Episode 12 of SOCAP’s podcast series, Money + Meaning: Unlikely Allies Building New Markets for Impact is now available!
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Episode 12: Unlikely Allies Interview: Capital Impact + Mission:Launch
The challenges of mass incarceration and poverty are all too often intertwined in the U.S. Seventy million Americans currently have an arrest or conviction record and that number is growing by the day. These “returning citizens” face a shocking number of barriers upon re-entry that often prevent them from securing jobs, housing, education, business loans and other keys to social and economic security.
Mission:Launch is an organization dedicated to improving the financial health and social outcomes for Americans with arrest or conviction records. Capital Impact Partners is a Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) that has been a leader in the impact investing space for decades. These two unlikely allies have partnered to find ways to move a third of our population out of – in the words of Mission:Launch Co-founder Laurin (Hodge) Leonard – “perpetual disenfranchisement and an invisible life sentence.” Together, they are working to raise awareness among CDFIs and traditional banks of how they can tear down barriers that are locking people with arrest and conviction records out of economic opportunities.
In this episode of Money + Meaning, Lindsay Smalling interviews Laurin Leonard and Ron Kelly of Capital Impact about this challenge and their efforts to create opportunities for returning citizens that could create pathways to financial stability for millions of Americans.
Featured Voices
Ron Kelly
Capital Impact Partners
Laurin (Hodge) Leonard
Mission:Launch
Host: Lindsay Smalling
Resources For Additional Learning
- The Financial Community Has a Role to Play in Improving the Economic Mobility of Returning Citizens by Ron Kelly
- Reimagining Opportunity: Financial Inclusion for Customers with Criminal Records
- These Formerly Incarcerated Entrepreneurs Are Trying to Keep People Out of Prison, Vice
- Change hiring practices to ensure ex-felons aren’t automatically eliminated from the running, by Teresa Hodge for USA Today opinions.
About Money + Meaning
Money + Meaning is the official podcast of SOCAP. This series aims to expand the conversation around impact investing and strategies to finance and support social change while stimulating innovative and valuable new partnerships across sectors.
