Madison-area Urban Ministry

2300 South Park Street,
Suite #2022
Madison, WI 53713
mum@emum.org
(608) 256-0906

Capabilities: Madison-area Urban Ministry (MUM) was founded in 1971. We have a diverse funding stream that includes contracts with Dane County Human Services, the United Way of Dane County and the WI Department of Corrections, as well as individual, congregational and foundation support. MUM has been successful in handling federal, state, county, city and private grants. Our current operating budget is just over $500,000. MUM is a United Way agency and we have successfully handled grants with several national foundations, including Wheat Ridge Ministries and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. MUM maintains internal controls, including appropriate separation of duties to ensure safekeeping of all assets. Johnson & Block, LLP, conducts an annual audit of MUM’s books in accordance with GAAP. MUM forwards copies of the annual audit to both the United Way of Dane County and Dane County Human Services (per contract requirements). The full audit is also registered with the WI Department of Regulation and Licensing as required by our Charitable Organization License. MUM carries all required property and professional liability insurance at the required contract levels.

Competencies of Applicant: For nearly four decades Madison-area Urban Ministry has addressed issues of race and racism, homelessness and affordable housing, poverty, quality education and racial achievement gaps in our school, hunger and violence. For MUM, where all of these issues converged was our criminal justice system, the incarceration rates and what Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind have aptly labeled Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment (Mauer, Lind 2002).

MUM launched our Restorative Justice Initiative in 2000. The Initiative included the development of the Returning Prisoner Simulation and Family Connections. Family Connections provides transportation for children and caregivers to visit the child’s incarcerated parent. The initiative was also designed to draw attention to Wisconsin’s racial disparities, growing incarceration rates, what happens to children and families when a loved one is incarcerated, and what happens to those who have been incarcerated when they return home.

In 2003 we began our Circles of Support Program, a re-entry program that utilizes community volunteers to support individuals newly released from prison.. MUM has provided consultation to four other counties in WI (Brown County, LaCrosse County, Columbia County, Jefferson County) for the development of a Circles of Support Program. We have also consulted with programs in Vermont, IL, Iowa, and most recently Kentucky.

MUM has produced its own video “Today’s Prisoners, Tomorrow’s Neighbors” used with the Returning Prisoner Simulation. MUM has also created a Re-entry Simulation that we conduct within numerous prisons in WI. The target population is inmates within one year of release. The Re-entry Simulation is designed as a re-entry planning tool and is also used to share resource information with inmates.

In 2004 we received a Mentoring Children of Prisoners grant and Mentoring Connections began providing community based mentoring to children of incarcerated parents residing in Dane County. Now in its seventh year Mentoring Connections remains the only program specifically working with children of incarcerated parents. Also in 2004 we created the Voices Beyond Bars (VBB) group a support group for formerly incarcerated men and women. The group spun off as an autonomous organization this year.

In 2005 MUM received a grant through the United Way of Dane County for a pilot re-entry initiative called The Journey Home. The program provides case management assistance in the areas of residency, employment, support and treatment. Reentry staff work individually with approximately 250 men and women each year, linking them to community resources and providing support and guidance. Both the Journey Home and Circles of Support include significant in-reach into the WI prison system to reach men and women currently incarcerated to help them begin their re-entry planning. MUM provides the pre and post-release case management services to the six county Workforce Development Board region through the Windows to Work program. MUM has also contracted with the WI Department of Corrections for weekly parenting classes at John Burke Correctional Center for women. Our Phoenix Initiative is a peer and staff led reentry group. The group offers mutual support, problem solving, an alumni group and speaker’s bureau for community advocacy and leadership development. MUM operates a small emergency food pantry on site for re-entry clients, and a microloan program for re-entry clients to assist with work clothes, educational needs, rental assistance.

MUM reentry staff participate monthly in the Faith Based Child Support Initiative. We also have staff represented on the following: EEOC Commission; The Dane County Racial Disparities Task Force; Dane County Homeless Services Consortium; Madison School Superintendent’s Human Relations Advisory Committee; the Construction and Trades Inc; Board; and the Housing and Action Leadership Team. We serve as an incubator and fiscal agent for the Street Pulse Newspaper, part of the Homeless Cooperative, the Allied Dunn’s Marsh Neighborhood Association, and the Allied Partners. The Allied Drive neighborhood represents one of the single largest neighborhoods housing families affected by incarceration. MUM has working relationships with all of the human services providers and correctional services providers in Dane county and the WI Department of Corrections.