New Season Women's Workforce Re-Entry Program

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Executive Summary

New Season Women's Workforce Re-Entry Program is a nonprofit in Ohio that prepares women returning from incarceration for good jobs. A 12-week program combines job readiness, a certificate path in a field with local openings, a weekly stipend, child care and transportation help and a job coach who works with employers who hire people with records.

Women coming home face barriers that are different from men's: children to care for, relationships to rebuild and work that must pay enough. A woman with no income cannot afford twelve weeks of training without help.

With this grant we will train about 40 women in Year 1 in two cohorts. We do not give legal advice, we never charge participants and we do not promise any woman a job or a wage. We promise real skills, respect and honest help finding work.

Our Year 1 budget is about $203,500, growing to about $299,000 by Year 5 as we add sites, coaches and participants. Each year's budget is planned to balance, with a small surplus each year. We have 4 staff in Year 1 (an Executive Director, a Program Director and a Job Coach) and 6 by Year 5.

We are asking the Buckeye Women's Opportunity Foundation for $65,000 for the Program Director and participant training stipends. Our other income and startup support cover the rest. These numbers are estimates based on the assumptions listed at the end of this proposal, and we do not promise any result beyond what we describe.

Company Description

New Season Women's Workforce Re-Entry Program is a nonprofit organization in Ohio. We are a registered charity with a volunteer board of directors, a written conflict-of-interest policy and a yearly budget the board reviews.

Our mission. Women coming home from prison should be able to earn a living and care for their families with dignity.

What we do.
- Run a free 12-week job readiness and training program for women returning from incarceration.
- Pay a weekly training stipend to help with transportation and child care.
- Prepare each woman for a certificate or credential in a field with local jobs.
- Teach resumes, interviews, money skills and how to talk about a record.
- Match each woman with a job coach and an employer partner.
- Follow graduates for a year after placement.

Our values. Respect for every participant, honesty with families and partners, safety first and a place for everyone who wants to belong.

What we do not do. We do not give legal advice and refer participants to legal aid. Stipends are reviewed by an attorney and an accountant and are not wages. We do not promise any woman a job or a wage. We never charge participants. We follow the rules of our partner sites and our insurer.

How we got here. A group of women who had come home themselves, an employer and a church volunteer began meeting weekly to practice interviews and share leads. The group outgrew the church room. We kept simple records of who came and what they found. This proposal asks for support to move from a weekly support group to a steady program with paid, trained staff and the materials to match.

Problem & Opportunity

Women returning from prison face barriers that are different from men's, including caring for children, rebuilding family relationships and finding work that pays enough.

Cost. Training costs money, and a woman with no income cannot afford twelve weeks without pay.

Access. Few job programs are designed around the needs of women, and many employers do not hire people with records.

Safety and trust. Participants and funders want to know that the program is safe, respectful and led by people who understand.

Missed benefits. Women without stable work are more likely to lose housing and custody and to return to prison.

What we hear.
- A woman says she can do any job and does not get past the box on the application.
- A mother says she cannot afford training if it means no income for a quarter.
- An employer says the women from the program are on time and eager.
- A graduate says her first paycheck was the first thing she ever felt proud of.

We do not claim that a program can solve every challenge. We believe that training that pays a stipend, a coach who understands and an employer who says yes can open a new season.

Products & Services

New Season Women's Workforce Re-Entry Program gives women returning from incarceration a safe, welcoming place to train for and find good work.

How the program works.
1. Referral. Parole and probation officers, reentry programs and women's groups refer participants.
2. Orientation. A coach meets each applicant, explains the program and agrees on goals.
3. Training. Twelve weeks of classes four days a week in job readiness and a certificate path in a field with local openings.
4. Stipend. Participants receive a weekly stipend for each week they attend.
5. Support. Child care help, transportation passes and work clothing remove barriers.
6. Placement. A job coach works with employer partners to find the right fit and supports the first weeks on the job.
7. Follow-up. We call graduates at 30, 90 and 365 days.

What a typical session looks like. Participants arrive and check in with a staff member, settle in together, work on the day's activity in small groups and finish with a short talk about what went well. Staff praise effort, correct mistakes kindly and make sure no one is left out.

