In what ways is a congregation transformed over time by accompanying those who are being released from prison?

Context

The mission of Underground Ministries (UM) is to “open new relationships of embrace and trust between the incarcerated and the communities to which they return – for mutual transformation and resurrection.” UM’s One Parish, One Prisoner program pairs congregations with releasing individuals with the vision that both parties – releasing individuals and congregation members alike – will experience life-giving changes over the course of the releasing individual’s journey from incarceration to full re-entry.

Research

Funded by a large 5 year grant, the focus of this project was to design a series of measures that could provide quantitative and qualitative information of a congregation’s over-time activity and transformation. Working with program leadership, Beyond Data designed a number of measures that could be folded naturally into the program’s design and used to track such changes. These included congregational surveys to measure changes towards concepts such as unconditional grace, adaptability, community engagement, and prison attitudes. Beyond Data also designed methods for team members to record their involvement with the releasing friend – letters, phone calls, and in-person meetings – as well as a sustainable recording keeping system for UM to track their work with dozens of congregations. Yearly data analysis helped Underground Ministries identify program impact on congregations as well as reveal stories of how congregation members were changed by the experience itself.  

Deliverable

Beyond Data provided yearly written summaries and held multiple conversations with UM leaders to unpack the meaning of congregational and team member results. In turn, Underground Ministries used these findings to substantiate their program impact to the grant funder in yearly required reports, leveraged the findings in their own marketing materials, and modified elements of their program to underscore the importance of certain dispositions/ attitudes in their work with congregations.