About Level:
Company Size: 2+ employees
Where: Austin, TX
Client Industry: Nonprofit | 501(c)(3) | Learning & Education
Joined OnPay: June 2022
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Breaking down educational barriers in corrections
As the prison education landscape continues to evolve, Level stands out, developing unique learning programs for inmates planning for life after release. Designed for accessibility, their courses reach individuals in almost every correctional facility, including those in solitary confinement and maximum security.
How did this program start? Through volunteer work, advocating for prison literacy, and personal conversations with inmates, Alex Wright and Kate Mullan — Level’s Executive Director and Content Director — identified a gap in educational opportunities for incarcerated individuals looking for a fresh start. Seeing this gap in available resources, they launched Level, a nonprofit that provides online learning and job training to people serving jail time.
In addition to online education, their team helps those seeking work after completing prison sentences. One success story is a former inmate who used Level’s learning tools while in federal prison and immediately reached out to volunteer upon release. This one-time student is now a full-time Level employee, manages the company’s digital database, and is an asset to their administrative team — while working remotely from Michigan. Alex points out that he was able to understand the ins and outs of bringing on a remote team member after using OnPay’s help resources:
“Being able to use OnPay’s help articles was a tremendous resource because they helped me learn how to pay remote employees. It’s a great feeling being able to hire a person who is hundreds of miles away, and has the experience we need.”
For some, seeking traditional employment after incarceration can mean applying for many open positions with little response. As a result, turning to entrepreneurship presents another path forward. Level helps bridge the gap by providing knowledge and skills to build stable, self-sustaining businesses. In fact, the organization is nearing completion of its second entrepreneurship guide, further expanding its educational offerings.
As a small but dynamic team, their work represents a genuine commitment to helping people build a future beyond prison walls.
THE CHALLENGE
Finding a payroll provider that understands small businesses
Level’s founder, Alex Wright, was juggling all of his organization’s top priorities — fundraising, running payroll, managing tax filings, generating awareness — you name it, and he handled it as best as possible with the help of his co-founder. As the administrative tasks piled up, he tried a well-known payroll service, but upon hiring their first part-time employee, he found the solution riddled with shortcomings. Simply put, managing payroll and HR on his own had become overwhelming.
As Alex put it:
“Thinking about payroll makes me so knotted up on the inside because if it goes wrong — if my people don’t get their money — they all work so hard. The last thing I want to do is pay them late and let anyone down.”
Determined to find affordable full-service payroll, he researched options that could handle the exemptions his nonprofit would be eligible for. Though pricing was important, ultimately, he wanted a long-term partner he could count on so he wouldn’t have to make another switch. He needed:
- A payroll system to handle full-time and part-time staff in multiple states
- Reliable customer support — an actual phone number that would connect him with real-life people
- An affordable, automated solution for tax filings, calculations, and payments
THE SOLUTION
A seamless switch to OnPay from another provider
To find a service, Alex started searching online and looked for a low-cost payroll service provider for nonprofits. The search results kept leading back to OnPay. He compared OnPay to other providers, read countless reviews, and researched competitor websites. After a conversation with OnPay customer support, Alex felt confident about making the switch. The platform’s intuitive design and expert support made setup seamless, and help was always just a phone call away. In Alex’s words:
“When you start with a solid foundation, it helps you build for long-term success; I don’t think people understand that without that foundation, you can’t grow and do other things, and that’s what OnPay did for us.” Learn more about what you need to remember when paying employees in our guide to payroll for nonprofit organizations.
OnPay took the stress out of paying employees, and now Alex has access to the simple and efficient solution he was after.
NONPROFIT REVIEW
“OnPay provides awesome support. You can call them and get a real person who cares, is knowledgeable, and knows how to help. The website and system are easy to use for a small company without an HR department. They have good integration with our bookkeeping system. And best of all, they are the lowest cost payroll provider we researched.”
— Alex W., Executive Director, Level
THE RESULTS
Making payroll (and payday) painless with OnPay
Since making the switch, running payroll is now a quick 15-minute task. With OnPay, Level can worry less about tax filings, save time onboarding new hires, and keep the focus on building awareness around their mission. Multi-state payroll comes at no extra cost, making it easy to manage the entire team without being time-consuming. As a bonus, HR tasks like tracking birthdays are now a breeze. Now, Alex has more time to focus on funding, family, and his favorite commute — biking to the office.