Staff. Our job coaches and instructors are trained, pass a background check where allowed, complete our training and are paid for their time.

Access and fairness. Programs are free. Programs are free. We welcome every woman returning from incarceration, as the law allows, and offer materials in English and Spanish.

Market Analysis

Who we serve. Women ages 18 and older returning from prison or jail to our area. Eligibility is based on release status and readiness, and no woman is turned away for the nature of her past offense, as the law allows.

How we estimate need. We cannot count every young person who could benefit, so we plan from what we can see. In our weekly group we served a full room and kept a waiting list. Parole officers and employers told us that many more women are ready for training than we can serve. For Year 1 we plan to serve about 40 participants at 1 sites. By Year 5, with more staff and sites, we plan to serve about 120.

Where participants come from.
- Parole and probation officers.
- Reentry organizations and women's shelters.
- Churches and community groups.
- Graduates who tell a friend.

Who else benefits. Children and families gain a mother with income. Employers gain reliable, motivated workers they can count on. Communities gain safety and lower costs.

What the numbers mean. Every number here is a woman with her first paycheck. We keep our early counts modest and honest so we can do the work well.

Competitive Landscape

What young people can find today, and how we are different.

1. General job centers. Offer many services and are not designed around women returning from prison. We partner and add a specialized track.

2. Community college programs. Valuable and costly in time and money. We offer a stipend.

3. Reentry programs. Strong and mostly focused on men. We focus on women.

4. Employers' own training. Useful and hard to enter without a record check. We prepare women and employers.

5. Faith groups. Caring and not always job focused. We add training and placement.

What makes us different.
- Free with a weekly stipend.
- Designed for women returning from incarceration.
- Child care help and transportation.
- Employer partners who hire people with records.
- A year of follow-up.

Why this gap matters. Existing programs do good work, and most serve people who can already pay or who live close to them. The people we serve are the ones left over: they live in the wrong neighborhood, have the wrong schedule or have no one to ask. We are built to reach them.

We have spoken with parole officers, employers and other reentry programs to make sure we are filling a gap and not duplicating services. Their letters of support are in the attachments.

Marketing & Sales Strategy

How young people and partners will find us.

Reaching young people.
- Parole and probation. We will share a short referral form and a named contact.
- Women's shelters and reentry groups. We will present and share schedules.
- Employers. We will meet business groups and offer hiring tours.
- Churches and neighborhoods. We will talk with leaders who know women.
- Word of mouth. Graduates tell friends.
- A simple website and a phone line with a text option.

Reaching staff and sponsors.
- Recruit job coaches and instructors through workforce programs, reentry groups and community colleges.
- Offer an orientation, a background check and training in safety, privacy and respectful practice.
- Give partners a short report each quarter with counts of participants and what they said.

How we decide who joins. We use a simple sign-up form and enroll participants in the order received, with priority for those with the greatest need and for people new to the program. We keep a waiting list when the program is full.

What we watch. Sign-ups, attendance, certificates earned, jobs found and how many participants return for a second season.

Operations Plan

How the program will be carried out.

Timeline for Year 1:
- Months 1 and 2 (July and August): Hire the staff, buy equipment and materials, finalize the waiver, consent form and privacy policy with our attorney and sign site agreements.
- Month 3 (September): Open applications and start the first cohort.
- Months 4 to 10: Run cohorts of about 20, with placement support and follow-up.
- Months 11 and 12: Survey participants and employers, report to funders and plan Year 2.

Space. Training is held in classrooms at a partner community college and a community center, provided at low cost.

Safety and privacy.
- Stipends are reviewed by an attorney and an accountant and are not wages.
- Staff work in view of others and follow a written conduct policy.
- Every staff member and volunteer passes a background check and completes safety training.
- Staff work in pairs or in view of others whenever participants are minors or in a vulnerable situation.
- We keep an emergency plan at every site, and participants complete an emergency contact form.
- We keep records private, share them only with a participant's permission or as the law requires and follow a written policy.

Equipment. We buy about $6,500 of equipment once at the start: laptops for coursework and job search ($3,500), classroom supplies and training equipment ($2,000), locking storage and a printer ($1,000). Later years replace or add a few items.

