Expanding Leadership Education for America’s Incarcerated

By Ian Wilson, UBFSF Project Manager

My name is Ian Wilson and I serve as the Project Manager for Nonprofit Coaching and Leadership Training for America’s Incarcerated (NPCLT), working under Ivan Kilgore and with the United Black Family Scholarship Foundation (UBFSF) since September of 2025. I am also a history major at the University of Michigan, but originally from  Brooklyn, New York. 

Prior to my time at UBFSF, I volunteered with The Campaign Against Hunger in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where I wrote a newsletter and worked alongside formerly incarcerated individuals on parole in a community food pantry. Coming from a wealthier neighborhood in Brooklyn, this experience was a shocking revelation that, only a 30 minute train ride away, such severe poverty and food insecurity existed. This experience instilled in me a commitment to help alleviate these disparities, leading me to volunteer hundreds of hours throughout high school.

When I began at UBFSF, that motivation continued. However, starting in my position, hearing the familiar chime of “this conversation will be monitored and recorded” every Wednesday and Sunday at 5:30pm while I met with Ivan Kilgore, the difficulty of my task became more apparent. 

My first major obstacle came when I gained access to the editor’s side of the Edovo course. The videos would not work for incarcerated individuals, preventing them from accessing the course. Initial feedback described the lag and frustration of buffering videos and inaccessibility. Emails seeking technical assistance yielded no benefit as I received vague responses and unhelpful insights. At times, the roadblock felt insurmountable.

Rather than stall, I used the time to deepen my understanding of the program’s mission: equipping incarcerated individuals with nonprofit leadership skills that could generate meaningful community impact upon release. Through trial and error, I discovered the root of the issue: prison facilities could only support videos in 480p (standard definition), while all course materials had been uploaded in 1080p (high definition). After converting the videos to the appropriate resolution, the course became fully accessible. What followed was remarkable; usage surged almost immediately.

That surge represented more than a technical fix. It revealed a powerful truth about a population whose hunger for opportunity far exceeds public assumptions.

Survey data from participants underscored this reality. Of those polled, 40.72% identified as Black or African American—a stark figure given that Black Americans represent roughly 13% of the national population but more than 37% of the incarcerated population. Educational disparities were equally striking: 22.35% of respondents had less than a high school diploma, nearly triple the national average of 8.5%. Only 8.23% held a bachelor’s degree or higher.

These are not abstract statistics. They reflect systemic barriers that predate incarceration. Adults without a high school diploma face the highest unemployment rates nationally (6.2%), and recidivism rates remain significantly higher among formerly incarcerated individuals who are unable to secure employment (42.4%) compared to those who find work (26.2%). Understanding these disparities is essential groundwork for meaningful collaboration.

Yet what struck me most was not deprivation, it was perseverance.

A remarkable 70.59% of survey respondents reported some form of leadership experience. At the same time, 64.71% had received no prior nonprofit or business training, and 47.06% reported that their facility offered no leadership or educational programming at all. The gap was not one of desire, but of access.

Research consistently shows that educational attainment reduces recidivism, with completion of high school alone lowering rates from an estimated 70–80% to closer to 50%, with further reductions as education levels increase. Within our survey, 45.88% of respondents identified nonprofits as their primary area of interest, and 29.41% listed leadership and management as their top skill-development priority.

What was missing was a bridge. Sometimes that bridge looks technical, such as converting videos to 480p, troubleshooting Edovo, ensuring curriculum access. More broadly, it represents sustained collaboration between individuals on the inside and those on the outside. That partnership transforms latent potential into tangible community impact.

Looking ahead, the survey results reveal a population motivated by service rather than self-interest. Nearly half (47.06%) define “making amends” as helping others. Another 25.88% expressed interest in youth empowerment, and 24.71% hope to give back to the communities they will eventually rejoin. Meanwhile, 35.29% identified financial hardship as the greatest barrier to successful reentry, a challenge addressed directly by UBFSF’s R.E.B.U.I.L.D. initiative, which provides training in real estate development and community reinvestment.

These findings portray a population that is ready, willing, and capable, constrained not by character, but by limited structured opportunity.

My role, as someone on the outside, is to ensure that opportunity reaches them. Ivan’s role, as a leader working from within lived experience, is to ensure that participants are prepared to seize it. This cooperative model—inside and outside working together—is what distinguishes the NPCLT program in the broader reentry landscape.

The full report, linked here, presents these findings in greater detail.