For a Returning Citizen, Financial Education Is the Key to Starting a Second Act

安德烈H. 是不安. He had six months left on his prison sentence, and the idea of life after release left him nervous.

“I was excited and happy to be going home, but there was some fear,” he recalls. "There are things you don’t think about until you’re faced with them — things like financial literacy, 你需要哪个. 你出去的时候需要开个银行账户.”

Those concerns prompted Andre to sign up for financial literacy classes organized through Reach Success, 一个克利夫兰, 俄亥俄州, 非营利组织. It helps incarcerated people transition back into society through its Inside Out program, 哪个提供稳定的住房, 教育途径, 职业选择和其他需要的资源.

There’s a significant need for such initiatives: The United States is home to roughly five million formerly incarcerated people. 三分之一的美国人 有逮捕或定罪记录吗, making it difficult to secure gainful employment and tap into economic opportunity.

澳博官方网站app provides philanthropic capital to Reach Success to support its re-entry efforts, and the bank’s employees lead the program’s financial literacy workshops.

The financial aspect of Inside Out felt particularly valuable to Andre. “那几乎是无价之宝，”他回忆道.

支持加机会等于成功

The workshops Andre attended were led by Dominic Wright, a Vice President in the JP摩根 Private Bank and Denise Steele, the Community Engagement Manager on 澳博官方网站app’s Corporate Responsibility team. The pair provided attendees with a wealth of educational materials on financial topics like how to overcome identity theft, a common challenge among people re-entering society; how to access your credit report while incarcerated; and how to open a bank account once released.

每次工作坊结束时, the duo gave attendees a question that they had to answer before the next class. “男人们会聚在一起, 去图书馆, research and see if they could come up with the answer,安德烈说。.

“这些任务保持了很高的参与度. “To see the interest and to see how much they loved what we were going over was really meaningful,赖特说。.

斯蒂尔对此表示赞同，并讲述了一个她永远不会忘记的时刻. One of the participants told her and Wright that he didn’t know what to expect from the class, 因为他不喜欢上学. Afterward, he told Steele, “The presentation was amazing. Now I’m thinking about returning to school to go to college.”

安德烈的继续旅程

说到大学, the program has helped Andre achieve another dream: After his release from prison, he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in business from Ashland University in 俄亥俄州. 他以优异的成绩毕业. 目前, 安德烈是一名电工学徒, and is planning to attend graduate school to earn an MBA.

And his relationship with 澳博官方网站app didn’t end after those financial trainings. After his release, Andre visited a 追逐 branch in Cleveland to open an account. He noted how “comforting” it was that the manager there was already aware of the firm’s programs for returning citizens. 

她立刻明白了. I didn’t have to overly explain my situation, and that meant a lot,” he says.

“People that made mistakes sometimes just never had a chance to do anything different,Reach Success创始人比尔·霍宁说. “But now if we can give them a vision of a different world…Holy cow, 他们的成就令人惊叹.”

地平线上的变化

Widespread challenges faced by people both while incarcerated and post-release point to systemic issues. Reach Success’s work is paving the way for system-wide solutions.

例如, the financial workshops run through 澳博官方网站app and Reach Success’s partnership alerted 俄亥俄州’s correctional administrators to the high incidence of identity theft among incarcerated populations. 在回应, the 俄亥俄州 Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is considering instituting a policy to help incarcerated people access credit freezes.

While Reach Success and 澳博官方网站app are aiming for systemic change, the organizations never lose sight of the individual.

“Reach Success never made me feel like a number,” Andre says. “他们跟进了我. They got in contact with my family before I left incarceration, and they are still in contact. 他们直接给我打电话，看我是否需要什么. 他们其实一直在你身边.”