How the Smart Family Fund Helped Recidiviz Cross the Chasm and Attract Major Funding
The U.S. criminal justice system incarcerates over 2 million individuals, with millions more cycling through it without clear pathways to freedom or rehabilitation. Recidiviz, a nonprofit using data to drive systemic change, had a solution—but at the time, they didn’t have the traction or data to secure backing from the biggest foundations. Enter the Smart Family Fund.
What Angel Philanthropy Means for Us
Angel Philanthropy is about early investment—getting behind visionary organizations that are on the brink of something big but haven’t yet crossed the chasm to attract significant funding. For us, it’s not about long-term growth support. We step in during a critical phase, offering strategic funding to help promising organizations position themselves to secure larger, more sustainable funding from major institutions.
Where Recidiviz Was When We Found Them
Recidiviz had proven technology and early results, showing that their data-driven tools could help reduce incarceration by identifying people eligible for release. Since 2019, the organization has worked with corrections agencies to connect disparate databases and measurably reduce incarceration. However, in 2022, just ~30% of decarcerationl opportunities they found were being acted upon by corrections staff; there was significant impact being left on the table. They had yet to invest in any go-to-market strategy and relied on their tools alone to drive impact. They were clearly onto something, but they weren’t yet at a scale where large foundations were taking notice. Recidiviz had enough data to convince us, but not enough to secure big-money backing.
How We Helped Them Cross the Chasm
In 2022, the Smart Family Fund (SFF) made a targeted investment to help Recidiviz build out its Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy. This wasn’t about funding ongoing operations—it was a strategic intervention designed to unlock their next phase of growth. The SFF-supported GTM team conducted user research to better understand the barriers to tool adoption and provided hands-on training and user support to drive usage. SFF’s support helped Recidiviz pilot its GTM strategy in Tennessee. The pilot saw immediate success, with Recidiviz increasing platform usage by 96%, driving a 10% increase in early releases. This success set the stage for Recidiviz to catch the attention of larger funders.
Recidiviz Crosses the Chasm
With the foundation we helped them build, Recidiviz was able to secure significant funding from major institutional donors. These larger funders—who previously needed more concrete data and proof of impact—saw the results Recidiviz achieved during the pilot phase we helped enable. Today, Recidiviz is funded by institutions like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, and ZOOM Foundation, contributions that were only possible after the SFF backed Recidiviz to get them over the chasm.
Looking Ahead
Our job is done here. We’ve helped Recidiviz cross the funding chasm and are now shifting our focus to other early-stage organizations that can benefit from the same kind of early intervention and strategic funding.