Press Release | Fair Chance Business Education Consortium Launch
April 2024
Charlottesville, VA | The non-profit organization, Resilience Education, has announced the launch of the Fair Chance Business Education Consortium sponsored by Ascendium Education Group and in partnership with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, University of Virginia Darden School of Business and Georgetown University’s Pivot Program.
On Thursday, April 4th, 2024, during Second Chance Month at the Wharton School, Resilience Education and Ascendium announced the launch of the Fair Chance Business Education Consortium. This new initiative brings together universities, colleges, and academic institutions to redefine the role of business in enhancing the economic opportunity of those affected by the justice system and their communities.
Resilience Education has been collaborating with business schools to provide entrepreneurial education programs to individuals in correctional facilities for more than a decade. “We’re really excited today to announce the Fair Chance Business Education Consortium made possible by a grant from Ascendium Education Group,” said Tierney Fairchild, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Resilience Education. The Fair Chance Business Education Consortium will facilitate the exchange of research, best practices, and resources among the institutions across the country that elect to participate.
The formation of this consortium offers the possibility of a more tangible—and expansive impact—on cycles of justice system involvement and incarceration. “What is the collective impact that we can generate as a coalition of programs as opposed to just individual programs, each doing our own thing, in our own place?” asked Molly Lasagna, Senior Program Officer at Ascendium, addressing the room of attendees at The Business Case for Second Chance Employment Conference. Lasagna believes that sharing resources and thinking “more creatively and more ambitiously” would set incarcerated and justice-impacted students up on a path for economic mobility. “That’s why I feel really excited about supporting this consortium,” she added.
The focus on enhancing business education, leveraging research to drive decision-making, and cultivating inclusive leadership models makes this consortium unique. By establishing The Fair Chance Business Education Consortium, Resilience Education is laying the groundwork for innovation in the sector. New partnerships would open up a world of opportunities to engage employers profoundly, change the narratives on justice-involved talent, and shift mindsets about what fair-chance hiring looks like moving forward.
“One major challenge for the work we do is scaling. We can, for example, try our best to make an impact at correctional facilities that happen to be close enough to drive, and that’s great, [...] but universities aren’t set up to have programs that scale naturally. The way to do that is through a network and that’s what this consortium represents for me—a community of like-minded folks,” said Damon Phillips, Robert Steinberg Professor of Management at the Wharton School and faculty lead of the Resilience Education | Wharton WORKS program.
The Fair Chance Business Education Consortium will enable those committed to improving economic mobility for formerly incarcerated individuals to collaborate and develop new approaches within the sector.
About Ascendium Education Group:
Ascendium Education Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to helping people reach the education and career goals that matter to them. Ascendium invests in initiatives designed to increase the number of learners from low-income backgrounds who complete postsecondary degrees, certificates, and workforce training programs, with an emphasis on first-generation learners, incarcerated adults, rural community members, learners of color, and veterans. Ascendium’s work identifies, validates, and expands best practices to promote large-scale change at the institutional, system, and state levels, with the intention of elevating opportunity for learners from low-income backgrounds. For more information, visit www.ascendiumphilanthropy.org.
About Resilience Education:
Resilience Education is a non-profit organization focused on breaking the cycle of incarceration by improving the economic mobility of formerly incarcerated individuals through high-quality business education and post-release support. By partnering with correctional facilities, academic institutions, and private sector allies, Resilience Education empowers formerly incarcerated individuals to excel in the workforce. For more information, visit www.resilience-education.org.
For media and partnership inquiries, please contact:
Sophia Bender Koning, VP of Operations