Bob & Pat Barker
Why would a for-profit company work to put themselves out of business? At the Bob Barker Company, this is a familiar question and you don’t have to look very far to find the answer. It’s in their simple mission statement – Transforming criminal justice while honoring God in all that we do.
While some mission statements are an exercise that companies go through to check off a list, put into a binder, and revisit every couple of years, that isn’t true at the Bob Barker Company. All new team members (they aren’t called employees) hear about the mission of the company during their interview and orientation and it is referenced daily in meetings, on the walls, and in the way the company does business. You might say it is part of their institutional DNA.
For the Barker family – Bob, Pat, Robert, and Nancy – it is important for the company to be financially successful, but they have another “bottom line” – doing good while doing well. It is this commitment that led the Barker family to create the Bob Barker Company Foundation.
Still puzzled? Once you meet the Barkers, you find that the mission of the company is the same as their mission as a family.
A Life of Service
In 1972, Bob Barker was an up-and-coming entrepreneur. He was a politician who served in the North Carolina State Senate, was the Mayor of two different North Carolina towns, had a passion for hard work, and a talent for making money. He began a restaurant supply company in the back of a barber shop and the company soon began focusing their business on correctional institutions. A couple of years later, Bob’s wife, Pat, left her job as a chemist to work with Bob at the Bob Barker Company. At an early age, the Barkers’ children, Nancy and Robert, joined them in the business and in their personal commitment to more than the financial bottom line. The company is now recognized as “America’s Leading Detention Supplier” and they are training the third generation of Barkers to join the team.
“It has been a wonderful blessing to me to work in a successful family business that focuses on helping team members, our community, and the inmates who use our products. Inmates are an often-forgotten group of people with critical needs for equipping them to successfully reenter the community and stay out of prison for life. Most inmates grew up in a very difficult environment and they need our help reclaiming their freedom for good.” – Pat Barker
In 2004, the Barkers created the Bob Barker Company Foundation to support activities that are important to the community and the team members of the Bob Barker Company. With their unique perspective of correctional institutions, the Barkers decided that as leaders in a corrections-related industry they needed to help address the staggering national three-year recidivism rate of almost 70 percent. (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002) To further hone the focus of the foundation, they based their decision on three core principles:
Reducing recidivism makes economic sense.
Incarcerating someone in the United States costs from $32,000 to $60,000 depending on the state and without any special considerations such as medical problems. (Government, Federal Register of the United States, 2016)
Reducing recidivism is a public safety issue.
If someone recidivates, they have usually committed more crime.
People are not disposable.
“We have a moral responsibility, once someone has been incarcerated, to give them every chance to be successful when they get out.” – Bob Barker
In 2013, the Corporate Social Responsibility department of the Bob Barker Company was created, through which the company continues to support activities in the community. However, the Bob Barker Company Foundation has focused their mission on one critical objective: To develop and support programs that help incarcerated individuals successfully reenter society and stay out for life.
“We have the most dedicated team! Every day they strive to serve our customers with excellence. They are driven because they know at least 10% of every dollar earned goes to helping with the huge societal problem of recidivism and they are excited to be a part of the solution.” – Nancy Barker Johns
Each year the Bob Barker Company tithes a minimum of ten percent of their net profits to socially responsible activities including the Bob Barker Company Foundation. To date, it is the only foundation in the United States whose sole mission is to reduce recidivism.
“Jesus begins his ministry on earth declaring that ‘He has sent me to declare freedom for the prisoners’ in Luke 4:18. Throughout scripture Jesus instructs his followers to serve others in love and urges Christians to serve the poor, the foreigner, the orphan, and those in prison as if they were serving Jesus himself. Our poor, our racial minorities, and our fatherless can be found in staggering proportions in our U.S. prisons today. God has put this calling on my heart to serve these men and women in love and to leverage the business of Bob Barker Company and the Bob Barker Company Foundation to do so.” – Robert Barker
“While the Bob Barker Company works to transform the criminal justice system, the Bob Barker Company Foundation works to transform people’s lives.” – Bob Barker
Transforming People
In 2017, the Bob Barker Company Foundation achieved several milestones. Over one and a half million people have been reached through the programs supported by the foundation. More than $2 million has been granted.
While the national recidivism rate is 67 percent (U.S. Department of Justice, 2014), the recidivism rate for the Bob Barker Company Foundation grantees is 12.2 percent!
