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RE: I’ve Been Teaching Theatre in Prison for 8 Years
What an excellent idea, and you've got so much passion to share!
I am also part of a program that works with people who are incarcerated. The goal is to provide them with training in prison and then remove their barriers to success upon release through job placement (and further training), housing, and transportation. It's awesome to see you focus on giving them a way to tell their own stories. It's much needed!
That is so awesome! How long have you been doing that? The programs that help to bridge the transition back into outside life are so vitally important - thank you for doing that work!
It's a new program actually. We are still working on getting it off the ground. We hope to launch the in-prison training in June or July of next year, and have the housing secured and ready by September or October.
Oh wow, that is super cool. Also really interesting to hear there’s housing attached to the program, that’s great!
I'm pretty excited about it. If you want to learn a bit more, check out The FairCosa Foundation over on WEKU. It's still in its infancy, so there isn't much info just yet. Tips on running a successful volunteer organization would be greatly appreciated.
Wow - that’s awesome. Looked at your intro post and the model seems super rad. Are you incorporated 501(c)3? There’s honestly probably some decent grant funding to consider - maybe starting with the city to see what kinds of grant programs they administer. There’s often good pockets of change around for direct service work like this. :)
We are working on the 501(c)3 status right now. I believe we just have to file the bylaws with the IRS and we should be good to go. We've already filed as a nonprofit with the state, so we're good on that front.
There's a website called GrantSpace that I've been checking into regarding funding opportunities. I don't think it's just local either. I bet you could find some good grants there too if you haven't already.
Awesome! I’ve used Grantspace, it’s pretty good, but I subscribe every week to GrantWatch so that’s my go-to. My “day job” gig is writing grants for loads of people and that one seems to bring up a lot of fresh things on my list regularly. Good luck out there in getting all this sorted, and I’m excited to see updates if you write about where the project is going here on steemit!
I've been thinking about cross-posting the Foundation posts from WEKU to Steemit, but I don't want to create a whole new Steemit account. I may in the future, we'll see.
Thanks for the tip on GrantWatch. I'll check that one out. Are your grant writing skills for hire? I've written grants, but it was many many years ago.