“Come Together and Make a Statement That This is our Home”: A Case Study of Grassroots Organization Investment in West Harlem
By ISLG Staff
Grassroots organizations have an indispensable and uniquely powerful role to play as social change agents and partners in public safety. “Grassroots” organizations are groups that emerge from within communities—started by individuals or groups who understand the community and use their legitimacy to promote its strengths and address its needs. As the term suggests, grassroots organizations grow from the community soil and their embeddedness allows them to reach and effectively engage people where others cannot. As such, grassroots programming can significantly enhance the effectiveness of service delivery and its ability to reach people in need of support, opportunity, and connection.[1] Likewise, through collaboration with government and other systems, grassroots organizations can bring awareness to inequities and social concerns facing a community that are either normalized or invisible to policymakers and funders.[2]
Funded by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and with oversight by ISLG, the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII) sought to elevate the work of effective and promising grassroots organizations as part of its investment strategy. To illustrate the power of investing in grassroots organizations, ISLG interviewed representatives from six organizations funded under CJII. Through the voices and experiences of a sample of CJII’s grassroots partners, this blog series explores the impact of investing at the grassroots level. The lessons learned herein are intended to provide guidance for funders seeking to support grassroots programs and incorporate grassroots partners—and their deep community knowledge and connections—into broader public safety and social change initiatives.
The West Harlem Community Restoration and Reentry Project
The West Harlem Community Restoration and Reentry Project (WHCRRP) is a coordinated response by grassroots community organizations in West Harlem to a June 2014 law enforcement intervention in gang violence that resulted in the arrest and prosecution of 103 people living in the Manhattanville and Grant housing developments and the surrounding area. The project is a partnership between the Osborne Association and a hyperlocal community-based, grassroots organizations—the Tayshana “Chicken” Murphy Foundation (TCMF).
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office conceived the WHCRRP and partnered with Osborne and TCMF to plan and implement the multi-pronged initiative, which seeks to address community trauma, promote long-term healing among residents, and sustain the reduction in violence that occurred following the law enforcement intervention in West Harlem in June 2014.
Osborne, as the lead agency, provides oversight and fiscal management to the WHCRRP, allowing TCMF to bring its community expertise to the project. Osborne mentors TCMF in organizational best practices to support their strategic growth and development.
The project employs restorative justice, credible messenger mentoring, and a capacity-building incubator for hyperlocal, grassroots anti-violence initiatives toward three goals:
Promote healing among community members and between the community and law enforcement.
Support community members who have recently returned, or are soon to return, from incarceration.
Strengthen and empower community-led anti-violence efforts.
TCMF and Community Healing
“As we grow, we can pull others up, too. That is what life is about.”
Taylonn Murphy Sr., the executive director, founded TCMF in 2012 in honor of his daughter, Tayshana “Chicken” Murphy, and other young people who lost their lives to gun violence in the community. Murphy’s daughter was killed outside the Grant Houses by a resident of the Manhattanville Houses, and Murphy’s son was prosecuted for a retaliatory murder and is serving 50 years-to-life in prison.
In response to these tragic events, Murphy created TCMF to empower and uplift teens at-risk for gun violence. Under WHCRRP, TCMF works directly with men who were arrested and incarcerated through the 2014 law enforcement intervention and have been released to the community, providing direct counseling, mentoring, and assistance with connections to housing and employment. TCMF also supports the families of the young men and the surrounding community, helping to heal the wounds and shore up the relationships between Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, police, and the community.
Murphy describes himself as “a citizen of the community” and “an agent of hope” who sees the human side of all people and “wants to touch people, so they see they have a greatness inside of them.” Murphy explains that as an agent of the community who has experienced the pain of losing his children to gun violence, he and TCMF “reach people differently because of our relationships. It’s easier to walk amongst the people and be a living example of what you should be or what you can become and the adversities that we deal with in our everyday lives… It’s really about living by example and having that familiarity with individuals and relationships with the community. And that’s what makes a difference between us being a grassroots organization and one of the bigger, major organizations out there.”