These statistics represent lives healed, dreams restored, and hope for families. They mean less economic burden to our states and our country. They mean less crime and safer communities. And they mean a break in the cycle of recidivism.
While the Foundation has expanded its reach to fund programs throughout the United States, the majority of their support is for programs in North Carolina, including:
Haven House in Raleigh, North Carolina – Juvenile justice
Changed Choices in Charlotte, North Carolina – Providing reentry support, job training and placement for women reentering from jail and prison.
Sustainable Alamance in Alamance, North Carolina – Provides faith-based job training and placement.
StepUp Ministries in Raleigh, Durham, and Wilmington, NC – Job training and placement.
Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers in Durham, North Carolina – Substance abuse recovery for more than 500 men and women. This two-year residential program is free to participants from all over the United States.
Mothers and Their Children in Raleigh, North Carolina – Through parenting classes and good behavior, mothers earn the right to spend three quality hours a month visiting with their children.
The Mediation Center in Asheville, North Carolina – Provides mediation at Swannanoa Women’s Correctional Facility with a goal to build or re-build a support system for inmates being released.
Bridges to Life, Houston, Texas – Restorative Justice program that has graduated more than 35,000 inmates from their 14-week program in Texas, North Carolina, 10 other states and five foreign countries.
And many, many more in North Carolina and elsewhere in the United States.
Building Programs
As the Foundation’s geographic and programmatic scope has grown, so has their understanding of what works in reducing recidivism. One such program is Hudson Link Higher Education in Prison based in Ossining, New York. Started at Sing Sing Correctional in 1998, this effective program has expanded to six additional facilities with eight educational partners. Hudson Link has graduated more than 700 men and women from their degree-bearing, accredited college programs in New York State. Sean Pica, their Executive Director, is a graduate of the program as is most of his staff. With a recidivism rate of less than one percent, Hudson Link for Higher Education has become a model for higher education in prison in the United States.
In the Fall of 2017, the Bob Barker Company Foundation proposed replicating the Hudson Link program in North Carolina. While the project is still in the planning stages, with guidance from Hudson Link and in partnership with Campbell University and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, the Foundation hopes to start a similar program in early 2019.
“Bob and Pat Barker are two of the most generous people I have ever met. They have committed their lives and resources to helping others and supporting causes that are near and dear to their heart. Through their foundation, they are working to reduce recidivism and caring for families of inmates and others who are impacted by incarceration.” – Dr. J. Bradley Creed, President, Campbell University
“Bob Barker Company Foundation is one of the rare funders who rolls up their sleeves and gets involved in the work, not just supporting our efforts to reduce recidivism but really trying to understand why college in prison is so effective at keeping people from going back after release. We are so excited to be exploring the possibility of deepening our relationship with the Bob Barker Foundation and expanding Hudson Link’s work to their backyard in North Carolina.” – Sean Pica, Executive Director, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison
Working Together to Reduce Recidivism
If you have a wonderful program that is working to reduce recidivism, let the Bob Barker Company Foundation know! More information about their basic requirements for eligibility can be found on their website at www.bobbarkercompanyfoundation.org. The most important points are as follows: Organizations must use evidenced-based practices, have a history of at least one year of operation, must have worked with 100 or more incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people in the prior 12 months, and must be a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, a government organization, or school. Measuring recidivism rates of program participants, while not always required, is a huge plus.
“The work of the Foundation is incredibly important to team members at Bob Barker. We are proud to work for a company that makes such a sincere effort to help others, and we are energized by the fact that – in the work we do every day – we are literally helping to change people’s lives.” – Dave Sheets, Director of Web Development, Bob Barker Company
You Can Change Lives
The Bob Barker Company Foundation encourages all community and industry partners to join them in working to reduce recidivism. If you have a company or family foundation, they ask you to consider including reducing recidivism as a key focus area for support.
If you do not have a foundation, the Bob Barker Company Foundation – for the first time in its history – is inviting other companies and individuals to join them in this important work. All administrative costs are paid by the Bob Barker Company Foundation, which means that 100 percent of your support would go to worthy programs with a proven track record of success in reducing recidivism.
For more information about the Bob Barker Company Foundation or to discuss partnership opportunities, contact the foundation’s Executive Director, Teresa Wolf, at teresawolf@bobbarker.com
