Level creates educational content for people in prison.
Send educational material to a loved one in prison.
Level sends educational material to people in prison across the country. Level provides content including entrepreneurship training, job training and personal development material. Often, Level can serve people in maximum security or solitary confinement.
Modern, in-demand job training and educational content for incarcerated adults.
Job training
Vocational job training materials are among the most requested by incarcerated men and women. People in prison want to support themselves when released. Level custom creates job training guides made specifically for people in prison.
Entrepreneurship
"How do I start my own business" is a very common question among people in prison. To meet this need, Level creates entrepreneurship guides tailored to the needs of incarcerated people to improve their chances of success when released.
Personal development
Visual art, creative writing, meditation and personal development are hugely popular resources among incarcerated men and women. Level creates guides that help develop the whole person to strengthen the self and relations with others.
Level distributes job training and educational material to over 800 federal, state, county and military prisons across the country.
Each map pin represents a prison unit that Level serves. To date, Level has provided education and job training to 4,693 incarcerated individuals at 927 unique federal, state, county and military prisons.
Level distributes our educational and job training guides directly to people in prison who use our content in their cells, common areas and in self-formed study groups. Additionally, we print and ship educational guides in bulk to our distribution partners across the country.
Break the destructive cycle of incarceration.
The American prison system is a destructive cycle, tearing up people, families and communities while costing more than $80 billion a year. One of the most effective tools for breaking this cycle - prisoner education - is overlooked, underutilized and outdated.
America has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
2.3 million Americans are currently behind bars, and almost all of these prisoners will be released at some point. People in prison aren’t set up for success after release. Formerly incarcerated people experience a 470% higher unemployment rate, significantly lower incomes and are 10 times more likely to experience homelessness. The cycle of incarceration can seem inescapable - 68% of former prisoners are re-arrested within 3 years of release.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Education and job training are shown to measurably increase the chances for success among formerly incarcerated people after release. People in prison who participate in correctional education programs had 43% lower odds of being re-arrested and had 13% better chances of finding employment post-release. Prison education more than pays for itself with savings from avoided re-incarceration of $11 for each dollar spent.
Level creates effective learning for adults, accessible without internet access.
Level’s learning material is effective because it’s custom created specifically to support adult learners who have been failed by traditional education systems. Level’s content is accessible because it can be distributed at scale to people in prison without any internet access. Level's learning guides are printed on any standard printer, folded and sent via mail. They become the permanent property of each learner who can use them anytime for individual or group study.
Contribute to our innovative projects to bring modern education resources to incarcerated people.
There is no better investment in an individual or their community than education. Your donation to Level will empower people in prison to find purpose and build valuable skills that break the destructive cycle of incarceration. Level is currently raising funds to support three content projects: meditation, entrepreneurship and computer science.
Meditation
Bring the benefits of meditation and mindfulness to thousands of people in prison who have little to no access to meditation resources and who have a deep passion for learning this important skill.
Support This Project
Entrepreneurship
"How do I start a small business after release" is one of the most common questions we receive. Help people in prison fulfill a common dream of entrepreneurship.
Support This Project
Computer Science
Join our revolutionary project to bring computer science training to people without computers. We've partnered with the world leaders in Unplugged Computer Science.
Support This ProjectMake a general contribution to support Level's ongoing programming. Give the gift of education.
Help us apply the power of education to break the cycle of the American prison system. Together we can reshape the story with dignity and optimism.
Together we can Level the playing field.
Level has the opportunity to reach 20,000 people in the next 2 years. To get there, we'll need to work with a lot of awesome people ... like you.
The team that makes this happen.
Level envisions a world in which adults of all economic backgrounds have access to high quality, effective learning materials to help them achieve their goals. To accomplish this, our team applies creativity, experience and out-of-the-box thinking.
Demetrius James
Content Creator, Board Member
Demetrius never loses the forest for the trees or the people for the project. He was a Writing Fellow with the Bard Prison Initiative from 2013 to 2020 and an Academic Instructor for Rising Hope from 2019 to 2020. He received a BA in Literature in the Humanities from Bard College in 2017 and an MPS in Urban Ministries and Leadership from the New York Theological Seminary in 2018.
Kate Mullan
Director of Content, Board Member
Kate focuses on providing a responsive and consistent learning experience across subject areas. She currently creates consumer education material for a federal agency, and has taught and written curriculum in high school math, GED prep, and English as a Second Language. She received a MS in Statistics from Texas A&M in 2016.
Michael Pledger
Content Creator
Michael excels at making complex topics accessible and digestible. He has tutored math, science, and writing for several years, and facilitated anger control classes. He received an AA from Bard Prison Initiative in 2019 and his BA in Mathematics from Bard College in 2021.
Suzi Sosa
Board President
Suzi is a social entrepreneur and CEO and co-founder of Verb, an online lifelong learning platform. Suzi won the 2014 Ernst & Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award and formerly led the Social Entrepreneurship program at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.
Alex Wright
Executive Director, Board Member
Alex Wright has spent the past 7 years reading thousands of letters from people in prison describing their education needs. He is a successful serial entrepreneur, a board member with Inside Books Project, one of the country’s largest prison literacy programs, and a member of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education's Prison Literacy committee.