About
Started in 2022, by someone who needed it.
Change Course is a Des Moines 501(c)(3). The difference between a second chance and a third prison term is usually a community and a job.
Our mission
To put an end to relational, economic, and spiritual poverties by giving hope, untapping creativity, and empowering participants with career skills, surrounded by and involved in a loving community.
Our story
Yankton, South Dakota
At thirty-five, Joseph Johnson made choices that cost him his marriage, his relationships, and nearly everything his family had. Those choices led to a federal prison camp in Yankton, South Dakota, and to the men he met there.
Most of them would be released and back inside within three years. Joseph came home to a loving community and a second chance at a career that lasted twenty-five years. The difference wasn’t character. It was who was waiting.
In February 2022 he left the business world, and he and Karin founded Change Course to build the thing he’d been given (community and opportunity) for people stuck in poverty or the cycle of prison.
We call participants Leaders because that’s what the program asks of them. Coaches walk with them, Allies sit with them, and the work belongs to them.
“In prison I met men who would be released and back inside within three years. I had a loving community and a second chance at a career. Most of them didn’t. That’s the gap Change Course exists to close.”
Joseph Johnson · Founder & CEO
The team
Staff
Board of directors
Change Course is a member of the CrossPurpose Network, a national group of organizations running the same career-and-community model in their own cities. Denver built it; we adapted it for Des Moines.
Membership means shared curriculum, shared outcomes data, and other directors to call when something isn’t working.
Accountability
- 501(c)(3) nonprofit, formed February 2022. Gifts are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.
- Candid Platinum Transparency seal, 2025.
- Participant in the Unconventional Business Network.
- We publish annual reports and financials each year.