Turning Business Ideas Into Reality

The Fresh Start Entrepreneurship & Financial Capabilities Program is a collaboration among several entities with a shared goal of promoting economic empowerment for justice-involved individuals. First Step Alliance launched this program in Boston in 2024 in partnership with Harvard Law School, the Boston Mayor's Office of Returning Citizens, and SCORE, a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration and mentor to America's small businesses. We look forward to expanding partnerships with community organizations and government agencies to make the program available to returning citizens interested in starting a new business.

Our program instructors include system-impacted individuals and other business and financial professionals who share a deep commitment to economic empowerment and second chances. Together, they bring extensive experience as certified business mentors, certified financial instructors, and attorneys, and include several graduates of leading business and law schools such as Wharton, Harvard, Berkeley, and NYU Stern.

Program Goals

Fresh Start Entrepreneurship aims to provide justice-involved individuals with the education, mentoring, and legal assistance they need to start and run their own business. The Program's unique curriculum combines entrepreneurship training and money management skill development with individual coaching by experienced business mentors, certified financial coaches, and instructors with lived experience. To help remove barriers to mainstream banking and build credit, participants have access to an affordable bank account and free credit counseling services. Program graduates may also be eligible for a micro-grant to help them get started.

Business ownership represents an alternative path to income and wealth creation opportunities for justice-involved individuals. Fresh Start Entrepreneurship helps people turn their ideas into reality by providing essential business training, personal finance knowledge, peer mentoring, and access to affordable banking products and credit-building resources.

Our program partner, Harvard Law School's Transactional Law Clinics, has this to say about the Fresh Start program:

This kind of training program helps people who are at the very beginning of dreaming about their business. They’re just starting to figure out, how do I do this on a larger scale? How do I make this a sustainable income source for myself?

Read more about our program and its impact in From Incarceration to Entrepreneurship, featured in Harvard Law Today.

What our graduates say

Wayne

Dreaming after incarceration can be difficult. The Fresh Start program helped me out in way you couldn't imagine. My vision widened, and I decided I wanted to open a CDL driving school. Fresh Start helped me put that business plan into action.

Tatiana

This program is empowering! Not only am I more knowledgeable in business, I'm also so much more confident in my venture. The mentors are amazing. Thank you for the experience, encouragement, and all of the help.

Zilla

The Fresh Start Program gave me the foundation I needed to launch my business, and I'm grateful for the chance to give back and hopefully inspire others who are on the same path I once walked.

Jose

The experience with the program opened my eyes to what it really takes to have a successful business. It made me realize you need a business plan, a vision, a goal and a plan to get there.

Caroline

Thank you so much for everything! This class was great and I looked forward to it every week. I wasn’t sure if I could do it all and make it to the end but now I feel I can do anything I set my mind to.

Sonny

The Fresh Start program is more than a program. It's an opportunity to change the rest of your life. God bless these guys. We need more programs like this.

Marquis

Thank you all for this program. It was very beneficial for all of us. I really did learn a lot. Blessed are the ones that never give up.

Charles

Best program in the city for returning citizens!

Friendy

This is a great program to help future entrepreneurs on their journey.

An inspiring story of hope, redemption, and second chances

Tune in to the More Life The Reentry Podcast episode featuring our own Wayne Lane, Fresh Start program graduate, for an uplifting conversation about entrepreneurship after incarceration. Wayne shares his journey of rebuilding self-worth, rediscovering a sense of purpose, and embracing the belief that he deserved success. He also highlights how the Fresh Start program gave him the confidence and tools to pursue his dream of owning a business (to listen to the podcast, click on the image below).

Read our article Entrepreneurship After Prison: Fresh Start Business Ideas for more information about practical and affordable business ideas for returning citizens.

Fresh Start Entrepreneurship