The Aspire Challenge - $1.2 Million Challenge for Formerly Incarcerated Entrepreneurs

$1.2 Million Challenge for Formerly Incarcerated Entrepreneurs Opens

JANUARY 2, 2017

The U.S. Small Business Administration has launched a competition through which it expects to award up to $1.2 million to expand access to small business assistance for formerly incarcerated individuals.

The Aspire Challenge will award prizes of $75,000 to as many as sixteen organizations in support of their efforts to deliver entrepreneurial training and microloan assistance to formerly incarcerated individuals. The competition is open to all for-profit and nonprofit entrepreneurial support organizations with an innovative and sustainable solution to providing the formerly incarcerated with the education and technical assistance they need to start and expand a business. With approximately 60 percent of formerly incarcerated individuals still unemployed a year after their release, self-employment increasingly is seen as a viable alternative to the traditional nine-to-five job.

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