Just Beginnings Collaborative is the bridge between the creative ideas and the vital funds.
who we are
JBC is a survivor-centered intermediary working outside of systems to both examine and eradicate Child Sexual Abuse in the U.S. By bridging the gap between grassroots leaders who are breaking cycles of harm and philanthropic partners ready to invest in lasting change, we transform legacies of violence into those of repair, care, and prevention.
Just Beginnings Collaborative’s mission is to end Child Sexual Abuse and transform how communities respond to harm by shifting the conditions that enable harm to happen in the first place.
Just Beginnings Collaborative co-labors to create a world where children flourish within beloved, safe, and nurturing relationships, where those who harm can transform their abusive behavior, and where thriving communities are liberated from cycles of violence and the systems that perpetuate them. One day, we believe Child Sexual Abuse will become rare and unacceptable because communities understand the roots of violence and have the tools, frameworks, and relationships to prevent it.
our vision
our mission
We cultivate joy to expand our capacity for love, healing, and wholeness, and to strengthen the networks driving transformative justice.
Joy
We reject “othering” and cancellation, choosing instead to hold space for truth, responsibility, and repair.
Inclusion
We build relationships rooted in honesty, trust, and dignity, valuing the time and expertise of community leaders.
Integrity
We prioritize care for ourselves and others, knowing it is essential for collective and individual liberation.
Care
We reimagine possibilities beyond the status quo and create conditions for bold, innovative solutions.
Transformation
We center the leadership and lived experience of survivors and impacted communities, sharing knowledge and resources openly.
Community
We create relationships and spaces that center trust, mutual care, and protection from harm.
Safety
These are the values that guide us everyday.
our values
And yet, the systems we rely on to respond were built for the 10%, the strangers and sensationalized “monsters” — not complex realities, not loved ones, not harm inside families or communities. Survivors are forced to choose between silence or state intervention. But reporting often causes more trauma. Survivors want something different: for the harm to stop, not for the person to disappear.
More than 90% of Child Sexual Abuse is committed by someone the child knows and trusts.
Everything starts with this fact.
We believe that what is not transformed gets transferred. Which is why we believe in something different:
our core beliefs
because real safety comes from addressing the root causes, not just removing people or assigning blame.
Healing and justice that include everyone impacted by harm —
to build the skills, tools, and trust needed to respond to abuse, prevent it from recurring, and transform the conditions that allow it to happen.
Investments in families and communities —
where survivors are centered, and those who have caused harm are engaged in real accountability and transformation, not cast out or criminalized.
Interruptions of harm that don’t create more harm —
because state systems like police and prisons are not just ineffective — they are forms of violence themselves. Real safety can’t be built through control or fear. It must be created through care, trust, and accountability.
Community-rooted responses to violence —
Ending CSA requires something that our current systems can’t offer: care instead of punishment, accountability instead of isolation, and healing that reaches everyone impacted by harm.
We are not just changing how CSA is funded — we are changing how it’s understood and how it ends.
Those working to end CSA in communities hold it all. They organize without infrastructure, fundraise without time, and lead movements most can’t even name.
Many are survivors themselves — not only of CSA, but of the systems that failed them afterward. They know there has to be a better way, so they are building it: slowly, intentionally, one family at a time — with few resources but deep wisdom. The weight is real, and most are doing it alone.
Funders who back bold movements still hesitate on CSA — it feels too complex, too intimate, too unsolvable. They’ve invested in violence, inequality, health, and housing, but CSA doesn’t fit neatly.
Punishment isn’t working. So, what’s the alternative? How do we keep people safe without relying on harmful systems? Funders want to believe CSA is preventable; they sense community solutions exist. But those solutions are often underground, underfunded, and hard to fit into traditional grants.
Funders
Grassroots Organizers
the gap
We don’t just move money — we build the ecosystem that makes prevention possible.
Risk absorption through our funding pool, alleviating the weight from individual foundations.
A trusted bridge for funders, especially around a sensitive issue like CSA
Field coordination and infrastructure to connect cohorts across movements
Capacity-building and healing support to sustain grantee leadership
Deep relationships with grassroots groups who may not be find-able or fund-able by foundations.
Deep relationships with grassroots groups who may not be find-able or fund-able by foundations.
Capacity-building and healing support to sustain grantee leadership
Field coordination and infrastructure to connect cohorts across movements
A trusted bridge for funders, especially around a sensitive issue like CSA
Risk absorption through our funding pool, alleviating the weight from individual foundations.
Here's what we bring:
Standing on the shoulders of the greats.
JBC stands on the shoulders of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Generation FIVE, and the Hollow Water First Nation — visionary leaders who showed that we can end violence without relying on the systems that created it. Their work taught us that real safety doesn’t come from punishment — it comes from transformation. Those who cause harm must be accountable in ways that lead to healing, not removal. Communities already hold the wisdom, courage, and collective care to stop cycles of harm before they begin.
JBC exists to carry these lessons forward — by resourcing the people and practices that make prevention possible, and by bridging bold ideas with the funding they need to thrive. We’re not forging a new path — we’re returning to one that has always existed. A path rooted in ancestral knowledge, collective responsibility, and the enduring belief that safety is built in relationship.
