For many people whom the program actively targets, it can be enormously challenging or even impossible to take time away from job hunting, or to quit a job that provides some income in order to take a class, even if that class would open up new opportunities. When you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, three weeks without pay is a big risk. So FoodWorks provides a $1,000 completion bonus and accelerates job placement for each of its graduates.

Madison, who is also the creator of the annual Black Women’s Leadership Conference, Black Excellence Youth Conference and Black Business expos, believes that bringing each of her organizations under one umbrella will help to expand her efforts to empower Black women and their families. “This is about providing a more concrete and long-lasting way to serve black women,” Madison told the Cap Times.

[Where Is Care] tries to address the ‘information gap’ that exists currently between the people who need support services and the people they depend on – health care professionals, and the support services in the community. “I figured if we can bridge that gap with a technology-based solution, that meets the needs of doctors so it can fit within the clinic workflow, so they actually want to use it to help their patients, then there’s a tremendous opportunity to reach a lot of people and help them get the help they need.”

“The way they were going to recruit for the course spoke to the mission of it,” said Carla Garces, co-director of the Latino Academy. “A lot of people would want to take this course, but their focus was people who were unemployed or underemployed, people from communities who don’t normally get this opportunity. For us that was attractive.”

Linda Ketcham, executive director of MUM, said a realistic goal would be to one day fund 75 percent of the program through sales. But skills, rather than sales, are the ultimate goal, she said. “It’s really about how do we get people on a pathway out of poverty? How do we get people job skills and help them find and retain a job that pays above a minimum wage?” she said. “That’s our real purpose and goal.”

Ouk says that Madison as a city is struggling to keep young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs in Madison and that Madison is particularly losing young adults of color because of lack of opportunities. “We help them see that there are opportunities here in Madison and we help connect them to employers. That’s why i call it ConNEXTions because you have to have these connections in order to build social capital.”