A Fundraising 411 Courtesy of Chris Horst

When someone new to fundraising asks me for advice, I often introduce them to Chris Horst of Hope International, who I consider one of the best at the craft of non-profit development. I was excited to see that he summarized his "must read resources on fundraising" in a recent post on his Smorgasblurb blog:

 A few weeks ago, I sat down with a friend-of-a-friend who just started her first fundraising job. Because I’ve now been in a fundraising role for over five years, I have meetings and calls with new fundraisers often. Sometimes they’re new fundraisers joining the HOPE International team. Other times they are joining other organizations. Every time, it surprises me. Because I never thought I would last in a fundraising role. Even more surprising, I never thought I would truly enjoy the work. But I’ve lasted and I’ve grown in my enjoyment with each passing year.

Check out his recommendations here.

If You Are Starting a New Venture, You Need to Practice This

I am always impressed by how successful entrepreneurs share the ability to calmly solve big problems. They understand that you don't have to have it all figured out ahead of time but you do have to have confidence in your ability to come up with solutions.

That is something our educational system needs to do a better job of developing. We learn at a very young age that mastery of information and detailed preparation is the best route to career success. But this creates a culture that is afraid to take risks unless one has it all figured out in advance.

Our society would create a lot more quality jobs if we trained individuals better to use information to confidently solve problems…not to hide from them.

If you want to start a new venture, develop your confidence muscles. Learn to trust that every problem creates new opportunities and that you have what it takes to find a solution.

Thomas Merton on Work

The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God's will in my work. In this way I become his instrument.  Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, Location 357-65

Belay Opens Purple Door Coffee..and Other Highlights from the First-Half of the Year

It's been a busy first-half of the year as Belay Enterprises strives to create self-sufficient faithventure businesses that provide jobs for individuals rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison:

• We're delighted by the successful launch over the last two months of our Purple Door Coffee project to employ formerly homeless young adults. The store opened to tremendous support from the city as well as accolades from the Denver coffee community. But most of all, we are excited by the difference the project is making in the lives of young adults transitioning from homelessness.
• New Beginnings Custom Woodworks, our custom cabinet employment program continues to provide quality cabinet-making training for individuals rebuilding lives. We are so thankful for the growing support from customers whose cabinet orders are allowing us to continue expanding jobs and training opportunities.
• Bud's Warehouse has enjoyed a fantastic six months of sales, the best in years as we receive large building material donations from very busy Denver area contractors and area residents remodeling their homes. This translates into more jobs for people rebuilding lives.  We are hoping to expand our store over the next few years...possibly into new locations.
• Our long dreamed of mattress recycling project has thrived with our developing partnership with Springback Colorado. Area residents pay us to receive used mattresses which are then recycled by Springback employing several people rebuilding lives.

God has given us a big vision for creating new employment oportunities for people rebuilding lives. But we are reminded that we can not run all of these projects on our own. We are always looking to partner with Christ-followers that have a heart to use their business talents or resources to create jobs for people with significant barriers to employment.

If you're interested in helping, give us a call at 303-296-3990 or consider supporting our new start-ups with a tax-deductible donation by visiting our online donation page here:

Thanks for your thoughts and prayer.

Launch Chattanooga Supports Entrepreneurship in Underserved Communities

In 2011, a group of Chattanooga businessmen started an innovative faith venture, Launch Chattanooga, that provides a 10 week course on entrepreneurship to adults and high schoolers interested in starting a business in their disadvantaged neighborhood.

Participants develop their own business plans and later are partnered with business mentors after graduation.  The whole program is built on the premise that business and job creation provides the best answer to economic development in underserved neighborhoods. Watch this great video to learn more about this business as mission:

Launch from Fancy Rhino on Vimeo.

Pizza Changes Lives in Unique Chicago Area Partnership

Longtime Chicago area restaurant Lou Malnati's Pizza partnered in 1996 with Lawndale Community Church to open a store in a disadvantaged west side neighborhood. This location provides jobs and training to individuals rebuilding lives as well as anchors the slow redevelopment of the neighborhood.

A 2007 Sun-Times article still available on the Lawndale website here explores the many dilemmas of this site where the store provides many tangible benefits to the community yet still has been unable to break even up to this point. 

This undertaking provides an interesting laboratory to the many aspects of inner-city business as ministry.

After 11 years, Lou Malnati's in Lawndale hasn't made a penny hawking gourmet pizza on Chicago's working poor West Side.  In fact, the tiny joint at Ogden and Archer has lost about a million bucks since it opened, and it will probably come up another $100,000 short next year. Still, proprietors say the place is a success story -- even if it is written in red ink.  Born in a partnership between the Chicago area pizza chain and Lawndale Community Church, this Malnati's was never about making money anyway. The business plan calls for spending all the restaurant's profits, if there ever are any, on helping to make crime-ridden Lawndale a better place. And Malnati's created a job- training program for residents of the church's recovery home, Hope House, that helps recovering drug addicts and ex-cons get back in the working world.   Chicago Sun Times, January 2, 2007  Read whole story here.

Opportunity Knocks for Homeless Youth Employment at Purple Door Coffee

Over a year ago, Madison Chandler and Mark Smesrud joined the Belay Enterprises' team to start Purple Door Coffee to employ formerly homeless young adults.

Today, they are about to explode in excitement as Purple Door is weeks away from opening its 30th and Welton location in Five Points. Stay tuned as we announce some grand opening events in April.

This has been quite the journey of God's faithfulness and provision with over $100,000 in start-up funding generously provided by donors in response to Mark and Madison's dream. Without a doubt, God passionately loves homeless kids and is providing resources for unique organizations mirroring that love.

I am also excited because the commencement of this project bring to fruition our vision of partnering with other organizations to create jobs for people rebuilding lives. A few years ago, we became convinced that the only way to meet the incredible needs for transitional jobs was by changing our approach from focusing on our own projects to partnering with other organizations and Christ-following entrepreneurs. In Purple Door's case, we launched this innovative business by joining forces with Madison, Mark and a local homeless outreach ministry, Dry Bones Denver, the inspiration for the project. 

We continue to be convinced that there are individuals in the church who are better at creating businesses to employ people rebuilding lives than us. Belay wants to encourage creative partnerships that advance our job creation goals. We continue to be on the lookout for future partnerships.

Some other exciting developments around Belay:

• Last year, Belay's faith-based employment training start-up businesses employed 80 individuals rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison. With studies showing that a job is the number one indicator whether someone will avoid returning to prison, these jobs create value for our community through changed lives. 
• We moved our semi-custom cabinet employment training program for  ex-offenders, New Beginnings Custom Woodworks, into the space alongside Bud's Warehouse that formerly housed our Good Neighbor Garage start-up. We are now able to build a line of semi-custom cabinets on-site for Bud's customers, enabling us to expand jobs and training opportunities for ex-offenders.
• We continue to work with a local mattress recycling project that employs people rebuilding lives from the Denver Rescue Mission and other projects. People pay a recycling fee when dropping them off at Bud's Warehouse and then the mattresses are torn-apart with the polyurethane and metals recycled for other purposes. 
• Bud's Warehouse has enjoyed a fantastic winter of sales, the best in years for traditionally slow months. This income enables us to grow more jobs for people rebuilding lives as well as starting other new ventures like New Beginnings and Purple Door. Bud's does have the need for the donation of a used forklift to help us continue to expand.

 As always, we are very thankful for the support from the community as we work to change lives in Denver. Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in learning more. And if you would like to partner with us by supporting new faith venture start-ups with a tax-deductible donation, visit our online donation page here.