“It’s easier to walk amongst the people and be a living example of what you should be or what you can become and the adversities that we deal with in our everyday lives… It’s really about living by example and having that familiarity with individuals and relationships with the community. And that’s what makes a difference between us being a grassroots organization and one of the bigger, major organizations out there.”
The partnership between the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and grassroots organizations to develop and implement WHCRRP is a great example, says Murphy, of why it is important for government and system actors to work with grassroots organizations. In doing so, Murphy explains, the DA’s office is learning more about how partnerships with community organizations can advance public safety and how addressing underlying economic instability and social poverty (e.g., low levels or education, availability of services, etc.) can serve that shared goal. By working together to change the social norms in the community that contribute to unlawfulness and violence, Murphy states, the DA’s office and its partners are giving people hope through WHCRRP.
TCMF’s role in this project is actualized in a number of ways, all flowing from the core principles described above. First and foremost, TCMF programming always prioritizes community safety. For instance, TCMF’s credible messengers de-escalate potentially dangerous situations to directly prevent community violence. TCMF has also collaborated with stakeholders, such as the NYPD, for the Harlem giveaway events providing needed goods to the community. TCMF also organizes OSHA trainings upon the request of community members.
While WHCRRP was only four months into implementation of its 3.5-year grant at the time of our interview, Murphy reported that he had already observed changes in the community since beginning the work, including among the young men affected by the 2014 law enforcement action. “They are definitely buying into what we are doing,” he said. “They are very excited, looking for what’s next to come. They were looking for hope with the pandemic and the economic crisis, and this is a ray of hope for the community. The community sees that we are people like them and have an opportunity to help them. A lot of the community is uplifted and are volunteering to help—they’ve been very motivated.” Murphy is optimistic about the effect of this work on community-law enforcement relations, reporting that, “there is already a change in the way that law enforcement looks at things and the way that people look at law enforcement, including the police. Even though our views are different, we still find a line to stand on where we want the same things. We both want public safety, and we want young people to excel. This initiative helps voices like mine be able to talk to people like [an assistant commissioner in the NYPD] to come to the table and try to work out. Even if I see red and you see blue, we work out a burgundy, and move forward.”
“The community sees that we are people like them and have an opportunity to help them. A lot of the community is uplifted and are volunteering to help—they’ve been very motivated.”
According to Murphy, the impact that CJII investment had reached so deeply into the West Harlem community because “usually grassroots organizations don’t get the proper funding that we need to do the work, and to have $3 million invested in the West Harlem community for this project gives us the opportunity to do things we have already been doing but more effectively without struggling on a shoestring bubble gum budget—to have some real funds to invest in the community and in the people.”
Murphy explains that often grassroots organizations and the people who run them are largely underfunded; the leaders of such organizations often take no salary and have little money to pay staff. With the CJII grant, Murphy can meaningfully pay people for their work, which shows a measurable return in terms of quality and impact. Murphy states, “When you’re able to actually reward individuals for community work and to give them sustainable wages, they tend to buy into a system a little bit more. . . And, as an organization, we are now growing. And as we grow, we can pull others up, too. That is what life is about.”
Looking Forward, for TCMF & the Community
"Peace, Harmony, and Unity for the Future"
Regarding lessons learned, Murphy says, “I think we’re going to make a major statement in Harlem, showing people that all these entities, different people, different agencies, different organizations can come together and make a statement that this is our home, this is our city. We need our city to be safe, we need our city to excel and the people in our city—no matter if you live in a marginalized community or a community that has more, that we all want the same things…. It may not be that easy, but it’s worth fighting for, for me, for some peace and harmony and unity for all across the board.”
Photo provided by Taylonn Murphy.
[1] Post, Margaret A.. “Multi-organizational Alliances and Policy Change: Understanding the Mobilization and Impact of Grassroots Coalitions.” Nonprofit Policy Forum 6 (2015): 271 - 295.
[2] Flores W, Samuel J. Grassroots organizations and the sustainable development goals: no one left behind?. BMJ. 2019;365:l2269. Published 2019 Jun 14. doi:10.1136/bmj.l2269