Changing the Way that Charity Changes the World.

Tag: prison

Daddy’s Time Out is now LIVE!

Today is the big day: the Kickstarter for Daddy’s Time Out is now LIVE!

Daddy’s Time Out is a children’s book that aims to improve the futures of the estimated 2.7 million kids who currently have a parent in prison. Such children are up to six times more likely to end up in prison themselves, and our research has revealed that a significant contributing factor is the negative self-identity that these children develop due to an inability to understand their parent’s incarceration.

Using the metaphor of a “time out” to explain incarceration, the book equips these children with an appropriate understanding of what is happening in their family. The book was co-created with the insights of formerly incarcerated parents (as well their co-parents), child therapists, criminal justice professors, as well as leading voices in the movement to transform mass incarceration (ranging from the politically progressive leaders of Equal Justice USA to the politically conservative leaders of the Charles Koch Institute, both of whom have endorsed the book). 

Our goal is to donate at least 1,000 printed copies of the book to nonprofits that work with such children. Our premier partnership is with Big Brothers Big Sisters, whose “Amachi” program provides mentors to children with a parent in prison. Additional partnerships include the Prison Entrepreneurship ProgramPrison Fellowship, and other organizations.

You can write a better ending to these children’s story here.

Even if it is just $1, your gift will show these children that they are not alone. Thank you for backing my book!

How do you find serenity in #prison?

Why are you still, my brother?
The lights go out in an hour, the guard is waiting;
why have you stopped here to gaze at the stars?

“Did you know they burn in silence?”

The whistle blows. Feet shuffle. The guard’s eyes rise.

What good is a flame that gives no heat?
What use is a blaze that cannot roar?

The guard draws near. The path grows clear.
Lights out,

prison ghazal (#poem)

creative commons prison

licensed via creative commons

A place from which you can’t escape is prison.
A place to which you must return is prison.

The space between the place where you were born
and everywhere you fear to go is prison.

Your shame has strapped a saddle on your back
and whipped your ass to ride you back to prison.

Their faces — all the ones you can’t forgive —
become the guards who lock you in your prison.

Pull back the shades; reveal the fragile glass
that forms the razor fence around your prison.

What taste now aches within your bitter palate?
What sweetness haunts your memory in this prison?

You see your lover standing at the gate.
You wave to her — but turn into your prison.

Land of Non — More than Charity

harper in the stream

Things aren’t always what they seem…

Tomorrow, I am giving a presentation at the Nonprofit Summit hosted by the Nonprofit Center of North Central Florida. I am giving a wide-ranging talk that I am calling “The Land of Non: More than Charity.”

(Thanks to my friend Stacy Caldwell for introducing me to this very appropriate term for the ol’ nonprofit sector. See my first blog about it here.)

My talk will cover three basic topics:

  1. YOUR ORG (“your organization”): How and why nonprofits should stop using the language of “begging” when it comes to fundraising, and focus instead on giving a solid investment pitch (i.e. more like what you see on Shark Tank than on the street corner). I’ll also talk about the difference between thinking of donors simply as sources of money rather than ambassadors in your mission.
    1. To illustrate this, I am going to use a version of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program’s “ambassador enrollment presentation” as a case study.
  2. DOT ORG (“the nonprofit sector”): How to reframe our understanding of the nonprofit sector’s role in society by discussing the size, breadth and impact of the nation’s 1.4 million charitable organizations.
  3. OUR ORG (“our sector-wide organizing efforts”): How we can all get involved in changing the dialogue used when discussing the nonprofit sector.
    1. To illustrate this, I am going to highlight the work of Robert Egger and his new lobbying organization, CForward

I have about 45 minutes to cover 45 slides. Some will take 5 seconds, some will take 5 minutes. We’ll see how this works out!

For those who attended the conference and are now finding this blog, you can download the presentation here:
Land of Non – More than Charity – by Jeremy Gregg

Finally, here are the links included in this presentation for “Suggested Reading”:

© 2024 Jeremy Gregg

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