PHILADELPHIA BAIL FUND NAMES NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Salih Israil will replace founding ED Malik Neal
March 14, 2022
Contact:
Jonathan Lipman, jonathan@narrativechange.net
Philadelphia, PA – The Philadelphia Bail Fund’s Board of Directors, after an extensive search, is excited to announce Salih Israil as the Fund’s new executive director, effective March 14, 2022. Salih will be the organization’s second executive director and will succeed Malik Neal, the Fund’s founding executive director, who announced his intention to step down in October.
“Malik represents the best of Philadelphia. We are so grateful to him for his tremendous leadership, focused advocacy, and dedication to building a strong foundation for the Philadelphia Bail Fund’s work to end cash bail and pretrial punishment in our city,” said Christina Matthias, Philadelphia Bail Fund Board President. “On behalf of the board, we are thrilled to welcome Salih as executive director of the Philadelphia Bail Fund. Salih has the experience and the vision needed to build on this work and progress towards our mission of making Philadelphia a place where wealth does not determine freedom.”
Salih, a prison industrial complex abolitionist, brings years of experience to this role, having successfully led numerous initiatives and programs at organizations fighting against mass incarceration and the criminalization of Black and brown communities. He is a leading voice–locally and nationally–on the racism, inequality, and injustice in our criminal legal system.
"I am both honored and excited to join the Philadelphia Bail Fund, its amazing team, its unwavering fight to end pretrial detention and the carceral state, and its deep work with the community to effect systems change,” said Israil.
Salih comes to the position after serving as Director of Special Initiatives at New York’s Envision Freedom Fund, formerly the largest revolving bail fund in the country, where he managed a $4.6 million Regrant Project that supported Black-led organizations and organizers fighting for social change. At Envision, Salih also assisted with data analysis, fundraising, program development, and campaign strategy. Before joining Envision, Salih served as Advisor to the Directors of the Bard Prison Initiative, where he led community outreach efforts and played a crucial role in establishing the no-cost-to-students Bard Microcollege at the Brooklyn Public Library. Prior to his work with Bard and Envision, Salih spent two decades incarcerated before being released in 2016. He received his BA from Bard College and a Master of Professional Studies degree from New York Theological Seminary.
Since its founding in May 2017, the Philadelphia Bail Fund has freed over 800 community members and has prevented over 80,000 days of pretrial incarceration. The Fund responded to the unprecedented challenges of 2020 by organizing over 20 different advocacy efforts to demand a just response to the pandemic in Philadelphia’s jails and prisons and expanding its voice to speak locally and nationally about the ongoing injustice of incarceration. In 2021, the Fund built on this momentum by growing its capacity to operate sustainably year round and beginning to build a grassroots base in the community, including people who have been directly impacted by the harms of cash bail.
“I am extraordinarily proud of what we’ve built in just a few years,” said Neal, the co-founder and outgoing executive director. “We are making a difference for hundreds of Philadelphia families and have begun to build the grassroots movement needed to end cash bail and pretrial punishment. Salih is the ideal person to lead the Fund in this exciting new chapter of the organization. He has the experience, talent, drive, and the bold vision necessary to win.”
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The Philadelphia Bail Fund is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which works to prevent the incarceration of low-income Philadelphians by providing direct bail assistance and organizing for the end of cash bail and pretrial punishment in Philadelphia.