| Name | Bettie |
|---|---|
| Last Name | Kirkland |
| Home Address | 620 Lindsay Street Suite 100 Chattanooga, TN 37403 United States |
| Organization Name | Project Return |
| Describe Your Role In The Organization | Chief Executive Officer |
| Organization Address | 620 Lindsay Street Suite 100 Chattanooga, TN 37403 United States |
| Website | https://www.projectreturninc.org |
| Best Phone Number To Reach You | 423-609-8986 |
| Alternate Phone Number | 615-327-9654 |
| Email Address | bkirkland@projectreturninc.org |
| Alternate Email Address | khall@projectreturninc.org |
| Please Describe Your Project In Detail | Our project is all about the successful reentry of the people who are returning to Chattanooga from jail or prison. The mission of Project Return is to provide services and connect people with resources needed to return successfully to work and community after incarceration. Our vision is a full and free life after incarceration. We put employment at the core of our work, wrapping that around with an extensive array of signature services and relationship-based, strengths-based support. Our initiatives include: PRISON/JAIL IN-REACH: Project Return goes inside correctional facilities on a near daily basis, connecting personally with people prior to their release, letting them know how we help, and sparking their motivation to come to Project Return. JOB READINESS AND SOFT SKILLS: Participants complete a 2.5-day curriculum that addresses the array of soft skills needed to be successful in the workplace, and additionally incorporates financial literacy, relapse prevention, and digital literacy. Completion of our Job Readiness classes leads to a structured day of individualized assistance, including resume development, mock interviewing, and job search planning. This day is also used to refer participants for services (paid for by Project Return), such as medical, dental, and vision exams, mental health and substance abuse services, and ID obtainment. Other ongoing assistance includes food, clothing, and bus passes; housing and utility stipends; and more. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT: Project Return makes connections with employers to understand their business model, build productive partnership, and meet their workforce and human resource needs. TRANSITIONAL EMPLOYMENT: Project Return, through our employment-creating social enterprises, hires our participants ourselves, to be their best first job after prison. PRO Employment (PROe) is a high-quality staffing company. We contract with area companies that need reliable, entry-level workers, staffing three shifts per day, seven days per week. Through PROe, we provide our participants with daily job coaching, chauffeuring to and from work, and personalized, wraparound support for employment success and increased job readiness. With PROe, our participants are earning and learning on the job, gaining in employment confidence, and creating their own proof of concept. RETENTION SERVICES: We provide a full year of coaching and incentives for navigating, sustaining, and advancing in employment, achieving promotions and increased income, and increasing job-related skills. |
| Please explain how your project meets the requirements of the American Rescue Plan | A primary focus of the American Rescue Plan is to minimize the astoundingly negative economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which were felt even more acutely amongst marginalized populations. Our participants come to us without a job—and many without any prospects for employment at all. Upon arrival to Project Return, our participants are immediately put on a path toward employment. They are immersed in our job readiness curriculum and recruited for our transitional employment opportunities and, within just one week, have the opportunity to begin gaining income, on-the-job training, and work experience. A recent Prison Policy Initiative study shows that the unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated people is almost five times higher than the unemployment rate for the rest of the U.S. population. The work of Project Return aligns with the American Rescue Plan’s commitment to mitigating these disastrous economic impacts on marginalized populations. |
| Where would your project take place? | Much of our work takes place in our office in downtown Chattanooga at 620 Lindsay Street. Of course, our participants are at various job sites each and every day through our partnerships with local employers across the region. |
| How much will your project cost in total? | 3000000 |
| Do you have any matching funding sources from other local governments, private entities, non-profits, or philanthropic entities for your project? | Yes |
| Please describe the source and list amounts of any other funding. | $2.9M : DHS TANF Community Innovation funding (began in 2020, expires in 2022) for the launch of Project Return Chattanooga $10,000: Unum Social Justice Fund $40,000: private & corporate donations $125,000: City of Chattanooga for purchase of vans |
| What portion of the project are you asking the city to fund? | Project Return is asking the city to fund the general operating costs of our Chattanooga office. We will continue to generate revenue through our social enterprises and will also continue applying for local funding. Additionally, Project Return has begun to develop corporate and private donors in Chattanooga and will continue to nurture these relationships. |
| If funded, when would your project start? | February 1, 2022 |
| How long would your project take to complete? | The operation of our Chattanooga office is ongoing, and we anticipate the amount requested would provide two years of operating costs. |
