On April 16th, 2025 18 participants confidently pitched their business ideas to 37 community volunteers (!!!) and crossed the graduation stage with purpose. RISE has now celebrated 836 In-Prison Program graduates and counting!

On March 28th, 21 RISE participants pitched their business ideas to 21 community volunteers, celebrated their growth with over 30 loved ones, and graduated with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility.

Leadership takes many forms—whether it’s driving change within a Fortune 500 company or transforming lives through second chances.

Christ Community Church hosted RISE CEO and founder of RISE, Jeremy Bouman; Community Navigator, Aaron Pettes; and Volunteer Relations Manager, Chantal Wentz on Sunday, July 28th for their Ordinary People, Extraordinary God series.

RISE is a re-entry program with a mission to help people both inside and outside prison get back on their feet.

"We're helping them with housing, employment, healthy relationships, building a healthy peer community of others who are navigating carceral systems and coming home," said Jeremy Bouman, CEO of RISE.

RISE provides "Welcome Home" bags to all RISE graduates who return home. Valued at over $100, each bag includes personal care items like body wash, shampoo, laundry detergent and towels. We all know how expensive a trip for essentials like this can be - lifting this one financial burden means a lot to us and the people we serve.

RISE not only opened a reentry office in Lincoln last month but also moved from the second floor of the Blackstone Plaza to the fifth floor. September was…wild, chaotic, thrilling, sweaty, hard, beautiful, and joyful.

Research has shown that staying connected with family while incarcerated is wildly beneficial. It improves health, behavior, and can reduce the likelihood individuals will return to prison after being released.

Reentry is crisis. It's not uncommon to have a roof over your head one day and the threat of it being gone the next. Access to housing can help improve public safety, as research has shown it is correlated with decreases in crime and recidivism.

At RISE, data is more than a number. Data helps tell the story of our participants. Data allows us to see trends and gaps. Data supports our decisions.

RISE is proud to announce being awarded a $30,000 Impact Grant through FNBO's First National Bank Fund c/o the Nebraska Community Foundation. This grant will go towards supporting the RISE Employment Program.

Knowing your voting rights while currently detained in jail can be confusing. But know this: if you or your loved one is currently detained in a Nebraska jail, you may still be eligible to vote!

Learn more about voting rights and voters registration here.

The community turned out for another successful RISE Family Wellness Collective showcase event located at the Hot Shops Art Studios, which highlighted storybooks written and illustrated by program participants during the Trauma, Grief, & Resiliency cohort and poems written during the Self-Actualization cohort.

At RISE, our mission is to end the generational cycles of incarceration. Our mission comes to fruition in a variety of ways.

The RISE Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee invites you to recognize Women’s Equality during August, as this directly impacts the people we work with and care about.

RISE announced a donation of $20,000 from the Medica Foundation, a community-focused giving arm of Medica funding health initiatives across Nebraska. Medica’s funding of $20,000 goes directly to supporting RISE’s In-Prison Program and Youth & Family Program.

RISE graduates received free Tech Packs from Do Space as a means to support digital equity in Omaha. The Tech Pack program distributed laptops, Wi-Fi hotspots, free internet, computer training, and one-on-one technology tutoring - a substantial need for those coming out of incarceration.

As a creative fundraiser for the month of May, Haven Candle Co. and the RISE Alumni Association collaborated to create a custom RISE candle, “Withness.” Haven Candle Co. is a locally owned and operated business by RISE’s very own Director of Operations, Brittany Burling!