Partners in Second Chances
The INVEST entrepreneurship program is a partnership between Pioneer and Vault89 and was featured in the following article in the Puget Sound Business Journal - by Catherine Duchamp.
"Anthony Wright, CEO of Seattle-based Pioneer Human Services, believes everyone deserves a second chance. So does Doug Baldwin, former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver, now CEO of social impact investing firm Vault89, based in Renton. Both also hold, that when people are healthy, confident and supported, anything is possible. Together, they’ve created a program where people coming out of prison learn to be entrepreneurs.
“To see your mother or your father, or your brother or your sister, have a history, overcome that and then start a business. I think that’s probably one of the most powerful things that
can happen in the community,” said Wright, who met Baldwin through a mutual friend and later pitched him on the training program.
INVEST (Incarceration to New Ventures: Elevating Success Together) is a departure from the more conventional ways Wright and Baldwin do business. But they are united by a mission to give people overcoming conviction histories financial freedom through entrepreneurship.
“We tell them the first day they get there, ‘Hey, this program is going to kick your ass and know that you’re going to be fine, but anything worth having is going to be a challenge,” Baldwin said.
INVEST is an eight-week program offered quarterly, with in-person classes run from Vault89’s second-floor office in downtown Renton. At the end of the program, the entrepreneurs-in-training get to pitch their business idea to business leaders for feedback and support. After graduation, participants get access to business coaches for two years.
Baldwin expects his firm to invest in some of the new businesses that come out of the program. Any money Vault89 gets will funnel back into the program. “As a social impact investment firm, we put dollars towards them, we get equity back, the return of investment,” Baldwin said. “The narrative there is that you’re opening the door for more folks to come to this opportunity.”
But unlike many impact investors, Baldwin said ROI is not the focus of Vault89. “There are a lot of social impact investment firms that are still very transactional. My COO hates when I say this, but I don’t care about the bottom line,” he said. “Yes, we’ve got to keep the lights on, we’ve got to pay the bills. But our focus should be serving the people that we have the privilege and opportunity to serve. And if we do that correctly, the bottom line will take care of itself.”
Baldwin has been a vocal advocate for prison reform. In 2022, he accepted Gov. Jay Inslee’s invitation to join the Washington state Clemency and Pardons Board. They meet to listen to stories from inmates and their families and decide who can leave prison before completing their sentence.
“These are people who are growing up in challenging environments that don’t have role models. They realize that they made mistakes, but they’re still dealing with the shame,” Baldwin said. He said carrying that shame makes it hard to reenter a community and take risks to pursue career goals.
“But when you bring them into an environment and you remove that shame, and you love on them despite what their past is, they’re building the confidence and the endurance to then go pursue whatever their dream is. I think that’s part of what we have tried to develop here,” Baldwin said.
For Pioneer Human Services, the INVEST program offers a new way to help formerly incarcerated people start careers. Unlike traditional nonprofits, as a social enterprise organization, Pioneer operates businesses that make up one-third of its revenue, according to the organization’s 2023 annual report. Its manufacturing plant makes parts for Boeing, and its food service business makes and ships meals to customers statewide. Profits are rolled into budgets for its human services programs.
Just over 60% of Pioneer’s workforce has a conviction history or is in recovery. But Wright said not everyone is cut out for its factory production or food prep lines.
“Some people have the potential to be entrepreneurs. It’s more exciting because I think it creates more employment opportunities when a business is born because, generally speaking, you hire employees. It has that multiplier effect that finding somebody one job doesn’t have. You’re creating, potentially, economic independence,” Wright said.
According to the state corrections department, 23.4% of men and 12.6% of women who serve time in a DOC facility return within three years. That’s lower than the national average, which hovers in the “upper 30s,” a DOC spokesperson said.
A 2024 study published in the American Journal of Sociology showed that formerly incarcerated people who become entrepreneurs are less likely to return to prison, compared with their formerly incarcerated peers who work for companies or are unemployed. For Pioneer and Vault89, though, it’s too early to report outcomes.
Baldwin said they’ll soon be making commitments to some of the first INVEST graduates. Wright said he hopes the partnership inspires other investors to carve out cash for social impact innovation. “And then this becomes a model where other folks are saying, ‘If you just didn’t give all your money to shareholders and you could just reserve some of that for social impact,’ then we’ll start to tilt the world in a way that we start to make a difference,” Wright said.
