The Five O'Clock Club
Headquarters: New York City
This national outplacement company provides women at the Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan with a 10-week course called "How to Start Your Own Small Business." Inmates learn basic economic and financial literacy, the fundamentals of marketing, and how to develop a business plan. Students can apply for microloans, and for grants of up to $1,000 provided by Project Enterprise (see above) and other groups.
www.fiveoclockclub.com/index2.html
Self-Education Economic Development (SEED)
Headquarters: New York City
SEED's motto is "Each one, teach one." The gorup offers a 36-week course that teaches business skills, business-plan development, market research and web site design to inmates in the Shawangunk and Clinton correctional facilities, among others.
301-920-4158
Veterans Behind Bars Program: From Cell to Sell
Headquarters: New York City
This group arranges for certified business advisors to teach classes to honorably discharged veterans who are currently incarcated but are within four years of their release from prison. The goal is to help the veterans draft business plans. Inmates at New York City's Arthur Kill Correctional Facility and Rochester's Groveland Correctional Facility also have access to a basic business reference library.
www.nyssbdc.org See also the Delancey Street Foundation, in the California listings.
NORTH CAROLINA
Community Success Initiative (CSI)
Headquarters: Raleigh
CSI works with current inmates or formerly incarcerated men and women to provide training in financial literacy and entrepreneurship. It also offers former prisoners mentoring and help finding work. CSI has served some 500 clients since its inception in 2004. The group emphasizes networking between recently released ex-convicts and successful former convicts.
www.communitysuccess.org/
See also the Delancey Street Foundation, in the California listings.
OHIO
Central Ohio Regional Ex-Offender and Family Reentry Program
Headquarters: Columbus
The Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI) offers a range of services to women upon their release from Ohio's correctional facilities. Assistance includes help with starting micro-enterprises. Instruction starts with basic financial literacy and progresses to more extensive entrepreneurial training in areas such as bookkeeping, marketing, and developing a business plan. Participants in the program are eligible for micro-loans of up to $35,000.
www.ecdi.org/index2.htm
OKLAHOMA
Training and Supporting Ex-Offenders as Entrepreneurs
Headquarters: Oklahoma City
The keystone of this program is "Owning Your Own Business," a 15-part course taught by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Prisoners are selected for the program based on their grade on an Entrepreneurial Selection Scale test administered by the prison system. After participants are released from prison, the program offers them re-entry counseling and help finding housing and job opportunities.
www.doc.state.ok.us
Leaders under Construction
Headquarters: Middletown
This program offers an alternative-to-incarceration program for young people who have been convicted of drug-related crimes (particularly drug trafficking). Run by the non-profit Freedom Community Development Corporation (FCDC), the initiative works to channel participants' natural entrepreneurial aptitude into legitimate, for-profit business. The FCDC also offers general assistance for the formerly incarcerated, including guidance with child support, driver's license suspensions, aer legal issues.
For information, call (513) 217-4483
OREGON
Coffee Creek Prison Project
Headquarters: Portland
Women incarcerated at the Coffee Creek Correctional Institution in Wilsonville, Oregon, can take classes to learn how to start a business. Inmates are invited to apply for the program between 18 and 24 months prior to their planned date of release. The program, offered by the non-profit group Mercy Corps Northwest, includes classes, one-on-one help drafting a business plan or a loan application, and referrals for job opportunities related to a participant's entrepreneurial interests.
www.mercycorpsnw.org/
TEXAS
Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP)
Main Offices: Houston and Dallas
Prisoners at more than 60 jails across Texas are invited to apply for PEP. Those chosen are transferred to the Cleveland Correctional Facility in Cleveland, Texas, where they take part in an intensive program that teaches them how to start a business upon their release. Topics covered include basic finance and marketing. The program culminates with a business-plan competition. PEP also offers inmates mentoring and other counseling related to re-entry and requires students, following their release, to participate in at least 20 classes taught by a group of volunteers that includes top-tier executives, MBA candidates and university professors.
www.pep.org To suggest other programs for the Directory of Prison Entrepreneurship Programs, email ecaroom@inc.com.