| What milestones would you use to measure your project’s progress? | Project Return has a track record of success, measured along two main metrics: high employment and low recidivism. Each year, Project Return sets performance goals based on these metrics and establishes processes and milestones for achieving those. We aim for a job acquisition rate that is above 75% and work with each participant to line up with that. Our participants come to us of their own volition, and we meet that motivation with job opportunities, in addition to a full array of signature wraparound services. We aim for a recidivism rate of <15%, while state and national rates tend to be above 50%. We achieve low recidivism through our ardent focus on employment and by working closely with participants and service partners. Project Return Chattanooga continues to grow, and we anticipate serving at least 200 newly released individuals each year of this funding. |
| How would you ensure accountability and transparency throughout the project lifecycle? | Project Return utilizes a robustly customized salesforce.com database for all of its work; we do same-day data collection, run weekly and monthly reports for our ongoing assessment of progress, employ a fulltime Quality Assurance Coordinator for internal monitoring of our adherence to standards of excellence in service delivery, and are transparent with stakeholders about performance and achievement. Project Return is accustomed to supplying periodic (monthly or quarterly) reports on outcomes, opportunities, and challenges, and we welcome site visits and other examinations of our work. We will eagerly comply with any reporting practice that the City of Chattanooga wishes to institute for this funding, and otherwise plan to report quarterly. |
| If successful, how would your project benefit the community? | The work of Project Return benefits the community at multiple levels. Reducing recidivism and saving taxpayer dollars, while changing lives and working closely with local businesses to meet workforce needs – this is the focus of Project Return. Recidivism carries real costs –financial, social, and emotional, as well as multi-generational. Beyond the high opportunity cost of finite resources going toward extensive and repetitive correctional measures – a drain on local coffers, and a diminishment of public health and safety – there is the compounding breakdown of households, neighborhoods, and the communities they comprise. More than beneficial, the life-changing work of Project Return is transformational: every person who gets out of prison and stays free and lives productively is effectively flipping the narrative and reversing the trajectory for themselves and their families, and the city as a whole. Project Return’s work, moreover, is a march toward justice and away from inequity. The prison system in the South is a direct descendant of slavery and iterations of racial and economic oppression, and mass incarceration is a foundational pillar of structural racism. Individuals returning to the community after incarceration face fear and contempt, and are routinely excluded from employment. It disproportionately impacts Blacks and poor neighborhoods, entrenching whole segments of our community in cycles of criminalization and poverty. At Project Return, we have long understood ours to be antiracist work, flipping the narrative for people who were disproportionately swept into the system. The success of our participants, therefore, is the manifestation of a more just and equitable community. |
| How will you attract community buy-in for your project? | As a Tennessee nonprofit organization originally based in Nashville, Project Return created a strategic directive in 2017 to explore our expansion to other geographic locations. Beginning in 2019, we devoted concerted time to getting acquainted with the Chattanooga community and exploring in particular the sentiments and concerns regarding both criminal justice and workforce development in Chattanooga. Once we secured the start-up funding in Fall 2020 to plan and launch our Hamilton County office, Project Return leaders focused primarily on relationship-building across all sectors of the community. Our grand opening in November 2021 was well-attended by public officials, employers, nonprofit leaders, and foundations alike. We have received contributions from revered Chattanooga-based corporations as well as from local community members, and will continue to nurture that support. We have benefited genuinely from the enthusiasm of the Chamber, who understands that the work of Project Return brings solutions to the workforce quests of Chamber members. We have cultivated opportunities for local media exposure, resulting in newspaper, radio, and tv features of Project Return Chattanooga. Our partnerships with other service organizations are an essential aspect of the success of the people served by Project Return. Prior to opening, we established such partnerships with local medical clinics, child support offices, transitional living facilities, and many others. Also essential are connective relationships with private employers – of all sizes/types, throughout the metropolitan area, and across industries. Through these employment partnerships, we are helping to meet the workforce needs of the community while also providing opportunity for those returning from incarceration. These cross-sector partnerships create widespread buy-in within the community and will develop in tandem with our continued growth. Of course, our most hoped for buy-in is amongst our clientele—those individuals who arrive in the City of Chattanooga after being released from correctional facilities with little to nothing to their name. They face nearly insurmountable odds and a dearth of opportunity. Within a few months of opening, we have already served nearly 100 men and women on their way to a full and free life after incarceration. Project Return has collaborative relationships with state penitentiaries and local jails, and an established practice of frequenting facilities to connect with those nearing release. We will continue our in-reach efforts in local jails and state prisons, as well as our outreach to transitional living facilities and across the community, in order to ensure that our prospective participants are knowledgeable about the life-changing opportunities to be gained at Project Return. |
| Is there anything else you would like us to know about your project? |