Faithventure Forum

In less than a month, the job-training participant is ready to graduate the six month program into a job in the community. Over the last few months, he has been a model employee who achieved much on the job after not working for 5 years because of prison and addiction. All of the sudden, the problems start. He begins to be late for work after being consistently on time. He gets into an argument at home and misses work because of a day in jail. The list of troubles grows to the point where he is fired only weeks from a successful graduation. Self sabotage. It's a discouraging reality in employment training businesses. And, unfortunately, it is not rare. Over the years, I have seen this pattern repeat causing introspection and a loss of confidence for leaders of such projects. But while self-sabotage happens, there are steps a program can take to lessen its prevalence and its negative effects. As a leader, one must never take it personally when self-sabotage occurs. In a cr...

There is a fantastic short essay in the latest Stanford Social Innovation Review that provides lots of food for thought for aspiring social entrepreneurs. Several times a month I meet young 20 somethings who are interested in developing a particular social enterprise and want advice. I think the biggest fight they have is the internal one to grind it out when social enterprise loses its sexiness as is the case in the hard work of every start-up. I love this quote by Mathias Craig There is no app for this. You have to get out there and do it—and you have to have the staying power to be at it long enough to have a real impact. Leading people on with the idea that there is a widget or a model or a process that will short-cut this leads to quick burnouts, ineffective allocations of funds, and ultimately less impact...What seems to be lost is that creating meaningful long-term impact in the social space is still really about the people [who] are willing to stick with the hard work ...

Employing people rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison is a messy business. Running a faithventure has to be a calling from God or else the many problems you encounter will overwhelm your enthusiasm.  In Father Greg Boyle's fantastic book on the difficulties and rewards of employing ex-gang members, Tatoos on the Heart , he writes about the need to follow God to make the various businesses of Homeboy Industries work: Not much in my life makes any sense outside of God. Certainly, a place like Homeboy Industries is all folly and bad business unless the core of the endeavor seeks to imitate the kind of God one ought to believe in. In the end, I am helpless to explain why anyone would accompany those on the margins were it not for some anchored belief that the Ground of all Being thought this was a good idea. If you're thinking about starting a faithventure or employing people rebuilding lives a couple thoughts: Make sure it's a ...

When designing a job training program for a faithventure , don't forget the love. Nothing is more important than ensuring that love permeates all that you do. We love others because God's love fills up our own life and then spills over onto our day-to-day activities, ultimately impacting our work and our organizations.    I've seen other programs perfect in all respects but for one thing: the love was missing.  And if it is missing, we are nothing but Paul's clanging cymbal in 1st Corinthians 13. All of our efforts are misfiring and failing to communicate the most important part of the gospel message.     Love means fundamentally sharing your lives. You can have the greatest computer-based training program but if you are just using it to avoid entering into the messiness inherent to addiction, homelessness and prison, then the love is missing. Programs will never change lives unless there is a deep life-on-life component. Life needs to be shared...

Jesus asks us to forgive others as we have been forgiven. How easily we forget. In the various Belay faithventures , we strive to be places of grace for people rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison. We provide jobs and career training for people normally shut out of the job market because of past mistakes. Belay believes a job is the second most important thing on the way to a self-sufficient life, just behind faith. With that in mind, it's hard to not get discouraged when participants in our program become unforgiving towards co-workers.  But then I look in the mirror. We all want grace when it comes to our own mistakes and judgement when it involves other people's sins against us. We are a hard headed, stiff-necked bunch. Jesus reminds us over and over to forgive others. It's why the people led by the older ones walked away one by one when Jesus invited those without sin to cast the first stone. Humans who have been around the sun...

Relapses happen. The old life sometimes exerts a seemingly irresistible force on people rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison.  I remembering feeling great discouragement when I first faced that reality at Bud's Warehouse . An individual who had come back from heroin addiction, who was thriving in our program and ready to graduate to a job in the community, suddenly disappeared back into the world of drug abuse.  Perhaps, I unrealistically hoped that once people experienced new life and the satisfaction of supporting themselves in a job, they would never be tempted to make their former mistakes. It seems so naive to write that down today almost 13 years later. But the unsatisfying truth is that sometimes people never relapse but often they do...and that is all part of God's plan of redeeming lives where brokenness is the only path to life.  I remember my surprise when our former employee returned f...

