✦ Governance & Transparency
Built as an institution, not an extension of its founders.
Our governance follows IRS best practices for an informed, active, and independent governing body — because donor confidence is earned in the details.
✦ How We Govern
Independence, discipline, and daylight.
Whether you’re a funder, a prospective board member, an employer, or a partner organization — we’d love to hear from you.
- Independent board: a majority-independent board with staggered three-year terms, term limits, and a competency matrix spanning finance, law, fundraising, program evaluation, corrections, communications, and lived experience.
- Standing committees: Audit/Finance, Governance, Programs, and Development — each with a written charter.
- Written policies: conflict of interest, related-party transactions, whistleblower protection, document retention, gift acceptance, confidentiality, safeguarding of vulnerable participants, and the dignified use of personal stories and images.
- Compensation discipline: officer compensation is set exclusively by independent directors using IRS comparability data and contemporaneous documentation — never by the officers themselves.
- Strict nonpartisanship: as a 501(c)(3), the Foundation neither supports nor opposes candidates for office. Our work celebrates enacted policy and human outcomes across administrations.
- Entity separation: written rules govern any relationship with our for-profit affiliate — related-party transactions require approval by disinterested directors at fair-market terms, with founder recusal, so charitable funds never subsidize private business activity.
DOCUMENTS
Transparency downloads
We post our governing documents publicly — donor confidence is earned in the details.
✦ Financial Sustainability
Never dependent on one donor, one grant, or one relationship.
Our diversified model draws on individual donors and recurring givers, major gifts, foundations, corporate partnerships, donor-advised funds, government grants tied to reentry and workforce outcomes, sponsorships, annual events, and appropriate earned revenue connected to charitable programming. Behind it sit the controls funders expect: a board-approved budget and three-year projection, cash-flow forecasting, internal financial controls, a reserve policy, and a written donor stewardship plan.
Serve on a board of consequence.
We are assembling leaders in finance, law, philanthropy, corrections, communications, and lived experience who want to govern something that matters.