{"id":2512,"date":"2014-09-22T11:07:56","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T15:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=2512"},"modified":"2015-08-08T09:18:51","modified_gmt":"2015-08-08T13:18:51","slug":"rachel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/22\/rachel\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting new board members: Rachel Bloom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Next up in our blog series introducing several accomplished new members of the <a href=\"\/directors.html\">Prison Policy Initiative board<\/a>: Rachel Bloom. Rachel is Director of Membership and Special Projects at the Funders&#8217; Committee for Civic Participation. We are so glad to have her on our team here at PPI.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/rachel_bloom_250w.jpg\" alt=\"Rachel Bloom\" width=\"250\" height=\"\" class=\"reportcover right\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><i>Why did you decide to join the PPI board?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Rachel Bloom:<\/i> I have long been an admirer (and colleague of PPI) and have worked with them over the years. I was working on state criminal justice reform for several years at the national office of the ACLU. As I transitioned to a new job I wanted to continue to work on criminal justice reform. Joining the PPI board seemed like the perfect step. <\/p>\n<p><i><br \/>\nWhat does your work focus on? And what\u2019s the connection between that work and PPI?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>RB:<\/i> I work at the Funders&#8217; Committee for Civic Participation,  a philanthropic network for foundations that support civic engagement work. Two of the issues I focus on supporting our membership with are the census and redistricting.  I find it fitting that the issues that first introduced me to PPI &mdash; felony disfranchisement and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\">prison gerrymandering<\/a> &mdash; are still ones that I work on now 8 years later.<\/p>\n<p><i><br \/>\nWhat do you think is most unique about the Prison Policy Initiative and the projects it takes on?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>RB:<\/i> I think that <span class=\"pullquote\">PPI has taken on some very distinct projects that no one else was willing to step up to the plate on<\/span>. I am so proud of PPI for working on such important issues and moving the needle forward on them. <\/p>\n<p><i>What\u2019s something that you wish more people knew about the Prison Policy Initiative?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>RB:<\/i> I wish that people understood just how broad of a reach PPI has, how many issues we work on and how impactful we are &#8211; especially considering the size of our staff and budget.  I was first introduced to PPI while working on felony disfranchisement and prison gerrymandering and thought that was the sum total of PPI, little did I know how wrong I was.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rachel Bloom, Director of Membership and Special Projects, Funders&#8217; Committee for Civic Participation , shares her thoughts on her work and why she joined PPI&#8217;s board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"coauthors":[11],"class_list":["post-2512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-board-of-directors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}