Breaking Barriers to Capital Access for Returning Citizens
Endeavor Ready 3.0: Breaking Barriers to Capital Access for Returning Citizens report outlines actions that lenders and organizations in the reentry community can take to improve outcomes in their programs and remove barriers to capital access to better serve millions of returning citizens.
Executive Summary
Returning citizen entrepreneurs have the potential to serve as anchors in the U.S. economy. Those with criminal records are more likely to start a business than peers without criminal records, and when they do, they experience higher incomes than their employed peers. Just as important, returning citizen entrepreneurs are more likely to hire employees with criminal records, increasing the creation of wealth and opportunities in their communities. Returning citizen entrepreneurs are also more likely to need credit to start and sustain their businesses, but they face additional barriers as a result of incarceration, owing to the impact of incarceration on personal credit scores, income, savings, and lending policies.
This report outlines actions that lenders and organizations in the reentry community can take to improve outcomes in their programs and remove barriers to capital access, both by exploring demand-side behavioral barriers that might hold returning citizens back from applying for right-fit capital, as well as by reviewing internal lending policies that restrict access to returning citizens. We invite efforts to adapt these solutions to fit the needs of a broad array of entrepreneurial training and small business lending programs to better serve millions of returning citizens.
