Brian Hamilton's life changed in a prison when he was accompanying his friend, Reverend Robert J. Harris, who often went to local prisons to do his work. During the visit, Hamilton started talking to one of the prisoners and asked what he was going to do when he got out.
"He said he was going to get a job," Hamilton recalls(回忆). "I thought to myself, wow, that's going to be difficult with a criminal background."
The conversation made Hamilton consider how prisoners could benefit from entrepreneurship, something he thought about for years. Finally in 2008, 16 years after that initial conversation, Hamilton created Inmates to Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit organization that helps people with criminal backgrounds start their own small businesses. "Harris and I taught our first course at a prison called 'How to Start Your Own Business When You Get Out'," he recalls.
At the time, Hamilton was building his own company, Sageworks. As Sageworks grew, so did Hamilton's time spent teaching at prisons throughout North Carolina.
Eventually, Hamilton decided it was time to change his focus to his true passion. In May 2018, he sold his stake(股份) in Sageworks, focusing his commitment on Inmates to Entrepreneurs.
"Now, anyone is able to access the curriculum, either to become an instructor to go into prisons to teach it or to access it for themselves as a prisoner or part of the general population," Hamilton explains. In addition, he visits middle schools and presents the curriculum to at-risk students as a preventative measure against crime.
The free curriculum is funded by the recently established Brian Hamilton Foundation, which offers assistance to military members as they adjust to civilian life and provides loans to small businesses. "We're giving prisoners something they can do independent of a system that isn't working for them. If you can let people know that other people care about them, it makes a difference."
