The Center for Self-Sufficiency (the Center) today announced that it has received a $25,000 grant from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s (GMF) Marie and John P. Botsch Fund to expand its services in the areas of workforce development and offender reentry, specifically as it relates to securing employment for former offenders. The Center will use this grant to identify and recruit potential employers and to promote job and career advancement services provided by the Milwaukee Reentry Network, a partnership of government and community-based organizations providing services to offenders in Milwaukee.

The GMF funds also will be used to build upon the work the Center is doing to implement the “Strategies Targeting Characteristics Common to Female Ex-Offenders” grant which it received in July2013 from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).  Funding from the DOL grant will provide ex-offenders with resources to enable them to find employment and become productive members of society, with the end goal of strengthening the community and improving the quality of life of Milwaukee neighborhoods through relevant and measurable economic development strategies.

The GMF funds will help leverage the DOL grant and have been allocated to recruit and screen potential employers and employees, provide former offenders with job and career advancement resources, and secure jobs for them in the Greater Milwaukee area.

“We are thrilled that the Greater Milwaukee Foundation recognizes the merits of this critical workforce development initiative.  Finding employment for ex-offenders that re-enter our community is vital to the stabilization of Milwaukee’s families and our neighborhoods,” said Angela Turner, President and CEO of the Center.

Based in Milwaukee, Wis., and founded in 1997, the Center for Self‐Sufficiency (CFSS) is a nonprofit organization that promotes and facilitates the design, delivery, and growth of high‐impact programs and partnerships that increase the self‐sufficiency of individuals, families, organizations and communities. Under the leadership of President and CEO Angela Turner, CFSS partners with federal agencies, states, local governments and school districts, as well as community and faith‐based organizations to develop effective service delivery models nationally in the areas of healthy relationships/marriage, teen pregnancy prevention, offender reentry, mentoring children of prisoners, green jobs and organizational capacity building.