Graduate, The HOPE Program

When Edmond Taylor left prison after serving 15 years on a drug charge, the guard opened the door and said, "See you when you get back." It was a pretty good bet: Taylor had never had a job other than dealing. For him, enrolling in The HOPE Program wasn't job training, it was life training. And the program clicked.

Given an internship at the Fortune Society, Edmond found he liked being someone people relied on, not someone they ran from. Soon, he was hired full-time. College followed along with a promotion to Manager of Career Development at the Fortune Society. Married now and reunited with the two sons he never saw grow up because he was in prison, Taylor has moved back to his old Harlem neighborhood.

The HOPE Program offers job preparation and training, as well as supportive services, to the homeless, people with criminal records, former drug users and long-time welfare recipients. Despite this challenging population, this organization has a graduation rate of 71 percent. The HOPE Program was one of Robin Hood's earliest grants, and in the last 15 years, Robin Hood has actively partnered with this organization to help it become a nationally-recognized job training model.