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Feb 26, 2009

Prison Entrepreneurship Guide

These programs offer prisoners around the country an opportunity to start new lives through entrepreneurship.

 
CALIFORNIA
The Delancey Street Foundation
Main Offices: San Francisco and Los Angeles
A unique program run by the Delancey Street Foundation provides a sentencing alternative for judges. Rather than sending a person to jail for a drug offense, or some similar non-violent offense, a judge can choose instead to assign them to work at a Delancy Street-run business. The organization runs restaurants, a furniture-making venture, a para-transit service, and a moving company. Everyone enrolled in the program learns useful trade skills and Delancy Street also has a history of grooming participants to set up their own businesses. With centers in California, New Mexico, New York and North Carolina, the program has grown over the past 35 years into one of the largest business-oriented rehabilitation programs in the country.
www.delanceystreetfoundation.org

Prisoner Reentry Employment Program (PREP)
Headquarters: San Diego
The PREP program enrolls recently released ex-prisoners in job training and a "Financial Freedom" program that features several workshops on establishing a small business. PREP, which an initiative run by an organization called Second Chance San Diego, will also arrange for housing (in a drug- and alcohol-free setting) for those without shelter.
www.secondchanceprogram.org

GEORGIA
Learning to Earn Project
Headquarters: Marietta
The Learning to Earn Project offers a six-hour class on entrepreneurship and a 12-week course that teaches inmates to become successful entrepreneurs. After inmates are released from prison, the program offers them ongoing mentorship and support. The Cobb County Sheriff's Office developed the project in collaboration with the Women's Business Center at Kennesaw State University, and it is funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
www.theedgeconnection.com

ILLINOIS
Men's Employment and Business Ownership Program (MEBOP)
Headquarters: Chicago
Sponsored by the Illinois Department of Corrections, MEBOP runs a 10-week Entrepreneurial Training Program, and places participants in apprenticeships at established businesses. The initiative is not prison-based, but more than 60 percent of the clients served have a felony record.
Phone: 312-386-9765

MANITOBA, CANADA
Curry New Venture Initiative
Headquarters: Winnipeg

This 13-week course teaches basic business skills to non-violent offenders and brings them on tours of local businesses. Members of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce provide mentoring support and employment advice, and several local business development services also contribute support. The program is run by the Asper Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba.
www.umanitoba.ca/entrepreneur

MICHIGAN
Nurturing a New Start
Headquarters: Grand Rapids
Serving primarily women incarcerated at the Kent County Correctional Facility near Grand Rapids, this program teaches financial literacy and other basic business skills to inmates. Students are also invited to take part in mentoring sessions and monthly networking meetings with alumni of the program and women who own businesses. To qualify, inmates must join the prison's work-release program or live in its Sober Living Unit. The YWCA, Planned Parenthood of West Michigan, and Grand Rapids Opportunities for Women (GROW) jointly run the project.
www.ppcwm.org

NEW JERSEY
Rising Tide Capital
Headquarters: Jersey City
This business-training program focuses on the needs of Jersey City neighborhoods, and "markets to areas where many formerly incarcerated individuals live," according to Jay Savulich, who runs the organization's business academy. Clients take part in a free four-hour orientation course designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs strengthen their business plan and hone their ideas. They also meet and network with successful CEOs and entrepreneurs. The most promising participants are encouraged to apply for a scholarship to the Community Business Academy, which offers a 40-hour course in basic management.
www.risingtidecapital.org

NEW MEXICO
See Delancey Street Foundation, in the California listings.

NEW YORK
Project Enterprise
Headquarters: New York City
This micro-lending program serves underprivileged communities throughout the city's five boroughs, and works directly with established prison re-entry programs to provide training and support to former inmates. The group runs a 10-week Entrepreneurial Assistance Program, which helps clients write a business plan. Students then receive access to one-on-one business counseling and networking with other entrepreneurs,a and become eligible for those microloans. To date, Project Enterprise has distributed more than $1.3 million in loans to entrepreneurs, and the average loan's size is $2,000. One of Project Enterprise's partners is Hustling Legit (see below), a program that serves upstate prisons.
www.projectenterprise.org/

Hustling Legit
Service Area: Upstate New York
The program, which serves inmates incarcerated at the Bedford Hills facility for women, and the Greene Correctional Facility for men, both in upstate New York, provides business education to inmates and support services to ex-offenders who have graduated from the program. The group also helps ex-offenders who have satisfied a number of requirements—such as meeting with advisors provided by the SBA, SCORE and SBDC—to obtain funding for their businesses from various non-profits.
http://hustlinglegit.com

Workshop in Business Opportunities
Headquarters: New York City
This group runs a 16-week workshop called "How to Build a Growing Profitable Business," which teaches entrepreneurial skills to the residents of seven underserved communities in New York City. Former inmates who have been released in the past year can redeem a coupon on the program's website to get the admittance fee waived. The program offers personalized business mentoring and an alumni directory to connect program graduates and prospective entrepreneurs.
www.wibo.org
Coupon can be found here.

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