Blog Posts

Nancy Cotterill co-founded 2nd Chance Indiana (as UNITE INDY) in late 2016. She was editor and later publisher of Indianapolis Business Journal, and then created a not-for-profit online news outlet for the four million wheelchair users in the U.S. As an award-winning journalist, Nancy uses her talents to promote efforts to fight the causes of overall poverty throughout our area while working to spread the specific message that second chance employment is lowering recidivism, changing lives, and raising families out of poverty.

April 7, 2023

Buried in the book of Ecclesiastes is the concept that if we wait for all conditions to be ideal, we will never sow a seed or reap a harvest. It's in Chapter 11, actually. It is also said, "From a tiny acorn a mighty oak doth grow," a saying that has inspired so many who have begun a work because of a nagging feeling that 'something needs to be done.' That's how it started with founder Jim Cotterill who was nagged by the issues he saw right here, where desperate families live in desperate need.


March 21, 2023

Click here for a full size version of the graphic.When you hear that 75 percent of the juveniles in prison come from fatherless homes, an alarm goes off. There is absolutely a tie between the lack of a father in the home and kids who get sent to prison. Here in Indianapolis, Fathers & Families Center offers a few more statistics: With a father in the home, a child is 75 percent less likely to have a teen birth, and 80 percent less likely to spend time in jail. People who think fathers are irrelevant just have their heads in the sand.


March 7, 2023

Daniel Labbe is a former inmate who has some well conceived thoughts about what an improved prison/jail experience could be. The following are his words, but I wouldn't be sharing them if I didn't think there are some ideas that have merit. So, if you ever thought that perhaps we could do better with our prison and jail systems, you probably will be interested in this.


February 21, 2023

When a short-term money crisis hits a family, payday predatory lenders are there for the working poor. These lenders reap huge interest payments that, according to the Federal Trade Commission, can reach up to 390 APR. Meanwhile these companies regularly take working people down the path to bankruptcy.The car broke down and you have to get to work…


February 6, 2023

Last week a 15-year old and 17-year old were arrested for the shooting of a 15-year-old girl on the City's far east side. Also last week a national newspaper reported statistics on juvenile homicide. It's reported that juvenile murderers acting alone rose 30 percent in 2020 from a year earlier, while homicides committed by multiple juveniles increased 66 percent. Said one prosecutor, "it's just kids killing kids."


January 23. 2023

UNITE INDY started in December, 2016, so we have recently passed our 5th anniversary! Yes, five years of disappointments, mistakes and some smashing successes (if we do say so ourselves).


January 6, 2023

I picked up a book at a Vintage fair just before Christmas. It was a slim little volume, written by Bud Robinson, who was born in 1860 into a family of seven children, all living in a tiny, windowless, dirt-floored log cabin in the hills of Tennessee. His father was a mean drunkard who owned a still and sold whiskey like everyone else in those hills.


December 21, 2022

For all those working with reentrants, or related to someone who is incarcerated, I end this year with my take on some of the important lessons I've learned about the pitfalls that sidetrack even the most success-oriented returnees. Here you go...


December 7, 2022

Recently there has been an exodus of folks from a large popular church here. People who were staunchly committed to a certain ideology found that the temperature had changed and some foundational beliefs were now considered to be out-of-date. In response, a group of long-time members picked up and went elsewhere. So, who is right and who is wrong?


November 21, 2022

We've talked until we are blue in the face about the awful consequence of predatory lending, how they are aimed directly at the working poor, or anyone with any income at all. They target those on disability or folks on Social Security--any trickle of money--if its there, they plan to get it...


Contact Information

2nd Chance Indiana
241 West 38th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46208

317-279-6670

Our Mission

Our mission is to reduce recidivism and rebuild lives through the dignity of work.