Barred Business
Bridgette Simpson, CEO/ Executive Director
Unlocked Futures 5
Barred Business is a justice-impacted-led organization building economic and political power with formerly incarcerated women, queer and trans people, and caregivers through bold campaigns, reentry support, and leadership cultivated from the margins.
Year Founded: 2020
Their mission is to transform harm into power and punishment into protection, fighting to end cycles of incarceration, exclusion, and systemic abandonment.
Barred Business builds collective power with justice-impacted people through workforce development, organizing, policy advocacy, and civic engagement. Its workforce development programs meet urgent needs while creating real pathways to economic independence and generational wealth, and its organizing brings people together around shared goals, growing community leadership to push for lasting local change. Through policy advocacy, the organization fights to shift laws and systems—making sure justice-impacted people and their families have a seat at every decision-making table—while civic engagement mobilizes communities to vote, advocate, and hold public officials accountable. Together, these strategies build long-term strength, self-determination, and real change for the communities Barred Business serves.
Founded in 2020 by formerly incarcerated Black women, Barred Business is a grassroots organization rooted in power-building principles. What began as an economic justice initiative has expanded into a national movement pushing for systemic change.
Bridgette Simpson
Executive Director & CEO