Prison Fellowship is the world's largest Christian nonprofit organization for prisoners, former prisoners, and their families, and a leading advocate for justice reform.
The prison abolition movement is a network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation and education that do not focus on punishment and government institutionalization. The prison abolitionist movement is distinct from conventional prison reform, which is intended to improve conditions inside prisons.
Books to Prisoners is an umbrella term for organizations that mail free reading material to prison inmates.
Menard Correctional Center, known prior to 1970 as Southern Illinois Penitentiary, is an Illinois state prison located in the town of Chester in Randolph County, Illinois. It houses maximum-security and high-medium-security adult males. The average daily population as of 2007 was 3,410.
Internationalist Books and Community Center, located in Carrboro, North Carolina, was a volunteer operated infoshop, non-profit collective, and community center for local activists. The store name was a reference to the political philosophy of internationalism. Often, the center was called "The Internationalist" or merely "Eye Books" by its volunteers, members, and supporters.
The Aleph Institute is an American non-profit organization affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement that provides support services to the approximately 85,000 Jews in the U.S. prison system and Jewish members of the U.S. military located in the United States and deployed abroad.
The Lucy Parsons Center, located in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, is a radical, nonprofit independent bookstore and self-managed social center. Formed out of the Red Word bookstore, it is collectively run by volunteers. The center provides reading material, space for individuals to drop in, and a free space for meetings and events.
PEN Center USA was a branch of PEN, an international literary and human rights organization. It was one of two PEN International Centers in the United States, the other being the PEN America in New York City. On March 1, 2018, PEN Center USA unified under the PEN America umbrella as the PEN America Los Angeles office. PEN Center USA was founded in 1943 and incorporated as a nonprofit association in 1981. Much of PEN Center USA's programming continues out of the PEN America Los Angeles office, including the Emerging Voices Fellowship, PEN In the Community writing residencies and guest speaker program, and the PEN Presents conversation series.
BookEnds is a non-profit organization based in Southern California that helps children collect books and donate them to other children in areas of low literacy. It was founded in 1998 by the mother-and-son team of Robin and Brandon Keefe in Agoura Hills. Brandon, then eight years old and in the third grade, led his school class in a book drive to build a library at a local home for abused children.
Volunteer grants are charitable gifts given to non-profit organizations by corporations in recognition of volunteer work being done by a company's employees. This practice is widespread in the United States.
The maternity package, known internationally as the Finnish "baby box," is a kit granted by the Finnish social security institution Kela, to all expectant or adoptive parents who live in Finland or are covered by the Finnish social security system. The package contains children's clothes and other necessary items, such as nappies, bedding, cloth, gauze towels and child-care products. It was first issued in 1938 to parents with a low income, and contained a blanket, crib sheets, diapers, and fabric which parents could use to make clothing for the baby.
Boxcar Books was a non-profit, independent bookstore, infoshop, and community center in Bloomington, Indiana. Collectively run by volunteers, Boxcar Books was "one of the highest-volume zine sellers" in the United States. According to its website, the store existed to "promote reading, self-education, social equality, and social welfare through increased accessibility to literature and workshops." Boxcar Books was for a time also the home of the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project, a non-profit organization that distributes books and reading materials to prisoners. By the end of 2017, Boxcar Books had closed their operations.
The Innovations in Reading Prize was an annual award given to organizations and individuals who "developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading." The prize was awarded by the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards. The Innovations in Reading prize was founded in 2009, and from 2009 to 2014, the National Book Foundation recognized up to five winners, who each received $2,500. Beginning in 2015, the Foundation began recognizing a single $10,000 prize winner each year, as well as four honorable mentions. In 2018, the Foundation began recognizing each honorable mention organization with a $1,000 prize. The final award was given out in 2020.
Books Through Bars is an American organization that works to provide quality reading material to prisoners in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. New Society Publishers of Philadelphia founded Books Through Bars in 1990. Books Through Bars was separately incorporated as a nonprofit organization on March 19, 2001. There are approximately 30 similar, but unaffiliated, organizations throughout the United States.
Bound Together is an anarchist bookstore and visitor attraction on Haight Street in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Its Lonely Planet review in 2016, commenting on its multiple activities, states that it "makes us tools of the state look like slackers". The bookstore carries new and used books as well as local authors.
Feminist businesses are companies established by activists involved in the feminist movement. Examples include feminist bookstores, feminist credit unions, feminist presses, feminist mail-order catalogs, and feminist restaurants. These businesses flourished as part of the second and third-waves of feminism in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Feminist entrepreneurs established organizations such as the Feminist Economic Alliance to advance their cause. Feminist entrepreneurs sought three primary goals: to disseminate their ideology through their businesses, to create public spaces for women and feminists, and to create jobs for women so that they did not have to depend on men financially. While they still exist today, the number of some feminist businesses, particularly women's bookstores, has declined precipitously since 2000.
Open Books is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois, that sells donated books to fund literacy programs for kids. Founded by Stacy Ratner in 2006, Open Books has since started several literacy programs for kids, and has taken part in literacy events in Chicago. Open Books has three store locations, based in Pilsen, West Loop, and Logan Square areas of Chicago. Open Books employs adult volunteers who work in their bookstores, and with participants during literacy workshops.
The Free Black Women's Library is an organization that hosts a mobile library based primarily in New York City, and is focused on sharing literature written by Black women. It was founded by the Nigerian American Ola Ronke Akinmowo in Brooklyn in 2015.
Share Your Soles is a non-profit organization in Chicago, Illinois, that provides shoes for the homeless and individuals that cannot afford to purchase shoes. The organization supplies shoes to individuals in the United States, as well as third world countries such as Uganda, Mexico, Peru and Guatemala. Share Your Soles sets up various fundraisers and develops partnerships in order to gain funds for their organization.
Prison Book Program is an American non-profit organization that sends free books to people in prison. While the organization is based in Massachusetts, it mails packages of books to people in prisons in 45 U.S. states, as well as Puerto Rico and Guam. The program receives letters from people in prison asking for specific titles or genres, which volunteers use to put together a package of books chosen from a small library of donated books. The organization is run out of the basement of the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts. Kelly Brotzman currently serves as Executive Director.
