Our Mission: We strive to build a justice system that is equally just for all while advancing social causes that make hope and possibility available to every member of our society.
What We Do
The Barton Family Foundation supports individuals, families, and communities impacted by structural injustice. Focused on investing in organizations that work to reform the U.S. criminal legal system and rectify societal inequities that lead to incarceration. BFF also supports broader philanthropic programs in our beloved Seattle community.
Our Call to Action
America’s criminal legal system is broken. Biased and discriminatory, it also begets racial, gender, and income disparities and breeds despair. And though the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country – housing 25 percent of the world’s imprisoned population – our reliance on mass incarceration has not enhanced public safety. Instead, it has weakened communities by separating families and undermining mental, physical, and economic well-being.
Conditions in communities of color need to be overhauled, beginning with ensuring quality education and living wages. We also need alternatives to incarceration – and for those who do enter the justice system, fair sentencing, along with access to drug treatment, counseling, education, and job training. When our citizens return home, they should be provided with mentoring, employment, and housing assistance.
Our Approach
We seek out and support both community-based and national programs committed to justice reform. In Seattle, we’ve given grants to organizations such as The IF Project, Civil Survival, Center for Children and Youth Justice, and Weld Seattle. Our recent grants to national institutions fighting for justice reform include AMEND, Measures for Justice, and ACLU. With any contribution, our goal is to collaborate openly with grantees, co-funders, and experts while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in our grantmaking process. Please note: We do not accept unsolicited applications for grants.
We look for organizations with strong leaders who have clear visions and are focused on fixing the legal justice system and advancing our society in innovative ways.
Our Focus Areas
Pursuing a comprehensive path to justice reform, we support a variety of efforts ranging from reentry programs to advocacy initiatives. Our grant focus spans juvenile and restorative justice; bail and policing reform; non-partisan journalism; transitional housing, mental health, and addiction recovery. We are also committed to supporting the movement for racial equity, and particularly admire organizations that are led by impacted individuals.
Beyond our primary pursuits of reforming the criminal legal system and advancing racial justice, we aim to create hope by funding education, the arts, and medical research.