Businessweek
Protest Energy Delivered $100 Million for Bail Funds in 2020
A traditionally small category of philanthropy reached mass awareness this year.
Protesters march in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 28.
Photographer: Nathan Howard/Getty Images North America
In the U.S., bail is as old as jail itself. But the idea of donating to someone’s bail fund goes back only a century, when the American Civil Liberties Union pooled resources to support political demonstrators during the First Red Scare, in the 1920s.
Every few decades, calls for bail fund donations emerge during periods of unrest—the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, the marches for LGBTQ rights. But in the past decade the tool has evolved to help alleviate the daily toll of pretrial detention and mass incarceration.