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Life Comes From It (LCFI)

Website:

www.lifecomesfromit.org
Type:

Grantmaking
Formation:

2018
Location:

Oakland, CA
Program Director (2026):

Seth Lennon Nguyen-Weiner

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Life Comes From It (LCFI) is a grantmaking organization based in Oakland, California that supports projects seeking to resolve community issues without reliance on incarceration or punitive systems. 1 Initial funding for LCFI came from several major left-of-center donors including the Open Philanthropy Project, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Libra Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Public Welfare Foundation. 2

Background

Life Comes From It is a grantmaking organization based in Oakland, California that supports projects led by ethnic minorities that focus on restorative justice, transformative justice, indigenous peacemaking, and land-based healing. Its goal is to resolve issues “through community solutions without reliance on incarceration and punitive systems.” It was founded in 2018. 1  3  4

The creation of LCFI and its first advisory circle meeting took place in June 2018 as a result of discussions between Sonya Shah, the founding executive director of the Ahimsa Collective and Open Philanthropy’s criminal justice program officer Chloe Cockburn, who is founding CEO of Just Impact Advisors. 5  6  7 Its first grants were awarded in 2019 to organizations led by ethnic minorities that addressed restorative justice, transformative justice, and indigenous peacemaking. In 2021 LCFI included “land-based healing and reentry” in its focus areas. 4

Organization

Life Comes From It is managed by a program director and program manager. As of 2026, its advisory circle, composed of six individuals, was the decision-making body that set funding priorities and reviewed and selected grantees. 8  9

LCFI is fiscally and administratively managed by the Ahimsa Collective, which collects grant applications, organizes meetings of the advisory circle to review and select grantees, designs the LCFI website, and coordinates logistics for the organization. 8

As of 2026, the Ahimsa Collective was managing four programs that “attempt to build alternatives to harmful systems.” In addition to Life Comes From It, these included People First Reentry, Healing Pathways, and the Santa Cruz Healing and Justice Center. People First Reentry provides housing and support for people transitioning out of incarceration. Healing Pathways offers restorative and transformative justice processes, survivor groups, and in-prison groups to avoid “punitive responses” to violence.  The Santa Cruz Healing and Justice Center provides “short and longer-term healing stays for communities of color, formerly incarcerated people, survivors, justice workers, and queer folks in our community.” 10

Work Areas

Life Comes From It is a grantmaking organization that also hosts convenings, offers webinars, and provides organizational consulting to grantees pertaining to its focus areas. 11

In 2024, LCFI partnered with the Roots to Sky Sanctuary for a retreat following the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice conference held in Washington, D.C. focused on “land-based healing projects” for ethnic minorities. 4

In March 2024, LCFI hosted a webinar entitled “Ending Mass Incarceration through Cultural Healing, Restorative Practices, and Kinship.” 12

In April 2024, LCFI co-sponsored the Beyond The Bars Conference: Justice Beyond Punishment, hosted by the Center for Justice at Columbia University. The conference explored “non-punitive approaches to interpersonal and community violence that offer us ways out of the punishment paradigm.” 13  14

Grantmaking

Since 2019, Life Comes From It has awarded grants to support over 340 projects involved in its focus areas of restorative justice, transformative justice, and indigenous peacemaking. In 2024, it awarded 45 grants totaling over $1.4 million. 15  16

Its 2024 grantees focused on restorative justice included the Center for Justice at Columbia University, the Center of Southwest Culture, the Restorative Project, and Youth Passageways. Those focused on transformative justice included the Alliance for a Viable Future, the Good Work Institute, and the Social Good Fund. Indigenous-led organizations and ones tied to Indigenous peacemaking included the All Nations Gathering Center, the Confederation of Ohlone Peoples, International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, and Weaving Worlds. 16

Funding

The Tides Foundation fiscally sponsored the Life Comes From It fund until 2023 when the Ahimsa Collective, which administratively managed it, also took over fiscal management. The National Philanthropic Trust was holding its donor advised fund as of 2026. 2

