T.O.N.E. U.P.

T.O.N.E. U.P. (Teaching Ourselves New Examples to Uplift People) is a directly impacted, Black and Brown-led organization working alongside people who have experienced incarceration, supervision, reentry, and other systems that can make it difficult to rebuild a life.

We believe people closest to these experiences should have the resources, relationships, leadership opportunities, and power to shape what happens next. Our work is rooted in a simple idea: we are our own second chance.

T.O.N.E. U.P. connects justice-impacted people to housing, employment, identification, food, clothing, wellness resources, legal and reentry support, and positive community networks. Through our Justice Impacted Peer Navigator Network, people with lived experience support other justice-impacted people as they navigate reentry, find resources, build healthy relationships, identify opportunities, and avoid situations and networks that can pull them back toward harm.

But our work goes beyond individual support. We are building leadership and civic power.

Through From the Block to the Ballot (B2B), we engage people who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system in civic life and voter engagement. We believe democracy is stronger when people who have historically been excluded from decision-making have the opportunity to participate, organize, lead, and shape policy.

Our work also includes leadership development, policy advocacy, Clean Slate education and empowerment, community organizing, storytelling, and campaigns led with and by justice-impacted people. We work to change the systems that create barriers while helping people navigate those systems in the here and now.

We don't see justice-impacted people as problems to be fixed. We see them as leaders, neighbors, parents, workers, organizers, voters, advocates, and experts of their own experience.

When you support T.O.N.E. U.P., you are investing in people helping people, communities building power, and a future where lived experience is recognized as an asset—not a barrier.