By Ivan Kilgore, Founder, United Black Family Scholarship Foundation (UBFSF)

In the nonprofit sector, care is often framed externally. We focus on beneficiaries, communities, and impact metrics. Yet too often, the internal ecosystem that sustains this work is neglected. Burnout is normalized. Overextension is praised. Self-sacrifice is confused with sustainability. Over time, this erodes not only individuals, but the very mission we claim to protect.

Care is not a luxury in leadership. It is infrastructure.

My wife often reminds me of this truth with a phrase that has stayed with me: “Health
is wealth.” It’s something she says plainly, without flourish, yet it carries the weight of
lived experience. If there is one lesson incarceration has taught me—one that no
leadership book could convey—it is that time, energy, and well-being are finite
resources. If we do not intentionally care for ourselves and one another, the work will
eventually collapse under its own weight.

Care does not require grand gestures. In fact, it is most powerful in its simplicity.

By Isabella Cain, UBFSF Media & Marketing Director

The word “rehabilitation” implies restoration. It suggests healing, renewal, and reintegration, however, in the context of incarceration, rehabilitation has often meant something very different. Instead of restoring individuals to full participation in society, the current carceral system frequently manages, disciplines, and cycles people back through its own structures. If we are honest about outcomes, we must ask: rehabilitation into what? And for whose benefit?

For decades, the U.S. criminal legal system has framed its mission around public safety and correction. Yet mass incarceration accelerated dramatically after the policies of the late 20th century, particularly during the era of the “War on Drugs” and the crime legislation of the 1990s, including the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994). These policies expanded sentencing, reduced judicial discretion, and entrenched punitive approaches over restorative ones. The result was not a rehabilitative state, but a carceral one.

By Zebulon Miletsky, Ph.D

Considering this month’s theme of “Care and Cooperation: Partnerships that Work”
leads me to meditate on my own methods to sustains collaboration—and our
larger effort to create such a thing at the national level.

The first, of course is trust. It becomes critical to build relationships in which trust is a cornerstone. This part can sometimes take time, because trust is so hard to build. For example, many if us have tried to maintain trust in the current Presidential administration. Giving it a chance. Trying to have respect for the office. But as we can see, when trust is broken, it becomes very hard to maintain coordination of stable
collaborative partnerships.

I would like to use as just one example, the building up of Black History month and the movement to maintain “collaborative partnerships” within that—with the president, with the congress, and with the American people. Many citizens have been disappointed to see the effort to erase African America accomplishments. But this current effort to erase our history and contribution is nothing new. It has been happening on an ongoing basis since the birth of humanity.

By Ian Wilson, UBFSF Project Manager

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.

Developments

→ We met with Dr. Hanjin Mao (Director, University of Houston-Downtown Master of Arts in Nonprofit Management) and Alexia Green (Resilience Education Partnership Program Manager) to explore a partnership expanding the reach of our Nonprofit Coaching & Leadership Training for America’s Incarcerated program.

→ Ian Wilson, Program Manager, completed the first Impact Statement and Survey Report for the Nonprofit Coaching & Leadership Training program. The report includes feedback from approximately 10,000 incarcerated participants and over 2,000 Module 1 completions.

→ UBFSF founder Ivan Kilgore and Hundred Stories Project managers Erena Daniels and Gianna Madden participated in the annual Storytelling Behind Bars event at Santa Clara University, presenting the journal initiative that supports the development of Zo Media Productions.

→ UBFSF Founder Ivan Kilgore took part in a panel discussion at a screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary, “The Alabama Solution” hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. One of Ivan’s and UBFSF's earliest projects was working on the Alabama Solution, which made this a very rewarding opportunity.

→ Our team has begun development planning for a feature documentary, Writing Beyond the Prison, highlighting Ivan’s resilience and more than three decades of writing from prison.

New Team Members

On February 12, our Hundred Stories Project Co-Project Managers, Gianna Madden and Erena Daniels gave a presentation for over seventy students and faculty. In collaboration with the French & Francophone Studies Program at SCU, the PEP Readers’ Circle at USC, and the Writing Beyond Walls Program, Gianna and Erena explored volunteer and internship opportunities, university partnerships, and the reality of writing while incarcerated.

UBFSF Founder, Ivan Kilgore, and fellow incarcerated author, Knowledge B, spoke to students about their careers as writers and the impact that incarceration has had on their lives.

Until next time,

A Different Way of Doing Things