FreeWorld

1) America incarcerates more people than any other developed nation on earth. 76% of people that go to prison, return within 3 years, and 89% of those that are rearrested are unemployed. Criminal records bar people from earning living wage employment opportunities and out of desperation, resort to crime as a means to take care of themselves and their families. 

2) Living wage employment is the key to preventing recidivism. We learned in trucking that there was a severe labor shortage of qualified drivers to meet the exponentially increasing demand for trucking. We developed a scalable, online solution to solve this need. 

3) State and Federal governments would save money from recidivism and earn tax revenue through high wage careers. Communities would be safer since people are no longer hungry and desperate. This builds generational wealth so kids can gain access to opportunities. 

• Even though America has only 5% of the world's population, we incarcerate 25% of the world's prison population. 
• 2.2M people are currently locked up in jails and prisons across the country. 
• 76% of people that are arrested are rearrested within 5 years of release. 
• 70% of kids who have a parent that's incarcerated will end up in the system themselves.
• The criminal justice system costs American taxpayers $182B/year.
• 1 in 3 Americans have a criminal record, with black and brown communities facing extreme discrimination in the criminal justice system at disproportionate rates compared to whites (George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, etc).

Once someone has a criminal record, they can be legally discriminated from gaining access to employment, housing, education, and even the right to vote. 

If a person does not have access to basic necessities in life, it's no wonder that they end up back in the prison system in droves. We are paying an incredible cost on a failing system, which is tearing apart communities and creating generational poverty and recidivism for families across the US.

We have built an online, scalable program that can stabilize, educate, and place returning citizens into high ROI careers within 60 days of application to our program. 

We are self-sustaining as a nonprofit through the use of income share agreements. Every graduate pays it forward to help 2-3 additional graduates go through our program. 

When people apply to our program, we initially help them get housing (local partners), transportation (Lyft dashboard), and documentation (notarize dashboard + vitalcheck). 

We then provide them funding (PayPal) and educate them (Zoom, Matterport, SAP Litmos) so they can learn the conceptual frameworks to drive a commercial vehicle. We partner with local trucking schools across the country to give our students behind the wheel experience. 

Once a student graduates, we place them into a job (Airtable) and keep track of their income progress over time through a custom internal dashboard (React/Node/AWS + Plaid). 

We provide up to 3 years of additional support to ensure each graduate is successful and staying out of prison (Slack, Checkr, Plaid).

Our target population are returning citizens across the US. These are mostly black and brown communities that are now legally discriminated (housing, education, employment, restricted access to social safety net programs, can't vote, etc) for the rest of their lives due to their criminal history. They are often homeless, face substance abuse issues, have experienced extreme trauma (sexual, physical, mental, and emotional), and come from backgrounds of poverty and violence. 

Our nonprofit was founded by Jason Wang (previously incarcerated) and is majority staffed by ex-felons (3 out of 4 employees). We have over 35 years of experience inside of prison collectively. 

We first developed our program 2 years ago by closely examining all of the challenges that returning citizens face when they return from prison. Largely, the challenges are related to lack of access issues for housing, transportation, documentation, funding, credit, finance, education, and career opportunities. 

We have refined our program by closely monitoring our graduate's outcomes and specifically asking what they need to be successful. We conduct periodic working groups, interviews, and learn about improvements through our feedback forms. 

Our solution addresses their needs by providing housing through local partnerships, providing transportation through our Lyft dashboard, providing documentation (birth certificate, social security card, drivers license) through our online platform, providing education from our custom build trucking education through zoom and local trucking school partnerships, we provide $2,000 of funding directly to each student through a 1099 (so they can access unemployment if they need it), place students in jobs (we have over 6,000 trucking companies across the US that will hire our grads), providing community and mental health/substance abuse support through Slack, and provide wealth management through our custom dashboard. 

In order to create a more equitable society for communities of color, we believe that the solution is to provide access to high wage careers and drastic elimination of debt.

We've built a wealth management product that fixes credit reports and helps guide returning citizens toward financial independence. Our software connects with our graduates' financial accounts and provides reports to show people their monthly earnings, expenses, and provides additional suggestions on investments (wealthfront). We also provide free tax services to help our graduates reduce their tax burden, provide child support negotiation to reduce garnishments, and bankruptcy when appropriate.

We've been piloting our solution in northern California for the past 2 years and have graduated 115 students during that time. So far, we have a 100% employment rate, our graduates are earning $50k - $80k within their first year, and none have returned to prison. We also have 3 graduates that have made so much money that they've even been able to start their own trucking operations who are now hiring our new graduates. 

We've been developing this solution in close coordination with the graduates of our program and believe we have developed a full stack, automated, online solution that addresses most major roadblocks of the reentry experience. 

We recently deployed into Texas and now have access to thousands of returning citizens who desperately need a second chance, especially coming off the back of the recent snow storm and covid pandemic that has been ravaging the State. 

45 days from application, you could be in a career. That's how fast we work. 

We're the most comprehensive, end-to-end solution in the market. Within a week of application, we can get you into housing, give you transportation, and all of your documentation. You don't have to pay anything upfront, in fact, we actually pay you up to $2,000 to get your license. We're staffed by ex-felons, for ex-felons. We use income share agreements that allow our graduates to pay it forward and help others, but only if they are doing really well in their careers. We provide 3 years of supportive services to help you build wealth, get off parole, buy a house for the first time, and you are surrounded by other members of your community that are transforming their lives as well. 

