In partnership with Williams, other founders and partners include Philadelphia 76ers partner and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin; Arnold Ventures co-founder Laura Arnold; entrepreneur and business mogul Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter; Kraft Group CEO and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft; Galaxy Digital CEO and founder Michael E. Novogratz; Vista Equity Partners founder, chairman, and CEO Robert F. Smith; Brooklyn Nets co-owner and philanthropic investor Clara Wu Tsai; initiative co-founder Chan Zuckerberg and co-CEO Priscilla Chan; and CNN host and activist Van Jones. Robert Rooks, a veteran criminal justice advocate, serves as the CEO.

With more than two decades of policy and legislative advocacy under his belt, Rooks has helped to secure landmark reform including incarceration reduction work in Illinois, California, Florida, Michigan, Texas, and Ohio. REFORM Alliance allows him to continue his advocacy efforts.

The CEO said the #FreeMeek movement paved a path to share their way to effective reforms.

“Well, the truth of the matter is that Meek shed light on the fact that there are millions of people dealing with this,” Rooks told Blavity. “And so what Meek allowed us to do was to use his story to tell a story of others and then those other stories started to show up and individuals started becoming empowered to share their experiences on probation and the challenges that they have.”

Rooks fancies the approach of centering the narratives of crime survivors, and survivor is the operative word for this organization because it sets the landscape for the work.

“The survivors themselves did not want to use the word victim,” Rooks said. “They said, ‘we’re not gonna be defined by what happened to us; we’re actually going to shape the next phase of our lives through our healing journey.’ And that was something that once you heard folks articulate, it just made total sense. And, the word victim is one that has so many different connotations that people weren’t willing or wanting to associate with, but they all wanted to associate with survivors.”

Joined by these survivors, this group of activists and philanthropists make systemic change.

Reform Alliance

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