Staffing. In Year 1 I serve as Executive Director. The Program Director, paid $46,000 a year, manages cohorts, employers and stipends. The Job Coach, paid $38,000, works with each woman. We add a job coach in Year 3 and another in Year 5.

Management & Organization

Denise Carter, Executive Director. I lead the organization, report to the board and am responsible for budgets, partnerships and reporting. I came to this work as a woman who came home and had to figure it out alone. I will complete the training we require of our coaches so I understand the program from the inside. (Replace this paragraph with your own background.)

Staff. The Program Director manages cohorts, employers and stipends, and job coaches work with each woman. Each passes a background check where allowed. These positions are part of our grant request.

Board of directors. Our volunteer board includes a formerly incarcerated woman, an employer, a social worker, a banker who serves as treasurer, an attorney and a pastor. The board meets every other month, approves our budget and reviews our safety plan. No board member is paid, and members with a conflict of interest step out of related decisions.

Advisory partners. A parole officer, a community college workforce director and an employer who hires people with records give guidance twice a year.

Staffing and pay in this plan: Executive Director, paid $52,000 a year; program Director, paid $46,000 a year; job Coach, paid $38,000 a year.

Milestones Narrative

Our goals, how we will measure them and when we plan to reach them.

Year 1 outcomes (July 2027 through June 2028):
- Serve about 40 participants at 1 sites.
- Run at least two full seasons and a summer session.
- Have at least 85 percent of participants attend most sessions.
- Have at least 80 percent of participants return for a second season.
- Receive positive feedback from at least 90 percent of families who answer our short survey.

What we count and how.
- Participants enrolled, sessions and games attended, from our records.
- Skills learned and goals met, from the coach's checklist.
- Equipment issued and returned, from our log.
- Participant and family feedback, from a short, confidential form.
We report what we find, including what did not work, and use it to improve.

Growth over five years.
- Year 2: About 60 participants at 1 sites.
- Year 3: About 80 participants at 1 sites.
- Year 4: About 100 participants at 2 sites.
- Year 5: About 120 participants at 2 sites.

Learning along the way. At the end of each quarter, the director and the board review the numbers and decide whether we are on track. If we are behind, we will adjust our outreach, our sites or our schedule before asking for more money.

After the grant. By Year 5, grants make up about 50 percent of our budget, down from about 62 percent in Year 1, as partners and donors give more. We will keep building those relationships every year.

Funding Request

What we are asking for, and how the money will be used. Our request: $65,000 from the Buckeye Women's Opportunity Foundation for the Program Director and participant training stipends, for July 2027 through June 2028.

The request is spread across these budget lines:
- Personnel: Program Director salary, $46,000.
- Other: Training stipends for participants, $19,000.

Other money in the program. This request is about 52% of our Year 1 grant income. Other grants and the income lines below pay for everything it does not cover.

Year 1 budget: about $203,500, planned to balance with a small surplus (about $8,200 after the yearly wear on equipment). Year 1 money coming in: Grant Revenue $125,500; workforce Board Funding $50,000; employer Partners and Donors $20,000; individual Donors $8,000. Year 1 costs: executive Director $52,000; program Director $46,000; job Coach $38,000; training Stipends about $24,000; certifications and Testing Fees about $8,000; work Clothing and Tools about $5,000; child Care and Transportation about $8,000; employer Outreach about $4,000; administration and Insurance about $9,000; about $2,900 a year for the wear on equipment.

One-time startup costs. Startup costs of $15,000 are paid once from startup money, not from the yearly budget: $3,500 for laptops for coursework and job search; $2,000 for classroom supplies and training equipment; $1,000 for locking storage and a printer; $2,500 for attorney review of the stipend agreement, consent form and privacy policy; $1,800 for banners, flyers and a simple website; $1,700 for background checks and coach training; $2,500 for first insurance payment.

How we got our startup number. The Funding Need Calculator in this plan adds the startup costs ($15,000), the cash the program uses before it balances (about $0) and a cash cushion of about $48,500, which is about three months of Year 1 costs. In all, that comes to $63,500. We start with $6,000 from our founding board and $60,000 in startup support from a community foundation and an employer partner, $66,000 in all, which covers that amount with room to spare.

