How FreeWorld Uses Data to Reimagine Reentry and Economic Opportunity
Over 650,000 people reenter their communities from incarceration each year in the United States. More than two-thirds of these individuals are rearrested within three years, often indirectly due to the challenges of finding meaningful employment, securing stable housing and navigating the stigma that a criminal record brings.
To expand economic opportunities for returning citizens, GitLab Foundation awarded FreeWorld a $375,000 grant in 2023. This funding has strengthened FreeWorld’s efforts to enroll formerly incarcerated individuals in Commercial Driver’s License (CDL-A) classes, helping them secure stable careers in trucking. In line with GitLab Foundation’s mission and 100x North Star goal, FreeWorld aims to increase the total lifetime earnings of its participants by $1,380,000 and drive lasting systemic change to improve the lives of all formerly incarcerated people.
FreeWorld has dramatically increased its reach year-over-year, growing from supporting 174 individuals in 2022 to almost 700 in 2023. In 2024, FreeWorld served 1,130 participants. The average FreeWorld participant begins the program earning less than $20,000 annually, often struggling to support their family. After completing the program, graduates typically earn between $55,000 and $72,000 in their first year in trucking — an increase that provides stability and opens the door for long-term economic mobility.
FreeWorld’s approach ensures that their impact is both measurable and sustainable. The organization is data-driven and regularly evaluates and implements community feedback that they field through surveys and their community Slack channels. Community listening has led FreeWorld to develop innovative solutions such as streamlining processes to obtain documents like birth certificates. Each innovation is designed to remove barriers and meet participants where they are.
With a recent additional grant from GitLab Foundation’s Learning for Action Fund, FreeWorld is developing a first-of-its-kind tool that will leverage tax return data and recidivism checks to generate publicly available, anonymized data, shaping criminal justice reform and workforce development strategies.
“Right now, a lot of the wage data for formerly incarcerated individuals is only collected at the 60-day, 90-day and one-year mark after release. Across our field, these surveys are done through phone calls and the response rate is so low that there's not enough data to know what's happening,” explained Alissa Efteland, development director at FreeWorld. “We’re really grateful that GitLab is investing in measurement and sees the value of where this can go, because having a more comprehensive, long-term view is going to be pretty revolutionary.”
The GitLab Foundation is eager to see how the Learning for Action Fund grant will advance FreeWorld’s efforts in learning and impact measurement, paving the way for a new gold standard in evaluating the effectiveness of reentry programs.
Return on Investment
137x ROI
This project is estimated to increase annual earnings by $46,000 per person, for a total additional lifetime earnings of $1,380,000 per person
Total lifetime earnings increase across all participants: $235,980,000
$375,000 invested
