From Pilots to Policy: How LeadersUp is Rewriting the Future of Fair Chance Hiring across LA County

This Second Chance Month, we’re not just marking milestones—we’re honoring the people and partnerships behind a transformative shift in how Los Angeles County approaches justice-involved individuals. 

Over the last three years, LeadersUp has served as a field-building intermediary, listening deeply to the ecosystem, identifying systemic gaps, and co-designing solutions in partnership with community-based organizations, employers, and government leaders. Our mission has been bold and clear: to reimagine how Los Angeles County supports justice-involved individuals—not as a service population, but as essential contributors to our region’s economy.

What began as a series of pilot projects has evolved into something far more consequential: a countywide collaborative, supported by the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), focused on building real, measurable, and scalable economic mobility pathways for system-impacted talent.

This isn’t just workforce development. It’s a regional economic strategy.

And at the center of this story is collaboration—between community, employers, government, and systems that once operated in silos, now working together to shape the future of fair chance hiring.

From Proof of Concept to Countywide Movement

The journey began with small but powerful experiments, like Just Opportunity, our initial report which highlights the need to combat recidivism with more fair chance employers, to the Accelerating Fair Chance Project, where we built employer-facing tools and pilot-tested messaging strategies to reduce stigma and increase hiring of system-impacted individuals. We learned quickly: employers wanted to do better, but lacked clear onramps and trusted support.

So we built them.

In parallel, we launched a partnership with USC to pilot a career coaching model that provided justice-involved youth with wraparound guidance, helping them navigate systems, clarify goals, and connect with employment. That work, highlighted here, taught us that talent doesn't need fixing; systems do.

We partnered with Clark Construction, the USC Sol Price Center for Social Innovation, and  Chrysalis to pilot inclusive hiring practices in high-growth sectors like infrastructure and skilled trades.

These proof points became the foundation of trust and policy influence.

Enter the County: Elevating Local Leadership and Policy

In 2023, our momentum led to a breakthrough: a formal partnership with the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) to relaunch the county’s Fair Chance Hiring Campaign. This wasn’t just a marketing effort but a signal that LA County was ready to invest in an ecosystem approach to inclusive hiring.

Through this campaign, we leveraged our insights, tools, and network to engage employers, train hiring managers, and activate storytelling that shifted the narrative around justice-impacted talent. But we didn’t stop there.

This partnership, bolstered by seed funding from JPMorgan Chase, catalyzed the formation of the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Employment Collaborative (LACFEC), a coalition of frontline organizations and system partners co-designed to test solutions and employer engagement strategies, build infrastructure, and expand economic opportunity, inclusion, and mobility at scale to empower justice involved individuals in building industry and targeted occupational tracks capacity in supporting a fair chance ecosystem.

Over the past year, this collaborative has made bold strides in co-designing and testing an internal referral system. This is more than a new tool—it is an infrastructure shift that has the potential to reshape how justice-involved talent is supported, engaged, and ultimately connected to good jobs. Today, as we enter this system's critical testing phase, we celebrate its functionality and the collaborative spirit that brought it to life.

A Year of Building: The Fair Chance Referral System Takes Shape

At the start of 2024, our collaborative launched a discovery phase that involved a comprehensive partnership assessment and mapping services, capabilities, and gaps across our network. From legal expungement and transitional employment to industry-specific training in solar installation and healthcare, each organization’s contributions were documented and aligned.

A collective commitment emerged to operationalize a shared referral system that could ensure no individual falls through the cracks, regardless of where they first engage.

By Q1 2025, the collaborative had designed, wireframed, and prototyped a low-tech system built for accessibility, ease, and scalability. In Q2, we’re live-testing this system—tracking referral movement, improving email notification protocols, and collaboratively shaping the engagement phase. The system is becoming a true shared infrastructure thanks to active input from partners like Brotherhood Crusade, A New Way of Life, The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), Grid Alternatives, and the Los Angeles Urban League.

A New Way of Life partners at the Equity Unleashed Report Launch.

From Systems to Solutions: A Collaborative Pathway in Motion

What sets LACFEC apart isn’t flashy technology—it’s purposeful partnership. The referral system we’re testing isn’t one-of-a-kind in its tools, but revolutionary in its process. It’s a low-tech, high-trust prototype that reflects months of iterative co-design, testing, and refinement by a cross-sector network of organizations deeply embedded in LA’s reentry ecosystem.

Each member, from Brotherhood Crusade’s youth development work to A New Way of Life’s reentry housing for women to the Los Angeles Urban League, Grid LA, and Per Scholas, which provide occupational pathway training and employment connections, to CEO’s transitional employment support, has brought critical insight into how we build a system that mirrors real-life complexity, not just spreadsheets.

This referral system wasn’t built for organizations. It was built by them. From live walkthroughs of actual referrals to real-time updates on engagement workflows, our meetings have become incubators for innovation and alignment. Each organization helps us test what works, flag what doesn’t, and refine what’s next.

This referral system wasn’t built for organizations. It was built by them.

In doing so, we’re proving that collaboration is infrastructure, and the stronger the collaboration, the stronger the system. This people-powered tech stack now underpins our upcoming employer-driven hiring blitzes, which pair immediate job opportunities with career exploration, resume support, and coaching. It's a unified front, not a fragmented series of events, that helps justice-involved job seekers gain employment and agency in their economic future.

The Bigger Picture: Why Justice-Involved Talent Is Key to LA's Economic Future

We’re not just creating pathways but shifting the region’s priorities. Justice-involved individuals have been considered an afterthought in workforce planning for too long. However, LA County cannot achieve inclusive economic growth without addressing its most system-impacted communities.

We’re helping flip that narrative through the Fair Chance Collaborative—embedding JII access into workforce development strategies beyond training and placement. We’re building career-connected pipelines rooted in dignity, support, and long-term advancement.

This isn’t just workforce development. It’s a regional economic strategy. And justice-involved individuals must be at the center of it.

A Fair Chance Future Starts with Policy—and You

This work must be matched by policy. That’s why we’re urging employers, advocates, and allies to support AB 1231 (Elhawary)—a bill granting judges discretion to offer diversion programs and services for individuals charged with non-violent, non-serious felonies. It’s a smart, bipartisan approach to public safety and economic inclusion, giving people access to programming that meets their needs. Support this legislation by signing the statewide support letter: Click here to sign

Join Us: Build the Future of Fair Chance Employment

If you're part of an organization serving justice-involved individuals, we invite you to learn more about the referral system, upcoming hiring blitzes, how your services can integrate into this growing ecosystem, or if you're an employer ready to lead with equity:

• Nonprofits and CBOs: Learn how your services can integrate into our referral system and hiring events.

• Employers:

  • Schedule a Discovery Meeting to explore the benefits of Fair Chance Hiring.

  • Join an upcoming Hiring Blitz to connect with a diverse, ready-to-work talent pipeline.

• Contact us: john@leadersup.org

Let this Fair Chance Month mark when we stop talking about potential and start building systems that deliver on it.