EXPLORE OUR HISTORY →
Today, JBC is helping to build the conditions where true safety can take hold — safety that is rooted in care, accountability, and community, not punishment or control. As a survivor-led intermediary, we bridge movements and philanthropy to resource the work that existing systems weren’t built to support. Grounded in the belief that what is not transformed gets transferred, we are growing a new safety ecosystem: one where survivors are centered, those who have caused harm are accountable, and communities have the tools to interrupt violence at its roots.
Building the Bridge
2025-Present
In 2020, Nicole Pittman became Executive Director, ushering in a new phase of growth grounded in deep listening to survivors, grantees, and movement leaders across the U.S. and globally. JBC shifted from being solely a funder to a movement-rooted intermediary — a bridge between bold grassroots models and courageous philanthropic partners. This period birthed programs like Activist-in-Residence and solidified JBC’s focus on narrative change, field-building, and resourcing both survivors and those who have caused harm.
Listening, Learning, and Organizational Transformation
2020–2024
During a time of leadership transition, JBC continued to support its inaugural cohort under the guidance of Emanuel Brown. While formal strategy development was on pause, this phase preserved funding, community, and connection. It also reinforced the importance of sustained investment in survivor-led work, even amid organizational uncertainty.
Stewardship and Continuity
2017–2020
JBC emerged from a multi-year partnership between the NoVo Foundation and the Ms. Foundation for Women, launching officially in 2015 as a fiscally sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Its first major investment was an inaugural cohort of 10 organizations and 7 fellows, each advancing community-rooted strategies to end CSA. This cohort marked a national milestone: centering survivors not only as voices, but as strategists, organizers, and leaders of a growing movement.
Launching a Movement
2015–2017
Just Beginnings Collaborative (JBC) was founded to spark a new movement to end CSA — one rooted in survivor leadership, collective care, and transformative justice.
Our History
Nicole Pittman joined Just Beginnings Collaborative in 2020 to help rethink how communities prevent and respond to child sexual abuse — and to bring this work into conversation with broader efforts to address violence, inequality, and harm.
From 2005 to 2019, Nicole was a leading national expert on the impact of punishment-based responses to sexual harm. She began her career as a juvenile public defender in Philadelphia and New Orleans, representing young people and families navigating systems that often respond to harm with punishment rather than support. During this time, she became widely recognized for her work challenging the placement of children on sex offender registries and the long-term harm these policies cause.
Nicole’s expertise has been recognized through fellowships with the Open Society Foundations (Soros Justice Fellowship), Galaxy Gives, and the Rosenberg Foundation’s Leading Edge Fellowship, as well as the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). She is also the author of a landmark Human Rights Watch report, Raised on the Registry, and the founding director of the Center on Youth Registration Reform, where she helped shift national policy, research, and philanthropic attention toward prevention and alternatives to punishment.
At JBC, Nicole focuses on moving the field upstream — examining why harm occurs, where systems fail, and how communities are already creating safer, more effective responses. Her work centers practical prevention, survivor-informed approaches, and community accountability, with the goal of making safety possible before harm happens, not only after the fact.
Executive Director
Nicole Pittman (she/her)
Activist in Residence
Shannon Perez-Darby
Shannon Perez-Darby is an Activist-in-Residence with Just Beginnings Collaborative, a role that provides movement leaders with sustained support, space, and time for deep inquiry, learning, and field-building around Child Sexual Abuse prevention.
Her work centers Mandatory Reporting Is Not Neutral, an inquiry that examines how mandatory reporting laws shape responses to Child Sexual Abuse — often increasing harm, surveillance, and family separation rather than safety or healing. Drawing on more than two decades of experience supporting survivors and facilitating community accountability processes, Shannon documents how these laws decrease trust, limit survivor choice, and disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, queer, trans, immigrant, and disabled communities.
Through participatory research, political education, and storytelling, Shannon’s work challenges the assumption that safety is achieved through punishment and extraction. Instead, she advances survivor-centered, community-rooted approaches that strengthen connection, consent, and accountability as foundations for prevention.
Shannon is also the editor of How to End Family Policing (Haymarket Books, forthcoming).
Learn More About How to End Family Policing →
Learn more about Mandatory Reporting Is Not Neutral →
Communications + Business Development
Gretchen Lusby
Gretchen Lusby joined JBC at the beginning of 2025 to lead strategic communications and a complete brand refresh — including a new website. With a new organizational identity now in place, Gretchen focuses on the development of strategic partnerships within the field, centering JBC’s narrative on Child Sexual Abuse and how it can end, and preparing JBC to become a leading voice in the movement.
Gretchen is a brand and communications expert specializing in authentic storytelling; clear, compelling, and recognizable brands; and healthy organizational culture. She has spent most of the past twenty years leading communications at a range of social impact organizations — from refugee and immigrant services to inner city anti-violence initiatives to economic equity for women and BIPOC-owned businesses.
Gretchen has a deep passion for thriving communities and cultivating a culture where every person has a valued voice and a seat at the table. Her love for communications as well as her keen sensitivity to healthy organizational culture translates into developing strong, results-orientated teams that communicate authentically and effectively in psychologically safe environments.
New members and structure will be announced in 2026.
Steering Committee
The Just Beginnings Collaborative Steering Committee provides strategic guidance and accountability, ensuring our work stays aligned with our survivor-centered and community-rooted values. We’re currently refreshing the Committee to reflect the next chapter of JBC’s evolution.
