John Legend wants to create job opportunities for people with criminal backgrounds

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John Legend wants to make sure people with criminal backgrounds are given more opportunities for employment. Here’s how he wants to achieve that:

John Legend wants to create job opportunities

Started in 2017, Unlocked Futures is a partnership between New Profit and Legend’s criminal justice initiative FREEAMERICA program.

The initiative is designed to unleash the expertise and insight of social entrepreneurs who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system to remove barriers in America.

It’s a 14-month accelerator program for social entrepreneurs who have been incarcerated and are looking to be productive.

According to FREEAMERICA’s website, the initiative works to end the era of mass incarceration in the United States by amplifying the voices of those impacted by the criminal justice system.

“We started this as a collaboration, saying, ‘Let’s not just tell folks to hire formerly incarcerated individuals, but to invest in their ideas,” says Legend.

“All of the members have business ideas that will help them feed their families, employ others, and strengthen our communities.”

Unable to secure employment, many formerly incarcerated people turn to entrepreneurship. But they often lack the business skills, social networks and capital needed to launch a successful company.

How to apply to the Unlocked Futures program

Applicants must have fully operational businesses to be permitted into the Unlocked Futures program.

“We come in when you’ve established your proof point, you have your model built and you’re ready to figure out sustainability, growth, and measurement and expansion,” says Tulaine Montgomery, a managing partner at New Profit.

Participants in the program receive coaching on leadership skills such as board governance, fundraising, communications and talent strategy.

They also undergo an assessment that gauges areas for improvement and team up with mentors from a network of organizations, including Bank of America, which provided $500,000 grants for both cohorts, a total $1 million commitment.

“Six hundred thousand inmates are getting out every year, and if we want to lessen the risk of them recidivating, programs like this are important,” says Andrew Plepler, the environmental, social and governance executive for Bank of America.