The next five years. Our budget grows from about $203,500 in Year 1 to about $299,000 in Year 5. Grants are planned at $125,500, $111,000, $137,000, $123,000 and $149,000 in Years 1 to 5. Other income grows: workforce Board Funding from $50,000 to $82,000; employer Partners and Donors from $20,000 to $44,000; individual Donors from $8,000 to $24,000. Our surplus is planned at about $8,200 in Year 1, about $8,700 in Year 2, about $11,500 in Year 3, about $12,100 in Year 4 and about $14,600 in Year 5. We grow from 1 sites to 2 by Year 5, adding a part-time coach for each new site.

Savings. We plan to keep several months of costs in savings. The lowest year-end balance in the plan is about $60,900, at the end of Year 1. Some grant payments and partner payments arrive after we bill, so we plan for about $8,140 owed to us at the end of Year 1.

Cost per woman. In Year 1, our total costs are about $4,883 per woman served, which includes setting up the program. By Year 5, with more woman served and a trained team in place, that falls to about $2,370 per woman.

After the grant. Workforce board funding, corporate sponsors and individual donors grow every year, so grants become a smaller share of our budget. Participants and families share their stories, and businesses can sponsor a team or a season by name. We will look for partnerships with schools and the city that want a safe, free workforce option for every child.

Risks and how we will handle them:
- An injury. Certified coaches, proper equipment, groups matched by age and skill, a written emergency plan and insurance.
- A site is no longer available. We keep agreements with more than one site and a plan for bad weather.
- A coach leaves. We keep a list of trained backup coaches and share lesson plans.
- Low attendance. We adjust sites, times and rides based on family feedback.
- A privacy problem. We follow a written policy, use secure systems and train every staff member and volunteer.
- A grant ends. We keep savings and grow partner and donor support each year.

If you are just starting. A new organization can begin before it has its own 501(c)(3) status through a fiscal sponsor: an established nonprofit that receives grants for you and passes them to your program, usually for a fee (commonly around 5% to 10% of the grant, sometimes more; ask before you agree). Another way is to start smaller: one neighborhood, a handful of womans and a small team, tracked carefully. Strong results from a small start make larger grants easier to win.

Appendix Notes

Documents to attach with this proposal:

- Your IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter, or your fiscal sponsor agreement.
- Your most recent financial statements and your current year budget.
- A list of your board members and what each one does.
- Signed letters of support from partner schools, agencies and sites.
- Your site agreements and your insurance certificate.
- Your consent, waiver and privacy policy.
- Your safety plan and background check policy.
- Your program outline and schedule.
- Quotes for equipment and materials.
- Resumes for your Executive Director and key staff.
If you don't have any of this yet, no worries - let's continue.

The assumptions behind our numbers (change them in the Financials section to match your own):
- Grant Revenue: $125,500 in Year 1, growing to $149,000 in Year 5.
- Workforce Board Funding: $50,000 in Year 1, growing to $82,000 in Year 5.
- Employer Partners and Donors: $20,000 in Year 1, growing to $44,000 in Year 5.
- Individual Donors: $8,000 in Year 1, growing to $24,000 in Year 5.
- Pay (a full year, per person, including payroll taxes and workers' compensation): executive Director $52,000; program Director $46,000; job Coach $38,000.
- Other yearly costs in Year 1: training Stipends $24,000; certifications and Testing Fees $8,000; work Clothing and Tools $5,000; child Care and Transportation $8,000; employer Outreach $4,000; administration and Insurance $9,000. These grow between 4% and 5% a year.
- Equipment: $6,500 at the start, then $1,500 to $2,500 a year.
- Startup costs: $15,000, paid once from $66,000 in startup money.
- Participants served: about 40 in Year 1, growing to about 120 in Year 5. Sites: 1 in Year 1, growing to 2 by Year 5. Cohorts run twelve weeks, with two cohorts in Year 1.
- About 4% of each year's income is still owed to us at year end.
- Tax: none, as a nonprofit.
- Every dollar amount is an estimate. Replace them with your own quotes and real budget.

Startup Costs