Ways to Give
For those who believe that a university's obligation extends beyond its classrooms—to apply its research and create solutions to the critical issues facing the community around it—the Wilson Center is where that obligation becomes action. Help us advance criminal justice and fairness through your gift today.
Donate to the Center
Make your tax-deductible gift today. In addition to accepting cash gifts and multi-year commitments, the Wilson Center can help facilitate donations of appreciated securities, distributions from donor advised funds, and other complex gifts. You can also check Duke's database of organizations that match donations to ensure you are maximizing your gift to the Wilson Center.
Sponsor a Center Initiative
With an annual gift of $100,000 — $500,000, your sponsorship of a Wilson Center initiative below supports our mission to advance criminal justice and fairness through the clients we represent, the research we produce, the policy conversations we shape, and the students who will carry our work forward.
To support our initiatives at the sponsorship level, including naming opportunities, contact our executive director Yvette Garcia Missri.
The Policy Lab
Our Policy Lab works at the intersection of research and real-world reform. Working with community members, students, and other partners, our policy team has delivered solutions to challenging problems. Through this work, our Policy Lab ensures that evidence drives change where it matters most.
Your sponsorship gift would fund up to two full-time policy analysts and one part-time national criminal justice policy expert, as well as team supervision, student engagement, communications support, and participation in key conferences and events to engage with policymakers and community members.
Wrongful Convictions Prevention
Every wrongful conviction represents a double injustice: an innocent person loses years or decades of their life behind bars, while the person who actually committed the crime may remain free. Through rigorous research, practical policy development, and strategic legal analysis, we provide the tools and evidence that defense attorneys, innocence organizations, and policymakers need to challenge unreliable practices and reform broken systems.
Your sponsorship gift would fund up to two research projects a year, researcher and policy analyst salaries, database development and maintenance, communications and report production, and the faculty leadership necessary to sustain this work.
Second Chances and Legal Advocacy
In North Carolina, thousands of people are held in prison who pose no threat to public safety. We provide and facilitate legal advocacy—offering hope to incarcerated people who find themselves without access to legal services. Our research informs that advocacy, and what we learn from both research and advocacy drives the systemic changes we work to make possible.
Your sponsorship gift could fund faculty and staff salaries, the direct costs of advocacy, trainings for volunteer attorneys and students, data infrastructure maintenance, and convenings to bring together corrections officials, practitioners, and policymakers.
Legal Representation in North Carolina’s Youth Prisons
There are hundreds of incarcerated children across NC. Without lawyers, there are few outside eyes monitoring youth prisons and no one making sure kids get adequate therapy and educational services. Many children feel forgotten—and without an advocate, they often are. In 2024, Sam Lawrence joined the Wilson Center as an Equal Justice Works Fellow. Drawing on his background in law and social work, Sam has designed and implemented a model of holistic defense for incarcerated children.
Your sponsorship gift would fund the Center's children's advocacy work, including direct representation, hiring a social worker to support the holistic model, and working with law students.
Support the Center's General Operations
General operating support ensures that the Wilson Center can continue its important work. It allows our faculty and researchers to devote their time, attention, and expertise to solving problems in our communities and engaging students in meaningful projects.
To make a gift to support the Center’s operations, give online or contact our executive director Yvette Garcia Missri.
Your Gift at Work
- In 2025-2026, a single gift funded over 30 students working with the Wilson Center.
In 2025-2026, general operating support helped host 21 events and presentations, bringing together 650+ students, practitioners, and policymakers.
Last year, gifts to the Center supported direct legal representation for 17 clients in the parole process, clemency applications, and medical release in addition to representation for 6 incarcerated children.
Your Gift is Tax Deductible
Your gift to the Wilson Center is tax deductible. Gifts to the Center qualify as gifts to Duke University (Tax ID number 56-0532129). Learn more about tax deductibility of gifts to Duke.
Foundational Support
