I’m super enthusiastic to announce that our little company will donate another $15,000 to fund our nonprofit today. Those resources will allow us to distribute more than 1,000 copies of our new Release Plan Workbook to institutions and individuals. We’ll begin placing the order this weekend, and Amazon will ship those books to people in federal prisons across the nation. We’ll also donate several hundred copies to Reentry Coordinators who actively teach our course: Preparing for Success after Prison.
By donating our money to the nonprofit, we’re showing other sponsors that we stand by our motto:
We never ask anyone to do anything we didn’t do.
Prison Professors
Distributing our Release Plan workbook is essential in our advocacy quest. People may not grasp the connection because they don’t have any historical context. Before 2017, few people would have believed that laws would allow people to earn ten or 15 days per month of time credits. The First Step Act exists because advocacy persuaded leaders to pass the law.
Without advocacy, laws don’t change. To advocate effectively, we need tools, tactics, and resources.
We advocate for the expansion of incentives. For example:
- The introduction of work release programs for people in federal prison,
- Opportunities for furloughs,
- Mechanisms that allow people to earn freedom in incrementally higher levels through merit.
Our Release Plan course will become a resource to help individuals prepare for success upon release, but it will become an asset that we can use in our advocacy. People must learn how to build a release plan that shows why they’re worthy candidates for higher levels of liberty. They use the same tactics that leaders use to build great companies:
- Define success,
- Create a plan that leads to success,
- Put priorities in place,
- Build tools, tactics, and resources,
- Adjust in response to changes,
- Measure progress with accountability metrics, and
- Execute the plan, evolving with incremental progress.
The workbook that we’re donating to more than 1,000 people will help them understand how they can use our new platform, Prison Professors Talent to their advantage. Since they cannot see the website on the internet, we produced a book that includes visual representations. Those visuals will help them see and learn from our lessons. They will understand how and why:
- To create a bio, defining their commitment to success,
- To write a journal, showing that they’re working daily to prepare for success upon release,
- To memorialize what they’ve learned from books, showing that they’re self-directed learners,
- To iterate their release plan, showing how they can leverage a good plan to apply for higher levels of liberty.
Those strategies helped me build a massive support network while I crossed through 26 years in federal prison. Because I adhered to those strategies, I’ve conducted more than $10 million in business during my first ten years of liberty. They’ve helped me land on my feet after prison, opening opportunities to work toward being the change I want to see.
With the Release Plan, others will learn how to use their prison time to prepare for success upon release. They should support systems, just as I did, and create income opportunities even before the person gets released from prison. By profiling deliberate strategies people are taking to prepare for success, we anticipate being able to advocate more effectively.
I’ll provide updates tomorrow on what Amazon says about shipment dates
