What We Offer
MSIS specializes in criminal legal systems change and brings that same lived experience lens to anti-racist, equity-centered public policy across issue areas. We serve community groups, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, government agencies, academic institutions, and funders who are doing the hard work of building systems that actually work for the people depending on them. Every engagement is grounded in rigorous analysis, genuine relationships, and the kind of knowledge that only comes from having lived it.
Policy Strategy & Advising
We develop, analyze, and strengthen policy that centers the people most impacted. We do not just write recommendations. We do not just write recommendations. We help you understand the human impact of policy decisions and position your work for meaningful, lasting change.
SERVICES INCLUDE:
Issue advocacy and campaign development, legislative and regulatory analysis, program design
Past clients include:
Drexel University, Policy Advisor on "Evaluating Firearm Violence After New Jersey's Cash Bail Reform," published in JAMA Network Open
Applied Research & Evaluation
We support research projects, briefs, and evaluations with a lens that only lived experience can provide. If your work needs to accurately represent the experiences of women and girls, or others who have been historically excluded, we help you get there.
SERVICES INCLUDE:
Applied policy research, program evaluation and impact assessment, data synthesis for funders and agencies
Community Engagement
Authentic engagement requires trust, relationships, and cultural fluency. We help organizations design participation processes that center the voices of people with lived experience, particularly women and girls impacted by the criminal legal system.Our facilitation approach is grounded in the belief that the people most impacted by a system have the most important things to say about how it needs to change.
SERVICES INCLUDE:
Community connection mapping, capacity building, community assessment and participatory research, community-based planning and policy development.
Past clients include:
Economic Opportunity Institute
Facilitation & Convening
We facilitate the rooms where hard conversations happen and real input gets heard. Our approach rests on a simple belief: the people most impacted by a system have the most important things to say about how it needs to change.
SERVICES INCLUDE:
Listening sessions, community convenings, difficult conversations across divergent viewpoints, training and teach-ins on gender justice, lived experience leadership, and systems change.
Featured Teach-In
Reframing Criminal Legal Contact as a Public Health Issue
Most organizations working in the criminal legal space are still treating contact with the system as a legal problem with legal solutions. This teach-in challenges that framing. Designed for nonprofits, advocates, and government agencies, it examines how criminal legal system involvement functions as a public health issue, with measurable consequences for individuals, families, and communities, and what that means for how your organization understands the people you serve and the systems you are working to change.
Interested in bringing this teach-in to your team or organization? Get in touch.
Organizational Health & Change
Organizations working at the intersection of equity and systems change are often navigating their own internal complexity at the same time. We take a whole-systems approach to helping organizations adapt to complex change, build cultures of continuous improvement, and create structures that reflect their commitments to equity and belonging.
SERVICES INCLUDE:
Strategic and tactical planning, organizational assessment and design, evaluation and management studies, change and project management
Beyond Consulting
MSIS offers free and low-cost community education for women and girls navigating systems, communities building power, and organizations doing the work. This is knowledge-sharing, not consulting. It belongs to the people who need it.
Free Workshops
Our workshops are designed for women and girls navigating legal systems, public benefits, digital tools, and economic survival. Each one is practical, peer-informed, and built to reduce the distance between where people are and where they need to go.
Current Offerings:
• Hands Up, Don't Shoot: Know Your Rights
• Be Your Own Boss
• Using Today's Technology
• Fine Dining on a Commissary Budget
Route to Economic Liberation
The Route to Economic Liberation is a peer cohort experience for women and girls building economic independence. Participants move through a structured curriculum together, share resources, hold each other accountable, and leave with a roadmap that belongs to them.
Navigation Guides
Free downloadable guides covering reentry navigation, legal rights, public benefits, and more. Built for real people in real situations, not for policy audiences.
Ready to work together?
If you are building something that needs to center the people most impacted, we want to hear from you.