Prison Professors Concept Paper

December 27, 2025: Condensed Version of our Concept Paper

• Link to the Original Concept Paper for Prison Professors Charitable

• IRS approval letter (EIN)
• Attorney Letter
• Articles of Incorporation
• By Laws / Mission Statement
• Corporate Statement of Information
• Conflict of Interest Policy
• Donor Info Letter
• Prison Professors Playbook
• UCLA Evaluation Paper
• Annual Report or IRS Form 990

Accountability Center
We offer full transparency. Visit our dashboards to review our efforts to learn more about the free resources we provide to bring educational resources and second-chance opportunities to justice-impacted people.

• Status updates
• View our Dashboard
• Leaderboards
• Financial Transparency

Your trust matters. That’s why we hold ourselves accountable—to you, to the people we serve, and to our mission.

Mission: At our nonprofit, Prison Professors, we provide free, accessible, educational resources. We aim to prepare people in prison for the job market. We publish daily lessons to assist people at every stage—pre-charge to post-release. Our lessons offer proven strategies in self-advocacy, showing members of our community how to prepare for the highest level of liberty, at the soonest possible time. The self-directed lessons aim to teach participants how to develop skills, knowledge, and confidence to succeed upon release.

Problem: The United States leads the world in incarceration rates, with millions of people in various stages of confinement, or dealing with the complexities of a criminal record. Many of those people lack access to educational or personal development programs that prepare them for jobs, income streams, or success upon release. This challenge contributes to high, intergenerational cycles of recidivism.

Our Solution: We offer structured, self-directed educational content to prepare people for the job market. Our courses address the specific challenges of justice-impacted individuals, emphasizing personal development, communication, resilience, critical thinking, and financial literacy. We include courses to help students develop a basic understanding of the digital economy–specifically, blockchain and AI. We visit prisons across the USA to provide train-the-trainer programs. We offer our resources free of charge in digital formats, making them accessible online to teachers. The courses are also available in print through Amazon, with 100% of all proceeds going to fund our nonprofit’s mission. We also collaborate with federal defense attorneys to reach people at the earliest phase—pretrial—when they are most receptive to beginning a self-directed journey.

Attorney Engagement Strategy: To expand our reach and influence outcomes earlier in the justice process, we have launched an initiative to build partnerships with federal defense attorneys. Defense attorneys are often the first professionals to guide individuals through the criminal justice system. By offering free resources, we help people facing charges learn more about the journey ahead, and help them begin working toward the best-possible outcomes.

This initiative advances the mission of our nonprofit:

• Attorneys save time by offering a trusted, self-directed resource that addresses common questions about prison and mitigation.
• People get clarity and hope, as they learn about steps they can take to prepare for success, build self-advocacy campaigns, and navigate confinement with dignity and intention. Such resources help them restore confidence, and move forward.
• Our organization increases its impact, enrolling more participants in our tracking and advocacy system through Prison Professors Talent.

By building public dashboards, we strengthen our advocacy, showing the importance of creating more mechanisms that incentivize people to work toward earning higher levels of liberty through merit–or earning freedom.

Educational Approach:

• Stand-alone, self-paced lessons tailored to critical stages of the journey.
• Lessons available in print, video, and audio format.
• Early-stage access through our social-media outreach and collaborations with defense attorneys.
• Available to teachers in jails and prisons to pass along to incarcerated learners.
• Practical skills for job market readiness, communications, critical thinking, and self-advocacy.
• Transparent documentation of individual progress through Prison Professors Profiles.

Unique Features:

• Content developed by those with personal experience in all stages of the criminal justice system.
• Community integration through peer mentoring, support networks, and testimonials.
• Gamification strategies and reward systems to incentivize continuous engagement.

Advocacy and Awareness: We collaborate with social scientists to gather evidence on our effectiveness. By highlighting real-life success stories and measurable outcomes, we advocate for policy changes that will open more mechanisms for people to earn higher levels of liberty through merit.

Impact Measurement: We track participant engagement, feedback, and outcomes, openly publishing results on the “Impact” page of our website. Collaborations with organizations such as the Edovo Foundation and UCLA further strengthen our impact evaluation efforts.

Partnerships: We actively seek collaborations with other nonprofits, academic institutions, legal experts, employers, businesses, and advocates to enhance resources, expand impact, and foster systemic reform. We develop partnerships and collaborative relationships to help people prepare for success upon release.

Founder's Motivation: Founder Michael Santos, having served 26 years in federal prison, is an ambassador for the message of personal development and preparation for success. His financial independence drives his commitment to provide free resources that encourage others to prepare effectively for post-incarceration success, and the highest level of liberty at the soonest possible time.

Funding:

• The founder provides personal resources of over $100k per year, and invites others to match his funding to sustain the program.
• Other generous funders who believe in the mission have been generous in providing funding.

Next Steps:

• First Quarter, 2026: Scale our program to grow from 5,000+profiles by 30%, to more than 6,500 profiles. Visit at least six federal prisons to make in-person presentations.
• Second Quarter, 2026: Open relationship with the Bureau of Prisons and other agencies to install the Prison Professors app on all tablets. Grow our profiles by 30%, to more than 8,500 profiles. Visit at least six federal prisons to make in-person presentations.
• Third Quarter, 2026: Develop resources sufficient to scale our project, building a roster of daily active users. Grow our profiles to more than 10,000 profiles.
• Fourth Quarter, 2026: Service the growing number of people in our community, providing measurable resources to show the impact we’re having. Strengthen our relationship with the Bureau of Prisons, providing resources that staff members can use to assess pathways to higher levels of liberty, at the soonest possible time. Prepare research study with a university to measure our impact.

Prior Steps:

• Third Quarter, 2025: Transition from Prison Professors Talent program to an enterprise grade app that accommodates 10,000 users who build profiles.
• Third Quarter, 2025: Develop our AI program to respond to user questions about any aspect of going through the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
• Fourth Quarter, 2025: Scale our engagement with the Bureau of Prisons by visiting prisons
• Daily: Publish new content daily to serve people at every stage of the criminal justice process, based on participant feedback.
• Daily: Collect data on the progress of program participants.
• July, 2026: Expand participation in our data-collection program through Prison Professors, growing our data-collection from 1,000 participants to 10,000 participants within three years.
• 2026: Deepen partnerships, gamification elements, and scalable impact assessments.
• 2027: Advance advocacy efforts to expand policy and legislative change that allow more people to earn freedom through merit.