2024 National Fair Chance Hiring Conference
On October 7-8, 2024, the Corporate Coalition of Chicago, the Harris School of Public Policy and NORC at the University of Chicago hosted a first-of-its kind, national working meeting on fair chance hiring. Nearly 200 fair chance practitioners (employers and nonprofits), policymakers, researchers, and funders gathered in Chicago to:
- Explore the impact of recent changes in fair chance hiring practice and policy
- Catalyze new knowledge-building that will advance fair chance policy and practice
- Grow the emerging field by advancing research, by involving scholars who are still forming their research and teaching platforms, and by including in all aspect of the convening justice-impacted individuals.
Each session of the conference began with a keynote address, followed by a panel and then a generative, facilitated conversations across all participants to identify research topics that could advance fair chance policy and/or practice.
Detailed Conference Goals
This conference aimed to:
- Explore the impact of recent changes in practice and policy from new perspectives. States, municipalities, employers, and non-profits have all implemented new fair chance hiring policies, and by bringing together all sectors, including researchers who are studying these changes, the conference aimed to scale ideas thar are working to expand opportunities for individuals with records.
- Catalyze new knowledge-building. By generating research questions that might be explored, discussing how such questions might be examined and the practical impact of greater knowledge, the conference aims to help build the interdisciplinary field of fair chance hiring. Graduate students and faculty advisors are developing concept papers, to be published in early 2025, based on the research questions that were discussed.
- Grow the emerging field of fair chance hiring by involving scholars, including justice-impacted academics, who are still forming their research and teaching agendas. With the support of our financial sponsors, early- and mid-career faculty and graduate students from across the country were able to participate in the conference.
- Create new connections between practitioners, policymakers, funders, justice-impacted leaders and researchers in the field of fair chance hiring. By assigning participants to cross-sector tables and challenging tables to develop research questions, new connections were made and relationships seeded.
Who attended?
- Corporate leaders & practitioners
- Government officials
- Justice-impacted individuals from all sectors
- Nonprofit organization leaders
- Philanthropic leaders
- Researchers and scholars
Student/Alumni Program
The afternoon of October 8 featured an engaging student/alumni program on expungement, including experts from the nonprofit, corporate, start-up, and legal communities discussing expungement, as well as a site visit to an expungement clinic on Chicago’s South Side.
Agenda
The main conference was structured around three half-day sessions, each beginning with a keynote presentation, followed by a multi-sector panel and then a facilitated, generative discussion of potential research topics and strategies for addressing identified topics.
These conversations that capped each session created material for the conference proceedings that are being written by students and faculty advisors. The proceedings will be published in early 2025.
Monday, October 7
Welcome, Goals & Agenda
- Lisa Blumerman, NORC at the University of Chicago
- Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Harris School of Public Policy
- Brian Fabes, Corporate Coalition
Session 1: What works, for whom, and how do we know?
MC: Steph Dolan, Corporate Coalition of Chicago
- Damon Phillips, Wharton School of Management
- Amanda Agan, Cornell University
- Stan Ball, Intel
- Jeff Korzenik, Author, Untapped Talent
Discussion Leader: Marianne Bertrand, Chicago Booth
Facilitated, Generative Discussion
- All Attendees
Moderator: Maha Jweied, Responsible Business Initiative for Justice
Session 2: Fact, Fears & Changing Perceptions
MC: Kathleen St. Louis Caliento, Cara Collective
- Shawn Bushway, SUNY Albany, RAND Corporation
- Jeff Brown, Brown's Super Stores
- Amelia Burke-Garcia, NORC at the University of Chicago
- Ken Oliver, The Just Trust
- Awesta Sarkash, Small Business Majority
Discussion Leader: Joeann Walker, ConEd
Facilitated, Generative Discussion
- All Attendees
Moderator: Matt Joyce, Envoy
Cocktail Reception and Welcoming Remarks
- Willette Benford, Office of MK Pritzker
- MK Pritzker, First Lady of Illinois
Dinner and Fireside Chat
- Larry Miller, Jordan Brand at Nike
- Ken Oliver, The Just Trust
Tuesday, October 8
Session 3: Public Sector Incentives: What works, why, and what might work better?
MC: John Roman, NORC at the University of Chicago
- Jennifer Doleac, Arnold Ventures
- Reginald Bean, White Label Management Group
- Nan Gibson, JPMorgan Chase
- Evan Rose, University of Chicago
Discussion Leader: Rebecca Villarreal, JFF
Facilitated, Generative Discussion
- All Attendees
Moderator: Dr. Bria Hoosier, Equal Access Workforce Solutions
Session 4a: Fair Chance Business Education Consortium Meeting
See below.
Session 4b: For Students & Alumni: Erasing Criminal Records - What's New in Policy and Practice
Speakers and Panelists
- Yousef Kassim, CEO, Easy Expunctions
- Algie Woods, Union League Club of Chicago
- Aisha Cornelius Edwards, Executive Director, Cabrini Green Legal Aid
- Tina Gagliano Mandell, Senior Manager, HR Regulatory Operations, Discover Financial Services
Participants
Discover the full list of participants to see who joined us at the conference.
Fair Chance Business Education Consortium
On Tuesday afternoon, the Fair Chance Business Education Consortium held its inaugural meeting.
The Consortium is a group begun by Resilience Education through the generous support of the Ascendium Education Philanthropy to unite colleges and universities dedicated to making a collective impact on justice-impacted individuals through business education and fair chance employment. In this interactive session, the Consortium’s founding institutions will bring together business schools, researchers and the business community to share our mission and strategy as well as our goals for 2025.
The Consortium’s Founding Institutions
- Damon Phillips, Wharton School of Business, Coalition for Equity and Opportunity
- Fareeda Griffith, Wharton School of Business, Coalition for Equity and Opportunity
- Alyssa Lovegrove, Georgetown, PIVOT Program
- Marc Johnson, Darden School of Business
- Sandra Navalli, Columbia Business School, Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change
- Nan Gibson, JP Morgan Chase
- Tierney Fairchild, Resilience Education
- Molly Lasagna, Ascendium Education Philanthropy
Sponsors
The 2024 National Fair Chance Hiring Conference is made possible by its hosts, financial supporters, and organizing committee.
Hosts
Financial Support
Organizing Committee
- Willette Benford, Office of MK Pritzker
- Daniel Dart, Rock Yard Ventures
- Nan Gibson, JPMorgan Chase
- Jeff Korzenik, Author, Untapped Talent
- Lucretia Murphy, JFF
- Ken Oliver, The Just Trust
- John Roman, NORC at the University of Chicago
- Carson Whitelemons, Arnold Ventures
- Jarred Williams, REFORM Alliance
