Fresh Start Banking
Fresh Start Banking
Mentorship Program
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Fresh Start
Entrepreneurship
Boston Program Graduates
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. Our 2024 inaugural cohort was launched in Boston in partnership with Reentry Survivors, a community organization providing entrepreneurship training for more than ten years, 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 working with many other community organizations and government agencies to make this program available to returning citizen entrepreneurs.
Program Goals
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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, individual mentoring, and access to affordable banking products and credit-building resources.
Read our article Entrepreneurship After Prison: Fresh Start Business Ideas for more information about practical and affordable business opportunities for returning citizens.