About Us
Freedom Should Be Free for Everyone.
Minnesota Freedom Fund works to end wealth-based detention and power build with community to dismantle the systems that turn poverty into punishment while expanding access to freedom, safety, and dignity for all Minnesotans.
At Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF), we don’t pay for freedom, we fight for it. Rooted in generations of struggle and solidarity, we challenge a system that trades dignity for dollars by channeling our energy into legal, political, and social reform. United in purpose, we stand with the overlooked and underestimated, forging a path to a future where freedom isn’t a commodity, but a right.
MFF has entered a bold new chapter, transitioning from its origins as a bail fund into an organization that reimagines justice and liberation by implementing programming focused on systemic intervention and community investment. Since 2016, MFF has paid pretrial bail and immigration bonds for people who cannot afford their freedom, as we’ve worked to end oppressive, discriminatory, and coercive jailing. While this approach provided immediate relief for those in need, it also revealed deeper unresolved systemic issues. We recognized that by channeling our resources directly into the criminal legal and immigration detention systems, we risked inadvertently sustaining and legitimizing systems and actors we know to be fundamentally unjust. Simply paying bail and bonds is only a band-aid on the deep injustice of oppressive, discriminatory, and coercive jailing. For every person who was released because we paid their bail or immigration bond, another person was booked into that same cell. To work toward lasting freedom and large-scale decarceration, we recognize that we need to invest in systemic transformation.
That’s why we’ve embarked on an organizational shift that responds to systemic issues. We are moving from transactional bail and immigration bond payments to community power-building and reimagined justice through three pillars: Free the People, Free the Courts, and Free the Vote.
Together, these pillars represent a comprehensive commitment to work rooted in justice, equity, and community power.
free the people
Free the People expands the definition of freedom beyond release from jail, centering it as a lifelong journey of wellness, dignity, and self-determination. We will free the people by fighting for policy changes that will end cash bail, eliminate the harms of immigration detention, and ensure people returning home from jails and prisons have what they need to be healthy, safe, and stable. In 2026, MFF will launch programs that provide criminal and immigration legal support for those who can’t afford it.
free the courts
Free the Courts confronts generational civic exclusion and ignites a fight for legal accountability and transparency. It is a movement to reclaim political power for those silenced by incarceration and disenfranchisement, restoring agency and engagement as daily practices of freedom. We will free the courts by pushing for judicial diversity and accountability and supporting transparency in courtrooms.
free the vote
Free the Vote reclaims civic participation as a form of collective power, centering justice, dignity, and cultural relevance to ignite political agency in historically excluded communities. We will free the vote by educating our neighbors and building relationships in disenfranchised communities, so that when opportunity for systemic transformation knocks, we have key allies in positions to make and support change.
Our Mission
Minnesota Freedom Fund works to end wealth-based detention and power build with community to dismantle the systems that turn poverty into punishment while expanding access to freedom, safety, and dignity for all Minnesotans.
Our Vision
Minnesota Freedom Fund envisions a world where justice restores the humanity and dignity of all involved. We fight to exist in a world where every individual has access to resources to lead healthy and full lives.
2,537
People freed from pre-trial jailing
$21.2M
Paid for cash bails
463
People freed from immigration detention
$4.8M
Paid for immigration bonds
Since our founding in 2016, Minnesota Freedom Fund has paid more than $26 million to free 3,000+ people from pre-trial jailing and immigration detention.
We continue to work to end wealth-based detention and power build with community to dismantle the systems that turn poverty into punishment while expanding access to freedom, safety, and dignity for all Minnesotans.
Our Values
We work according to our values.
We’re Accountable to Community.
The trust of our community is essential to our work. We are committed to transparency and to remaining accountable to the communities that we serve as well as our supporters, donors, and partners. We will also work to empower local organizations across our state. Read our full statement on accountability here.
We Abolish Systems Intended to Harm.
We believe that our criminal justice system, like many other systems in our society, was designed to maintain and uphold white supremacy while prioritizing the wealth, power, and influence of the few at the expense of the many. It is long past due to abolish these systems so that together we can create a more inclusive, just, and equitable society.
We Center Intersectional Racial Equity.
We are mindful of the interlocking oppressions that face the people we serve, especially Black, Indigenous, and communities of color, who are subject to disproportionate rates of arrest, higher bails, harsher sentences, and other institutional abuses. We are working to dismantle a criminal justice system that is particularly unjust and inequitable towards those at the intersections of race, poverty, homelessness, and immigration status, among others factors.
Join the fight to end wealth-based jailing.
We make a bigger impact when we work together. Join the fight to protect our neighbors from wealth-based jailing and abolish systems of mass incarceration.
