#SecondChanceMasterpiece: Shark Tank – Prison Edition
This life-changing event started out as a few words on a whiteboard in a cubicle back in 2018. We were brainstorming what kind of course project would be of the greatest benefit to the Illinois state prisoners taking the fourth course in our Transformational Rhythms Program called: Organizational Integrity – Entrepreneurship / Intrapreneurship.
Each of the 9 prisoners signed up for the course had already been through our three preceding courses on Self Leadership, Personal Influence and Team Building as both students and apprentice leaders for the last three years.
We wanted to create an opportunity to showcase the tenacity, grit, innovation and brilliance of these prisoners to local business leaders. If we could get business leaders to see the extraordinary masterpieces these prisoners were proactively becoming, we could change hearts and minds both inside and outside of prison.
Those initial few words on the whiteboard quickly turned into a detailed plan. The prisoners would develop a business plan on an idea of their own choosing, in small, well-defined steps over the 18 weeks of the Organizational Integrity course. Then we would invite 6-8 well established, successful, local business leaders to a two day Shark Tank event inside the state prison in Dixon, IL. Each one of the 9 prisoners would get an hour to present their business plan, the WHY behind the idea, and then field any questions the “sharks” had.
The day finally came in early 2019…Shark Tank – Prison Edition was live at Dixon Correctional Center. Over the next several hours, each prisoner shared their idea, business plan and the heart of compassion and empathy behind the ideas and their deep desire for a Second Chance, to make amends for their past mistakes and to make things right.
The ideas ran the spectrum from leveraging existing vocational skill sets of painting, landscaping, mechanical truck and auto repair and construction of low-cost housing for veterans to creating development programs for prisoner reentry to reduce recidivism and programs for at-risk youth aimed at reducing first-time incarceration.
The sharks were completely dialed into every presentation. At various times during the day, the entire room was moved to tears as a prisoner would give his real-life background on the WHY behind their idea. The sharks gave the honest feedback they believed would make each business plan better, and the prisoners graciously received the feedback and engaged in productive, professional-to-professional conversations.
The sharks shared with us after each day that they had no idea people in prison could be such sincere, respectful, hard-working, empathetic, dynamic and talented individuals. Back at Dixon, the prisoners felt incredibly validated in their growing belief that there was significant value inside of each of them that they could offer to the outside world.
#SecondChanceMasterpiece
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