Welcome to Faith in the Valley, Michael!

Welcome to our newest organizer, Michael Baldwin, Sr.!

Michael is building capacity and leadership among faith leaders in Stanislaus County and a new voting bloc – returning citizens who were given the right to vote in 2020 through Proposition 17.

In 2018, after serving 26 years of a double-life sentence, Michael settled in Modesto. There, he started MBS Consultants, founded the nonprofit Legacy Alliance Outreach, and became a sought-after community advocate, educator, and paralegal. He also opened two transitional homes for returning citizens.

Recently, Michael was a co-facilitator of Modesto’s Forward Together Work Group on police oversight, which led to the adoption of a new Police Review Board. He is also part of the team bringing a new gang intervention program, modeled after Los Angeles’ Homeboy Industries, to the Central Valley.

Michael serves as the Criminal Justice Chairman of the local NAACP chapter and as the Vice Chairman of Stanislaus County’s Juvenile Justice Commission.

Michael is also a poet and spoken word artist. For fun, he likes to play basketball and football with youth from Legacy Alliance’s programs. According to Michael, he can beat any of them, any day, in a foot race.