Initial funding for LCFI came from several left-of-center donors including the Open Philanthropy Project, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Libra Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Public Welfare Foundation. 2

More recent donors to LCFI have included the Bia-Echo Foundation, the North Star Fund, the New World Foundation, the Patchwork Collective, Just Impact Advisors, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Hopewell Fund, and Mountain Philanthropies. 2

Leadership

As of 2026, Seth Lennon Nguyen-Weiner was serving as the Life Comes From It program director. He is an attorney who has worked for nonprofit organizations, that, in his words, focused on “community-centered social justice, restorative justice, and systems-level change.” 17

As of 2026, advisory circle members included Robert Yazzie, Sheryl R. Wilson, Sonya Shah, Cheryl Demmert Fairbanks, Richard Cruz, and Mimi Kim. 18

Yazzie was a former chief justice of the Navajo Nation and was an associate professor of law advocate at the Navajo Technical University in New Mexico. He was one of the founding advisory circle members. He was previously an attorney and a district judge in the Navajo Nation and director of the Dine Policy Institute at the Navajo Nation Dine College. 19

As of 2026, Wilson was vice president of culture and belonging at Bethel College in Kansas. She was one of the founding LCFI advisory circle members and has focused her career on restorative justice as a facilitator, mediator, researcher, and teacher. She previously served as executive director of the Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution and worked independently as a restorative justice practitioner. 20

As of 2026, Shah was co-executive director of the Ahimsa Collective, which she founded in 2015. She was one of the founding advisory circle members and as of 2026 was an associate professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. 21 She has been teaching restorative and transformative justice for approximately two decades. Previously she worked at the Insight Prison Project, running the Victim Offender Education Program. She was a founding member of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice with Californians for Safety and Justice. She sat on the advisory board of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth. 22

As of 2026, the remaining advisory circle members were Cheryl Demmert Fairbanks, and attorney and Tribal Court of Appeals judge; Richard Cruz, co-executive director of the Ahimsa Collective; and Mimi Kim, founder of Creative Interventions and co-founder of INCITE!. 18

References

  1. Life Comes From It homepage. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/
  2. “Contributors to the Fund.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/origins
  3. “Mission & Values.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/about
  4. “Life Comes From It Impact Report 2023 – 2025.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/copy-of-origins
  5. “Origins.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/origins
  6. “Sonya Shah.” The Ahimsa Collective. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.ahimsacollective.net/sonyashah
  7. LinkedIn – Chloe Cockburn. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloecockburn/
  8. “Who We Are.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/who-we-are
  9. “2024 Grantees.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/copy-of-2023-grantees
  10. “Our Work.” The Ahimsa Collective. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.ahimsacollective.net/what-we-do
  11. “Our Work.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/what-we-fund
  12. “Webinars.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/copy-of-community-1
  13. “Events – Beyond the Bars Conference 2024.” Columbia University Center for Justice. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://centerforjustice.columbia.edu/events/beyond-bars-conference-2024
  14. “Justice Beyond Punishment.” Center for Justice. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://centerforjustice.columbia.edu/sites/centerforjustice.columbia.edu/files/content/BTB%20Preliminary%20Program_1.pdf
  15. “Our Grantees.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/mapping-our-movement
  16. “2024 Grantees.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/copy-of-2023-grantees
  17. LinkedIn – Seth Lennon Weiner. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-lennon-weiner-b529848/
  18. “Advisory Circle.” Life Comes From It. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.lifecomesfromit.org/who-we-are
  19. “Robert Yazzie.” Native Nations Institute. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://nni.arizona.edu/person/robert-yazzie
  20. LinkedIn – Sheryl R. Wilson. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherylrwilson/
  21. “Sonya Shah.” The Ahimsa Collective. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://www.ahimsacollective.net/sonyashah
  22. “The Ahimsa Collective.” Just Beginnings Collaborative. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://justbeginnings.org/former-grantees/ahimsa/
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