John Legend – the silky-voiced pop star who turns all the heads – is a social justice ninja working hard to reduce recidivism. First, through his non-profit FREEAMERICA, and now with an accelerator program called Unlocked Futures, Legend tackles prison reform with the deep belief that some simple changes can make a monumentally positive impact.
Studies show that the lack of resources available for folks after they get out of prison is likely what leads them back in. Finding a support network and landing a job soon after release will statistically make a formerly incarcerated person much less likely to return to prison.
“Too often are formerly incarcerated individuals locked out of job opportunities because of their past,” Legend stated last spring on New Profit. “I have seen that entrepreneurship is a viable way for formerly incarcerated individuals to build sustainable livelihoods and contribute to their communities and neighborhoods.”
Through a large grant from Bank of America and mentorship from New Profit, Unlocked Futures gives funding and coaching support to formerly incarcerated individuals who are pushing mission-driven organizations and companies.
A few organizations from the accelerator’s first round include an app called Flikshop that makes it easy to send photo postcards to inmates, Hope House – housing for formerly incarcerated women getting back on their feet – and Clean Decisions, a commercial kitchen cleaning company that employs all formerly incarcerated folks. Will Avila, Clean Decisions founder, says initiatives like Unlocked Futures are what is needed to break the cycle.
“Entrepreneurship is a powerful cycle because almost every returning citizen I know is crafting a business that helps others who have served time,” Avila told Nationswell.
With the success of Unlocked Futures, we get a glimpse of how different a nation built around support networks and second chances can look. It’s innovative, it would save us a lot of money (our prisons cost taxpayers $80 billion a year), it would make a lot of families happily whole again.
Go here to read up on Unlocked Venture’s first round of kickass entrepreneurs.
Feature photo, left to right: James Monteiro, Topeka K. Sam, Jason Cleaveland, Marcus Bullock, Dirk Van Velzen, Amanda Alexander, Will Avila, and Teresa Hodge (Photo: Unlocked Futures)
