provide support for formerly incarcerated leaders in the movement.

JMLF launched the Mary Lloyd Estrin Leadership Award to support leaders impacted by incarceration.

The first two awards have supported the National Life Without Parole Leadership Council to hold their first in-person retreats. Comprised of 12 formerly incarcerated people from around the US who had received life without parole (LWOP) sentences, the Leadership Council is working to change culture and policy to end LWOP sentences. The opportunity to meet in person allowed the Council to deepen relationships and heal.

In keeping with the foundation’s high regard for flexibility, future awards will be used to support leaders who have been impacted by incarceration utilizing a variety of strategies. There is no application for this award.

A grid of 14 headshots of adults of various skin colors and genders, each smiling at the camera. In the lower right is a box with the text, NATIONAL LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE LEADERSHIP COUNCIL. — Credit: Chip Warren for Human Rights Watch

Eight smiling adults of various skin colors, body types, and genders, all dressed in athletic gear or general outdoor clothing and wearing bicycle safety helmets. They are standing in an informal row in the middle of a rocky arid landscape with low bushes and dried grass, and the sky is blue but filled with thin, windswept white clouds. Three of the people are holding up mountain bikes, and there is the front wheel of another mountain bike on its side in the near right foreground. In the far distance behind the group are low hills. — Credit: Chip Warren for Human Rights Watch

A lit fire burns in a rocky fire pit in a dusty brown park environment at night. Seventeen adults of various ages, skin colors, and genders sit on rough wooden benches in a loose semi-circle around the fire pit. A woman on the right side of the fire is speaking, and others in the semicircle are looking at her and listening. In the bottom right corner, a man holding a video camera with attached boom mic is recording the scene. — Credit: Chip Warren for Human Rights Watch

Twelve adults of various skin colors and genders stand in a circle in the partial shade in a park on a sunny day. They are all holding onto a loop of rope at waist level as part of a team-building exercise. — Credit: Chip Warren for Human Rights Watch

A large group of people of various ages, skin colors, and genders are standing outside in front of a building with a low green roof. They are smiling at the camera and holding up three signs, which read in order from left to right, MARY LLOYD ESTRIN LEADERSHIP AWARD, NATIONAL L.W.O.P. LEADERSHIP COUNCIL, and HEALING JUSTICE RETREAT 2022. — Credit: Chip Warren for Human Rights Watch

Five young adults of various ethnicities sit in a row inside an unidentified room. They are wearing name tags and appear to be attending a meeting. Two men in the center of the row are high-fiving each other and smiling. — Credit: Chip Warren for Human Rights Watch

Thirteen adults of various skin colors and genders are standing in the shade in a park with short, well-kept grass. There are trees in the near distance and a body of water behind the trees. The people are holding up two signs, which read in order from left to right, MARY LLOYD ESTRIN LEADERSHIP AWARD and NATIONAL LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE LEADERSHIP COUNCIL. — Credit: Chip Warren for Human Rights Watch

Grantees

JMLF currently supports these nonprofit organizations working to end mass incarceration in Los Angeles County.

current grantee

California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA) is a statewide immigrant youth-led alliance that focuses on placing immigrant youth in advocacy and policy delegations in order to ensure pro-immigrant policies go beyond legalization, and shed light on how the criminalization of immigrants varies based on identity.

www.ciyja.org

current grantee

CURB: Californians United for a Responsible Budget – for a statewide coalition of 75 organizations that reduces the number of people in prisons and jails, shrinking the imprisonment system, and shifting public spending from corrections and policing to human services.

www.curbprisonspending.org

current grantee

Essie Justice Group – for harnessing the collective power of women with incarcerated loved ones to advocate for themselves, their families, and their communities.

www.essiejusticegroup.org

current grantee

Human Rights Watch, for addressing extreme sentencing applied to children and youth under the age of 18.

www.hrw.org

current grantee

JusticeLA – a project of Dignity and Power Now (DPN) – was formed to reclaim, reimagine and reinvest what L.A. County could do with the $3.5 billion allocated to building two new jails.

www.justicelanow.org

current grantee

Justice Teams Network, statewide coalition of rapid response organizations across California that build infrastructure to support victims and survivors of state violence and mass criminalization.

www.justiceteams.org

current grantee

La Defensa is leading the movement to decarcerate the largest jail population in the United States–the LA County jail system.

