Meet New Profit’s Fifth Unlocked Futures Catalyze Cohort

New Profit is proud to welcome 12 new organizations into our fifth Unlocked Futures Catalyze cohort. These organizations and their leaders are doing powerful work to remove barriers to opportunity for formerly incarcerated and directly impacted* individuals and communities.

Unlocked Futures launched in 2017 as a partnership between New Profit and John Legend’s FREEAMERICA. To date, Unlocked Futures has invested in 47 game-changing organizations. 

Organizations in this cohort are led by formerly incarcerated and directly impacted social entrepreneurs – leaders whose proximity and lived experience gives them the expertise to reimagine the U.S. legal system. Through their work, these social entrepreneurs are opening economic pathways, disrupting the cycle of recidivism, and building a future where impacted individuals can live with dignity and communities are cared for and whole. 

Each organization will receive $100,000 in unrestricted funding, $10,000 for leadership development, and year-long strategic advisory support. As part of our Catalyze model, cohort members will engage in a peer learning community that connects through virtual sessions and multi-day in-person convenings focused on building relationships with one another and tackling key leadership and organizational challenges.

We invite you to learn more about these organizations and the impact they’re creating below: 

• A Second Chance Resource Center Network United, Inc. is dedicated to empowering justice-involved individuals and families through holistic case management, workforce development, transitional housing, and comprehensive wraparound support services to remove barriers to opportunity and create sustainable pathways toward long-term stability and successful community reintegration.
  
• Barred Business is a justice-impacted-led organization building economic and political power with formerly incarcerated women, queer and trans people, and caregivers. They disrupt the systems that criminalize poverty and identity by leading bold campaigns, providing reentry support, and cultivating leadership from the margins – working to transform harm into power and punishment into protection.
  
• Beyond the Bars is a Florida-based worker organization founded and led by people directly impacted by the criminal legal system, building social and economic power alongside workers with records by fighting for job quality and lasting economic stability in the industries where their base is most concentrated and most exploited.
  
• Changing Perceptions ensures the smooth reintegration and success of returning citizens in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area through hands-on and authentic mentoring, guidance, training, networking, and referrals to needed services.

• EX-incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) of Wisconsin is dedicated to supporting currently and formerly incarcerated people in recognizing their inherent dignity and value, working through advocacy, leadership development, direct services, and peer support to create opportunities for successful reentry and full participation in society.
  
• Fit To Navigate (FTN) empowers women and underfunded communities impacted by the criminal justice system through holistic wellness education and entrepreneurial training, providing the tools to cultivate well-being, achieve sustainable wages, and disrupt the poverty-to-prison pipeline by transforming justice-affected individuals into certified professionals and architects of their own economic freedom.
  
• Free Hearts is a Tennessee statewide organization led by formerly incarcerated women that provides support, education, and advocacy in organizing families impacted by incarceration, with the ultimate goals of reuniting families and strengthening communities.
  
• Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments (aka ENDPP.ORG) is the only statewide Illinois coalition led by directly impacted individuals, working to dismantle systemic barriers that continue to punish people long after an arrest or conviction by centering the leadership of those most affected to drive policy change, public education, and community healing.
  
• MILPA improves the health and well-being of the Next Seven Generations, with a vision for future generations to be healthier and culturally thriving. MILPA addresses the social and cultural conditions that make economic opportunity possible, providing cultural healing while building intergenerational leadership through paid internships and social support, coaching participants to establish career pathways that uplift their lived experience and skill sets as an asset rather than a liability.
  
• Pollen Initiative incubates and supports the development of multimedia training programs and platforms in prisons to promote civic engagement and transparency into the criminal justice system.
  
• Village of Leaders Thriving in Solidarity (VOLTS) builds economic power and self-determination by incubating worker and housing cooperatives owned and governed by formerly incarcerated Black women and other systems-impacted people, creating pathways to ownership, wellness, and collective liberation through cooperative education, infrastructure, and community-led leadership.
  
• Youth First Justice Collaborative aims to end youth imprisonment entirely and to replace the country’s punitive youth justice model with investments in life-affirming, community-based alternatives.

Past Unlocked Futures cohorts have been highlighted in a roundtable conversation with John Legend and a video campaign that garnered more than 1 million views for social entrepreneurs and their organizations.

Stay up to date on these organizations and our full portfolio by subscribing to New Profit’s newsletter. Social entrepreneurs in this cohort will also have the opportunity to share more about their work through our ongoing Social Entrepreneur Spotlight series. Learn more about New Profit’s funding opportunities here.

*At New Profit, we define ‘directly impacted’ as including people who have been incarcerated or detained in a prison, immigration detention center, local jail, juvenile detention center, or any other carceral setting. It also includes people who have been convicted but not incarcerated, charged but not convicted, or arrested.

About New Profit

New Profit is a venture philanthropy organization that catalyzes the impact of social entrepreneurs who are expanding access and opportunity in America. We provide capital, capacity, and community to a portfolio of organizations to increase their impact, scale, and sustainability. And we partner with social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and cross-sector leaders to shift how the philanthropic sector pursues social change and ensures that everyone in America can thrive. Since 1998, New Profit has invested over $350M in 325+ high-impact organizations serving more than 35 million people in all 50 states.