What makes the best nonprofits so effective? We asked them.

Are you listening enough?

The US incarcerates more people than any other country – a shocking six million Americans, or 2% of adults, are in prison, on probation, or on parole. There’s a broad desire to safely reduce the number of people stuck in the system, and the Recidiviz team believes it can use technology to help.

By building tools for the people who run the justice system, like parole officers, Recidiviz aims to help them help the people who are already succeeding get out of the system for good, and enable them to focus on the people who actually need their attention.

But all problems worth solving are complex. For Recidiviz to have an impact, co-founder Clementine Jacoby, shares that it’s not just about software engineering, but relationships too.

Clementine says that one of the most important aspects of her job is being a good listener: listening to their partners, listening to the people who use the tools everyday, and listening to the people who are caught up in the system. Because people closest to the problem are often best-suited to solve it.