We expect that the revenue from our income share agreement model will allow us to be 100% self-sustaining within the next 4 years. We can deploy our solution quickly across the US and get people working. We will leverage the immense amount of data, combination with our outcomes, to create systemic policy reform. 

These numbers are people we expect to serve within that year, not cumulative people served. Also, these are conservative projections based on the amount of funding we're expecting over the next 5 years. If we are able to overshoot on funding, hiring, and our technology, I believe we can grow much larger, much faster. 

2021: 145 graduates, their families, and communities

2022: 290 graduates, their families, and communities

2026: 5,000 graduates, their families, and communities

Economics: Our system allows us to track employee retention, employment rate, income progression, cash and liabilities, and credit score improvements. 

Recidivism: We run yearly recidivism checks to see how many of our graduates end up back in the system. 

1. FT - Jason Wang, Founder/CEO
2. FT - Renee Sandler, Head of Operations
3. FT - Ross Patton, Senior Full Stack Developer
4. FT - O'Neal Heard, Success Manager
5. FT - Shawn Bina, Online CDL A Instructor

We hire people with criminal records first and when we can't, we conduct thorough interviews to understand why they are passionate to help us accomplish our mission.  

Jason Wang, Founder/CEO - Lived experience and ex-felon. Earned a double masters at UT Dallas and started 4 companies. Been working with nonprofits that serve returning citizens for the past 13 years. Ex-management consultant, tech startup founder, and entrepreneur. 

Renee Sandler, Head of Operations - Successful female Founder/CEO of a CPG company. Scaled operations and built partnerships with the top 25 largest distributors in the world (Walmart being the biggest). Sold company to private equity. Was managing partner of Launchpad 2x and helped 150 women create $1.5B in economic impact over 10 years. Grew up poor and currently has a partner that was convicted of a drug charge. 

O'Neal Heard, Success Manager - Served 5 years in prison for an armed robbery case. Graduated from our program and was successful as a truck driver. Grew up in the same neighborhoods that our students have been through. 

Shawn Bina, Online CDL A Instructor - Served a total of 25 years in prison. Ex-meth addict. Developed and taught classes while in prison. Earned a CDL A license on his own after release and started his own business. 

Ross Patton, Senior Full Stack Developer - 10+ years as a full stack engineer. Regularly volunteers his time as a mentor for returning citizens that are going through coding bootcamps. Started a business in New York. 

We hire people with criminal histories first, before looking elsewhere. We are extremely focused on making sure that our company looks like and represents the people that we serve. We value shared experiences so that we can serve with empathy. 

As we grow, we will continue to be an ex-felon first organization.

As a person with a criminal history, I have a deep appreciation for people and organizations that do not judge a person for the worst thing that they've ever done, but rather by the person that they are today. I believe that you are one of these organizations. 

I may not have the pedigree and accolades that other applicants have, but I do know one thing; I want it more. 

I'm tired of constantly seeing my brothers and sisters that have gone through the criminal justice system recycle through the system over and over again. 

I'm tired of seeing visiting rooms with crying mothers, wives, and kids begging to hug their father through plexiglass. 

I'm tired of seeing men and women go through rejection after rejection after rejection when they get released, thinking that prison is better than being a leper in society. 

I dream of an equitable future where everyone has the opportunity to move up in life and take care of their families. 

I dream of a future where, after we've paid back our debt to society by serving our prison sentences, we are allowed to have a legit opportunity at a second chance. 

That's why I'm applying and I'll be honest with you. If I'm accepted, I am going to try to convince you and your incredible network to help me end mass incarceration within our life times. 

Let's build a more equitable society together. 

Human capital - Because we try to hire felon first, our hiring processes take longer than most organizations. We could use assistance to source incredible talent, develop these individuals, and find great board members that can amplify our mission. 

Business model - We have little experience in putting together revenue models with government entities. We would love help in figuring out the best path forward. 

Financial - As we grow, from time to time we need to update and build more complex models to help us project our growth. 

Legal - ISAs are the wild west right now with no regulation. We could use some help understanding where the industry is going and how to adapt to the changes. 

Public relations - We've been in stealth mode for the past 2 years. We're launching our PR strategy now. 

Monitoring and Evaluation - Our long term strategy is to leverage our data to create policy reform. What do we need to measure and why?

Product/Service Distribution - We would love assistance in identifying referral funnels throughout the US. 

Technology - We're branching out into services like banking-as-a-service, where we have little background. We would love some advice to figure out the right path forward. 

We would love help partnering with the Biden Administration. 

We feel that our work is closely aligned with his criminal justice initiatives and that we could be a key ally in helping to reduce recidivism and get returning citizens employed nation wide. 

1 in 3 black men in America has a criminal history. The average net worth of an African American household is 10 times less than a white household. 

Is that because they commit more crimes or are less financial literate than whites? I don't believe so. 

We are uniquely positioned to tackle this problem because we have the lived experience that many of our most vulnerable minority populations face on a daily basis and we know how to leverage technology to solve our most pressing problems. 

FreeWorld would use the Elevate Prize funding to hire 4 additional team members to help scale our solution to over 1,000 returning citizens across the US. 

This solution would save tax payers $13M+ in recidivism cost savings and provide $50M+ of wages earned.

Our full stack solution will end generational poverty and recidivism through high wage careers and asset ownership. 

We are qualified for this prize because we are focused on training and placing returning citizens (the vast majority of which are minorities) into high wage careers nation wide. 

We would use the prize to expand our program into an additional city (likely Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Newark).