70 Million Jobs - First Job Board for the Formerly Incarcerated

How I Serve

I search for emerging companies, technologies, disruptive technologies, innovations, start-ups and up-starts. I’ll look to match potential problems… e.g. “plastic pollution” to solutions… e.g. 3D Printer for recycled plastic waste…for potential venture capitalists, angel investors, and online funders. I’ll also highlight a variety of topics including funding success stories, the environment, housing, medical, artificial intelligence, science, aging populations, disabled populations, social entrepreneurs, philanthropy, and topical news. I’m always searching for great people innovating, inventing, and doing, great things.

I don’t endorse. Only disseminate.

The 411: Investment Opportunity - The American Dream FOR Everyone Who's Been Behind Bars

Found on: - https://wefunder.com/70million.jobs

First Job Board to 70 Million Americans With Criminal Records

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One in three Americans live with criminal records. That's 70 million people. And most of these 70 million Americans experience pain when they try to reintegrate into the workforce. As an ex-convict myself, I wanted to serve my brothers and sisters in and out of the prison when I was released. That's how I got to building the first job board for the formerly incarcerated.

Richard Bronson

CEO, 70MILLIONJOBS

OUR AMBITION

At first, my goal was to be responsible for one million men and women having an opportunity – maybe for the first time in their lives – to truly live the American dream. The human being in me would be happy if there were even just one but the businessman in me wants a bigger number. 

Ultimately, 70MillionJobs' goal is to become a billion-dollar business that will pump in 70M people back into the US economy and introduce them to necessary services, like banking and healthcare. 

KEY FACTS

• Y Combinator 2017 alum. Other alumni include Dropbox, Stripe, and Airbnb.
• Partnership with the City of Los Angeles.
• SXSW Pitch Competition Finalist in 2018.

Based on a True Story

Back in the day before I started 70MillionJobs, I was one of the Wolves on Wall Street at Stratton Oakmont. After a stint at this notorious firm, I started my own company which grew to a business making $100M in annual revenue and hired 500 people. But this all fell apart when I went to prison for securities fraud. I admit I grew the business in crooked ways.

I served two years in prison and returned every penny back to the investors. But when I got out of prison, I had nothing left and had this fat criminal record. 

To right my wrong, I decided to dedicate my life to serving brothers and sisters getting out of prison. I became a director at Defy Ventures, a nonprofit serving the current and formerly incarcerated with entrepreneurial and job training. Then I thought of a for-profit approach to help the formerly incarcerated get back on their feet. 

How Does 70MillionJobs Work?

We are the only job board on the Internet that serves the formerly incarcerated people. Period. No other job board has tried to tap into this pool of 70M Americans ready for work. 350+ government agencies, non-profits, parole and probation departments refer job seekers to us and we ping job opportunities to them via calls and text messages. Then we help our users throughout the whole process. Employers pay to post each position. 

Let's Change History Together

Dear Friends of 70MillionJobs,

70 million Americans—1 in 3 adults—have some sort of criminal record, and they all face terrible challenges in landing a job. Statistics show that unless the formerly incarcerated land a job, they’ll almost certainly wind up back in jail or prison. The cost in human lives to all those affected—the families, the victims, and society in general—is enormous and often heart breaking.

At 70MillionJobs, we are committed to helping everyone who is sincere in putting his or her past behind him to pursue a new, productive life. We are seeking ͞double bottom line͟ returns: build a big, successful company and do massive social good.

I myself was incarcerated years ago, and like many people, came out of the experience a changed person. I discovered my calling in life—to help my brothers and sisters leaving jail or prison find jobs and short the endless cycles of recidivism in this country. I’ve served as Director at a prominent non-profit in the recovery space (Defy Ventures), and have witnessed first-hand the redemptive power of gainful employment.

We invite you to join us on this great mission. I am inspired daily by working with our clients—men and women who have chosen to remain strong and positive despite enormous challenges, men and women who want nothing more than to be responsible, contributing members of society.

I invite you to be part of our mission, a mission to save lives and an historic business opportunity.

With much appreciation,

Richard Bronson, Founder/CEO of 70MillionJobs

Interview

Wefunder interviewed Richard Bronson on February 13, 2018.L

WF: What does 70 Million Jobs do? 

BRONSON:

70 Million Jobs is the first for-profit employment platform for Americans with criminal records. Companies pay us to post and market job opportunities that they are willing to consider people with criminal records for. The applicants themselves pay us nothing.

We are assisting the largest employers in the country at a time of historically low unemployment. As Trump does away with a lot of illegal immigrant labor, there are huge pressures to fill jobs, particularly at the lower end of the wage scale. Big retailers like Walmart and Target and Lowe's can't get enough people to work on their sales floors, and big food-service companies, hospitals, warehousing, transportation companies are dying for people to come work for them. Some companies are also interested in asserting their leadership as being second-chance friendly, meaning to show they're willing to go into a community and hire people who have a record and could really use a break, people who have paid the price of their mistakes in the past and are ready to get on with a new productive life.

These companies feel that this could represent some of the best things that this country stands for and have an understanding that we all make mistakes and that if you've done your time and paid the price, you should have the opportunity to move on with your life, particularly if you were very young at the time that you made the mistakes. Because who really believes that folks should have a life sentence for mistakes made often when they were very young?

WF: What is your system for connecting people and jobs? 

BRONSON: I originally launched the business thinking that a job board would be the right product to fit the market. There's already a job board for every career in every industry, so why not for people with criminal records? But early on I discovered that it's a lousy fit because it doesn't work for our users. For the most part, our users don't own laptops. And job boards are an awful user experience even if you have your own computer. The boards are cumbersome, complicated, and time-consuming, and they only really help the most motivated to slog through that system.

The people we’re reaching only have phones. I imagine very few of them know how to upload a resume on their phone. They're not particularly tech savvy and they don't know people who have gone hunting for legitimate jobs who they can copy. They don't know what's involved and don’t know about job boards like Indeed. They can’t network at events to find employers. It’s all completely alien to them. Their experience is going out on the street because that's where their friends are. Those friends are making money, having fun, getting high, and listening to music. That’s what they want to be doing instead of going to a job interview at a fast food place for minimum wage.

We just signed up Unilever, for example, and they have business operations in lots of markets throughout the country. We can first filter our community based on geography and then begin a campaign that starts with targeted emails. Then we have text notifications of job alerts, and then we get on the phone and we contact possible job candidates. That’s where we have a great deal of success in conveying what the opportunity may be. Next, we are helping them create a resume if they don't have one, and helping them apply for the job and going through the process with them. We remind them of their interview date or tell them about any hiring events an employer might have. So while a casual visitor to our site would see a job board, that really reflects maybe 1% of our real activity.

We're also working on a new site which, among other things, will enable an applicant to create a video resume. If you looked at some of our user's paper resumes, you would cry, because they have no experience and they have no education. It's a sad representation of their life. However, if you watch a video resume, you could see that they're personable and bright and communicative and you'd be much more likely to hire them because we've humanized them.