Hope for New York

Defy Ventures provides opportunities for entrepreneurship, leadership, and career development to men and women with criminal histories.

Defy Ventures

About

Defy Ventures provides opportunities for entrepreneurship, leadership, and career development to men and women with criminal histories.

Defy provides carefully selected, ambitious men and women with criminal histories with life-changing entrepreneurship, leadership, and career opportunities. The Defy internship offers 12 months of hands-on, MBA-like training, mentoring, character development, business incubation and financing. Defy's holistic training and support equips students to thrive as entrepreneurs, parents, and role models in their communities.

How we support them

How We Serve Together

Our volunteers with entrepreneurship and business expertise find a unique opportunity to leverage their skills and competencies at Defy by mentoring entrepreneurs with criminal histories toward a new start.

Why We Love Them

Defy's unique entreprenurial coaching program engages executives across all spheres of business to be mutually transformed by the friendships they make. Many of the HFNY mentors become lifelong advocates for their mentees.

How We Partner Together

To recruit entrepreneurial participants, our volunteers act as judges, panel experts, and mock customers during events like scavenger hunts and mocktail nights challenging participants to understand running a business in the NYC context.