INSIDE CIRCLE
Empowering System-Impacted People to Lead Change from Within
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
It’s safe to say that we have a nationwide mental health crisis on our hands that’s disproportionately contributing to untold suffering and the highest incarceration rates in the world. According to the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, in order to divert incarceration, treatment must focus on the effects of early life experiences. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in the community and these issues are left to the prisons where less than 1% of the $81,203 spent annually to house an inmate in the state of California is dedicated to healing work.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
HEALING FROM THE INSIDE (PRISON SUPPORT GROUPS)
Using a peer-support group model, we facilitate the emotional and psychological healing of maximum security inmates, cultivating the capacity for meaningful interpersonal relationships/connection, resilience, purpose, healthy decision making, and accountability.
OPERATION YOUTH (YOUTH GROUPS & MENTORING)
Using formerly incarcerated staff, we facilitate the emotional and psychological healing of incarcerated and opportunity youth cultivating the capacity for meaningful interpersonal relationships/connection, resilience, purpose, healthy decision making, and accountability.
OUTSIDE CIRCLE (ADVOCACY/COMMUNITY SERVICE)
Using formerly incarcerated staff leaders, we facilitate the emotional and psychological healing of the general population including but not limited to people of color, LGBTQ+, veterans, and the formerly incarcerated.
LEADING CHANGE (PAROLEE/PROBATIONER SUPPORT)
Using formerly incarcerated staff leaders, we facilitate the emotional and psychological healing of justice-involved people in the community.
THE POWER OF LIVED EXPERIENCE (FACILITATION TRAINING)
We train select formerly incarcerated people to facilitate the emotional and psychological healing of their peers.
Where we work
External reviews

Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
At the broadest level, we want to shift this country from a culture of mass incarceration to one of mass rehabilitation. A shift of this magnitude requires focus on the unaddressed mental health challenges that drive violent, anti-social behavior in ways that are effective, culturally sensitive, and scalable. Our answer is to build a movement of formerly incarcerated peer-support facilitators skilled in our life changing work who know first-hand what rehabilitation looks and feels like - facilitators with the lived experience to inspire and support positive life change among their peers in the criminal justice system-involved community.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Our approach is to widely recruit, heal, train and deploy incarcerated and formerly incarcerated peer healing circle facilitators with the demographics and lived experience to match that of incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, low-income, multi-racial, and at-risk/opportunity adults and youth in institutional and community settings. This approach serves two ends simultaneously, it supports the facilitators-in-training on a positive life trajectory while meeting the needs of challenged populations. It's efficient, it’s powerful, and it works.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
We have a wide network of skilled trainers, a detailed, powerful, and flexible curriculum as well as a large number of community and institutional partners.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
This training model works. We’ve been employing it successfully within Folsom prison for over 20 years - well before this group of formerly incarcerated leaders officially formed what we call Inside Circle. Our recidivism rate is under 10% and our graduates don’t simply survive on the outside, they thrive - regularly acting as mentors and leaders within their communities. The current leadership structure of our organization underscores this point. Our more recent success bringing our work to at-risk and incarcerated youth, the formerly incarcerated, and adults on probation points to our ability to generate similar results outside an adult maximum security setting. Some highlights include:
_Formerly incarcerated program graduates run our organization. They demonstrate to their peers and the world that change is possible - that we can reduce mass incarceration if we address the root cause driving much criminal behavior at the appropriate scale with the appropriate people.
_We have developed a thriving healing circle community designed to support training of the formerly incarcerated outside of prison as well advance the advocacy project initiated in 2017 with the launch of the film about our work entitled, The Work.
_We have successfully replicated our success within California State Prison, Sacramento, in a youth facility and gained the partnership of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Justice Strategy Group. They are now using our approach as an integral component of their new model for reform.
What's next?
We will continue to offer our life saving work in prisons across California and the US and expand our capacity to reach, motivate and divert youth from a lifetime of incarceration.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
INSIDE CIRCLE
Board of directorsas of 10/22/2021
Manuel Ruiz
Michael Dimock
Roots of Change
Term: 2019 - 2022
Jeff Buenrostro
Metric Theory
William Harper
The Trium Group
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
The organization's co-leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data