Centerforce recently received an extremely generous donation from an anonymous donor. Not knowing who to thank, the president of our Board of Directors wrote the following letter.

To our Anonymous Benefactor,

While we at Centerforce honor the selflessness and true charity of your anonymity, it leaves us at a bit of a loss in knowing how to convey to you the ways in which your incredible gift has furthered our work. So, we are therefore left to guess, and to try to speak to several different means by which our efforts might have touched your heart.

Perhaps you have visited or worked inside a prison and come to believe that serving time need not be just a wasted exercise in stasis and survival. Within Centerforce's Prisoner Services division, our peer training programs create constructive leaders among the men and women inside, educating them to be subject matter experts in areas that encourage more healthful living within their communities. As our peers learn to exercise positive leadership, they build their own self-esteem and in turn guide those around them towards achieving redemptive personal growth. Centerforce's peers often continue their careers as educators when they are released, and those who are not to be released nonetheless are strengthened by the sense of self-worth that all productive members of society enjoy.

If you have cared about a person navigating the treacherous route from incarceration back to freedom, or recognize that punishment is not successfully completed until the recipient is back in the community contributing positively to society, then perhaps your intent was to support Centerforce's Transitional Services division. Our case managers know that the road to successful reintegration begins long before a prisoner is released, and we therefore begin our transitional counseling well before our clients' release dates and stay with them for a long time thereafter. We work closely with municipalities trying to safely reintegrate persons paroling into their communities, and with local health departments tasked with assuring that prisoners with chronic illnesses continue to be medically supported once released from the prison health system.

Nobody believes that a child should be held accountable for the wrongs of a parent. Nonetheless, children of incarcerated parents are raised in hardness and stigma, and therefore become much more likely to become offenders themselves. Partners who try to keep their families together while their loved one is inside often travel long distances to bring their children to visit their father or mother, only to be thwarted by obscure regulations or unpredictable lockdowns. Centerforce's Children and Family Services division maintains a Visitor Center at San Quentin, providing visitors there with respite, childcare, and help with navigating the prison system regulations. This division also provides mentoring programs that match children of incarcerated parents with adult mentors for a year or more of intensive support both one-on-one and in group activities with peer pairs. Our parenting and violence prevention programs in several different incarceration settings prepare prisoners to be better parents and partners when they come out, which in turn reduces the risk that their children will get into trouble themselves.

Maybe you know Centerforce from our annual "Inside/Out" Summit, the gem of our Information Services division. The Summit is one of the few gatherings where people who seek more constructive approaches to incarceration and re-entry can gather to share their successes and best practices. Perhaps you have felt the same way as the woman who mentioned to me at last year's Summit how gratifying it was to spend two days among people who didn't think she was a naïve fool for caring about making incarceration a less dehumanizing feature of our society. Our 2007 Summit was attended by 400 registrants, and was highlighted by a groundbreaking two-hour "Socratic Dialogue" among a dozen statewide officials and thought leaders from many opposing perspectives within the incarceration conversation. The gathering afforded me the personal honor of introducing acclaimed activist Mike Farrell, who gave an inspirational keynote address. It also featured a plethora of other talks and workshops conducted by experts from all around the country, organized around five different learning tracks. Centerforce's Information Services division brings the community of people who care about incarceration together, and disseminates our learning and best practices to others throughout the country who feel as we do.

But maybe you just came to support Centerforce the same way that I did—not because of a focus on any one of our particular program areas, but rather because of a deep belief in simple human justice, and a feeling that the way we treat those who have offended us reflects our appreciation and respect for the complexities of our shared humanity. Supporting the work of Centerforce acknowledges that one resonates with our belief that our personal responsibility for maintaining human dignity within our society does not end at a prison's intake gates.

In summary, we have no idea why in particular you chose to support our organization, but I personally believe strongly that no matter what your reason, it was a righteous choice. Your unrestricted gift was the best kind of gift of all, allowing us to use these funds to support the work that is most needed by our clients, and not just the work that meets the particular focus of our program funders. I would like you to know that we have never before received a gift as generous and selfless as yours, and that we appreciate it more than you can imagine. It provides us not only financial sustenance, but emotional sustenance as well. Knowing that you are out there makes us feel a little less lonely in our work and in our cause. Please embrace the knowledge that the very dedicated and caring people of our hardworking organization are truly thankful that you are there for us.

With extreme gratitude, on behalf of the Centerforce Directors and Staff, I am.

Steven H. Tulsky
President, Centerforce Board of Directors