Faithventure Forum

There has been a lot going on around Belay Enterprises this summer. The most exciting happening is the successful launch of New Beginnings Custom Woodworks , our custom cabinet employment and job training program for ex-offenders. I'm pleased to report that everything is up and running with sales far beyond our initial projections. Our director Dave Schuett is doing an awesome job. We're hoping to expand training opportunities for ex-offenders very soon as we secure additional warehouse space for the project. Indeed, our biggest challenge around Belay right now revolves around limited warehouse square footage. Besides the cabinet project, we are continuing to develop some interesting Ascent Faith Venture Fund projects which could really help us towards our 5 year goal of 750 jobs a year as they are implemented: We plan to present an initial culinary program business plan to the Denver Jail in August. The Sheriff's Department is super enthusiastic about the potential of ...

I learned today of nobul , a new social enterprise that seeks to take a private equity approach to scaling businesses for community impact. The web site is new and promises more information soon. But I suspect they are going to be a social enterprise shining star with their soon to be announced leadership. It's interesting how many people are starting or operating similar type of portfolios. The idea is one that we have played with ourselves at Belay over the last 16 years. But one thing I’ve noticed is that everyone wants to scale existing ventures. Very few portfolios are interested in assisting social enterprise start-ups where my passion lies. Many see too much risk in that approach because of the high rate of start-up failure. Traditional venture capital uses stock options to overcome the risk of funding start-ups. One big success funds the nine other failures. But in social enterprise, that windfall model often doesn’t exist because of the non-profit structure of the ...

Belay Enterprises established the Ascent Fund a few years back to provide micro-enterprise funding to faith venture businesses in the Denver metro area. Unfortunately, we found that domestic micro-enterprise is an extremely difficult undertaking. It’s hard to find entrepreneurial opportunities in our community where a relatively small financial investment will make a difference. Unlike in international micro-enterprise, domestic micro-loans are unable to take advantage of currency exchange rates and lower costs of living rates. So a two hundred dollar investment in Kenya makes a big difference to a business while an investment of $2000 in the United States barely provides any positive impact for the domestic enterprise. As a result, the scale of money makes it a costly proposition in the United States for the micro-fund with a much lower probability of generating revenues to perpetuate the program. Over the years, this reality has caused us to change our focus from micro-enterprise to...