Alexis Martin

Executive Director

Alexis Martin is the Executive Director of Freedom to Grow, newly-based in New Orleans, LA. 

She most recently worked as a Program Office and Donor Advisor at Galaxy Gives, where she supported work being led by those directly-impacted by the justice system in Louisiana and across the country. Prior to that, she spent five years at the Drug Policy Alliance on the development team, where she was a key member of the successful first-in-the-nation campaign to decriminalize drug possession in Oregon.

As an early member of the Black Youth Project (BYP) 100 NYC chapter in 2014, she began organizing against police and gender-based violence in a shock of communal rage in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s murder. Through this work, she became connected to a larger abolitionist movement, first as an organizer and fundraiser at the intersection of harm reduction and criminal justice reform, then as a grantmaker and donor advisor. In this work, she mobilized resources towards projects that both fundamentally shifted the system as it exists now, while building towards a far-more expansive future. 

She recently made the exciting transition to support the brilliance of the Freedom to Grow team in establishing the John Thompson Legacy Center for Abolition and Beyond in New Orleans, a museum, archive, and living testament to the awesome power of organizing, led, directed, and inspired by the wisdom of formerly-incarcerated people.