www.ladefensa.org

Past Grantees

JMLF has previously supported these organizations.

past grantee

The Anti Police-Terror Project is a Black-led, multi-racial, intergenerational coalition that seeks to build a replicable and sustainable model to eradicate police terror in communities of color.

antipoliceterrorproject.org

past grantee

Anti-Recidivism Coalition, for providing practical, financial, social and personal/professional development support for young people who have been incarcerated.

www.antirecidivism.org

past grantee

The California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) is a grassroots organization, with members inside and outside prison, that challenges the institutional violence imposed on women, transgender people, and communities of color by the prison industrial complex.

www.womenprisoners.org

past grantee

Children’s Defense Fund – California, for reforming LA County’s juvenile camp model, improving confinement conditions and education in the juvenile justice system, and promoting leadership and the use of data and research in decision-making.

www.cdfca.org

past grantee

Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment, for developing alternatives to incarceration and involving South LA residents in civic engagement and their education, welfare and public safety systems.

www.cocosouthla.org

past grantee

Drug Policy Alliance, for protecting public safety and health while diminishing the role of the criminal justice system in drug policy and enforcement.

www.drugpolicy.org

past grantee

Echo Parenting and Education – for supporting and facilitating child raising and youth education in connection with empathy and with an approach that integrates current research in human development and trauma-informed care with the practice of nonviolence.

www.echoparenting.org

past grantee

The Emergent Fund helps move quick resources with no strings attached to communities that were and continue to be under attack by federal policies and priorities – immigrants, women, Muslim and Arab-American communities, Black people, Indigenous communities, LGBTQ communities, and all people of color.

www.emergentfund.net

past grantee

Healing Dialogue and Action, to bring together families who have lost loved ones to violence or to incarceration, for mutual healing and a united call for criminal justice system reform.

healingdialogueandaction.org

past grantee

Initiate Justice engages people directly impacted by incarceration to pass California state ballot initiatives focused on divestment from punitive systems and investment in people, communities, and restorative means of reducing harm.

www.initiatejustice.org

past grantee

Labor Community Strategy Center, for decriminalizing fare evasion, fighting for a free student bus pass, and developing youth membership and leadership.

www.thestrategycenter.org

past grantee

Public Counsel, for advancing reforms to the juvenile justice system and replacing the school-to-prison pipeline with educational services and supports.

www.publiccounsel.org

past grantee

Success Stories is an alternative to incarceration that builds safe communities by delivering transformational feminist programs to Youth and Adults, with an emphasis on people who have caused harm.

successstoriesprogram.org

past grantee

Youth Justice Coalition, for mobilizing young people who are or have been incarcerated, along with their parents, to organize for change and defend their human rights.

www.youth4justice.org

History and Board

History

John M. Lloyd established JMLF in 1991. For the next 23 years we supported local and, eventually, national and global groups working to end the AIDS pandemic. We’d entered the field at a tipping point in the U.S. As we watched, a broad movement began to win over entrenched cultural fears and systemic discrimination.

In 2014 we recognized another issue with critical momentum: replacing a broken, prison-centered, discriminatory criminal justice system. A strong kinship exists between this opportunity and our early work on HIV/AIDS. Once again, we reject a system that isolates, stigmatizes, and fails the people it’s charged with healing; and work toward supporting people in their communities. We want our culture and policies to change so people no longer look the other way—so they respond as if the life of their own child, friend, partner or loved one is directly involved.

You may access our archived HIV/AIDS-focused website for more information.

Founder

John Lloyd created JMLF to seek solutions to the AIDS epidemic. He believed medical knowledge existed to alleviate the crisis, but he also saw that a lack of wisdom, compassion and common sense were barriers to decisive action. He responded by putting his own energy and money to work for people living with AIDS.

As a boy growing up in Libertyville, Illinois, John said he wanted to leave the world a better place than he found it. He sought to reverse the root causes of problems rather than just treating their symptoms. He worked at an inner-city community housing project. He taught meditation techniques. He graduated from Taft School and the University of Illinois, and worked as a commodities broker and investment manager. In 1990, he married Heidi Mage.

Early in 1991, John passed away due to complications of AIDS. He had lived out his own wisdom, compassion and common sense, always with a sense of humor. He dedicated everything he had to making a positive impact on his world.

We remember John with love and are energized to carry his legacy forward.