300th Meeting Online on Zoom Monday, March 14, 2022. White Collar Criminal Justice Community Continues to Expand Resources and Reach
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., the world’s first ministry devoted to serving the white collar justice community, will hold its 300th consecutive White Collar Support Group meeting online on Zoom this Monday, March 14, 2022.
Co-founded by Connecticut resident/NYC white collar attorney and ordained minister, Jeff Grant, Esq. (Jeffrey D. Grant), the ministry’s mission is to help individuals prosecuted for white collar crimes to take responsibility for their actions and the wreckage they caused, make amends, and move forward in new way of life centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance and empathy. The support group was founded online in 2016 online as a way of reaching out to justice-impacted individuals and families suffering in isolation all over the country and providing them solutions in a supportive community.
Progressive Prison Ministries’ goal is to provide spiritual solutions and emotional support to those who are feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless. Its objective is to help them find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what may seem like insurmountable problems.
“I am so grateful for the opportunity to be of service to this hugely misunderstood and greatly under-supported community,” said Jeff Grant. “When we held our first support group meeting in 2016, we had only 4 participants. Now, 6 years later, we are holding our 300th meeting with over 450 members.”
“For years, Jeff Grant has made it his mission to make sure that no one feels the isolation that can come from being a former inmate,” said Bill Baroni, former ‘Bridgegate’ defendant whose conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In addition to providing resources and community, Grant is the leading advocate for ensuring white collar-related issues are included within the ever-evolving debate around the criminal justice system. “When we started the ministry in 2013, people who had been to prison were pariahs with little opportunity to have a second chance,” said Grant. “A decade later, criminal justice reform is an important national conversation; we are proud of our work to enable white collar justice advocates to have a seat at the table.”
To date, the community has been a featured source surrounding white-collar related issues, including a recent profile of Grant and the White Collar Support Group in the New Yorker. Grant’s work has also been featured in major national media Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, Reuters,Forbes, and Greenwich Magazine as well as major podcasts such as The Rich Roll Podcast. Grant has also been a Main Stage presenter at prestigious conferences such as The Nantucket Project. In addition to being a popular interviewee, Grant has helped thousands of his community members navigate their past and push towards re-establishing themselves as productive contributors to society.
With both Law and Master of Divinity degrees, Grant provides a unique perspective of understanding about what and how his community members are coping with and facing ahead of them. Grant himself spent almost 14 months in a Federal prison for a white collar crime he committed in 2001.
According to former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who served time in a Federal prison, “Jeff created a network of welcoming, non-judgmental, and understanding men and women that share their similar experiences in an open and nurturing environment.”
The weekly Monday meeting is held online on Zoom beginning at 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT and lasts approximately 75 minutes. During the meeting, members are given the chance to reflect on their healing process as well as embrace those who are new to the group, which continues to grow with each weekly gathering.
Complementing the weekly meetings include an ongoing blog on Grant’s widely regarded site, prisonist.org, where meetings are recapped, dissected and materials are gathered for community members to continue to work on their own. Grant’s White Collar Week podcast has also become a critical source for his community, providing a platform for those that have gone through the journey to tell their story and provide personal insights into their healing. Guests have included current and former politicians, financial executives, white collar criminal defense attorneys, federal agents, judges, Hollywood producers, and more.
About Progressive Prison Ministries
Established in 2013 in Greenwich, CT, Progressive Prison Ministries is the world’s first ministry devoted to serving the white collar justice community. More information is available on its website at www.prisonist.org and on its social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.