It is much harder to work with an individual rebuilding a life from addiction and homelessness than someone trying to reenter the workforce as an ex-offender. That's been my experience over the last 13 years employing and job training individuals seeking a new start from homelessness, addiction and prison in our various faith venture businesses at Belay Enterprises . Conventional wisdom tells employers to stay away from ex-offenders because they can not be trusted because of past mistakes, they are unmotivated, and they can be very difficult to work with on a daily basis. But I have found that to be completely untrue. People entering the workforce after prison tend to be highly motivated with a deep desire to succeed in order to rebuild relationships with their families and to restore their life. They just need someone to give them a chance and an environment that allows them to thrive on the job. The most challenging client we work with in our various transitional employment busin...

Over the last few weeks, I've learned of several non-profit organizations where donations have been significantly down for the last few months. It seems that uncertainty in the economy is starting to negatively impact giving from individuals and foundations. The reason that this has come to my attention is that these same non-profits are attempting a pro-active approach to their financial health by exploring social enterprise to supplement their sources of income. While I am always exciting to learn about faith-based organizations exploring social enterprise as a revenue source, I must counsel that organizations approach earned income ventures with realistic assumptions. A social enterprise will not save your organization's finances. At least not in the short run. Any new business venture will require significant start-up money and will take many months (years) to generate profits. Belay started Bud's Warehouse in 1994 with a large amount of start-up funding. . It stil...

Earlier this year, I worked with an individual interested in starting a faith venture business that employed individuals rebuilding lives from prison. This new business as ministry aimed to provide property maintenance services for landlords and apartment communities. Unfortunately, the venture ran into a significant obstacle when pricing liability insurance for the potential operation. The prospective business owner was told by his insurance agent that he would be unable to hire felons under his insurance policy. And he discovered that an expanded policy would be prohibitively expensive. He decided to not pursue the venture, ending the possibility for 5 positions for ex-offenders. We’ve explored the issue of insurance and felony employment in the past here in the Faithventure Forum. It’s the biggest obstacle to increasing opportunity for individuals rebuilding lives from prison. And studies show that finding employment after prison saves money by reducing up to 50% the chances of ind...

The Las Vegas Weekly provides a fantastic and colorful story, “ Now What ?” on the difficulties ex-offenders face reentering society… a task made tougher by the recent economic downturn. This is a story I have become familiar with over the last 10 years at Bud’s Warehouse and Belay Enterprises . It’s the very reason we promote the start of faith venture businesses to create opportunities for individuals rebuilding lives from felony convictions. I appreciate ex-offender Phil Lacasse’s raw honesty about his struggles: “It’s rough out here. It’s rough. It can be done. Anything can be accomplished. But a lot of people, what happens is, when they’re in my shoes, they come out and they get real discouraged. And they get real disappointed. And everything is happening at 100 miles per hour, and you can’t find work. And what happens is after a while they decide, Well, I’ll pick up a gun, I’ll sell some dope. I’ll pimp some broads. I gotta make a living somehow. And that’s the biggest thing th...

Last week, the guys on our Bud’s Warehouse truck ran into a difficult situation. While picking up items from a residential donor, an on-site contractor decided that he was going to keep some of the cabinets for himself. And when he found out he couldn’t, he decided to pick a fight with our driver. Not a smart move. And the kind of decision that gives me heart failure when I hear about it later. You see, our driver is an ex-boxer… a good one. And over the years, he freely admits that he has struggled with his temper. This situation was ripe for a disaster. But then God showed up. Don remembered our anger management and customer service training back at the warehouse. He took a deep breath and listened to the man. And when it became clear the problem wasn’t going to be solved, he called his manager and left the scene. Don shared that story this morning during a special customer service training session by a volunteer from Morgan Stanley. We talked about how the three most important fac...

I have started twittering on faith ventures: @jamesreiner . Join me for more frequent updates on articles and items of interest in the faith venture world. You can also follow updates on Bud's Warehouse: @budswarehouse .

At some point over the last year, the news replaced regular reports on the current escapades of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with frequent stories on the latest unemployment statistics. The news seems to think we want less celebrity drama and more excitement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the midst of this recession, Bud’s Warehouse has assisted in the process by which the government determines unemployment statistics. Over a year ago, we were randomly selected to provide employment data on a monthly basis. I found our selection ironic because our hiring priorities are so opposite that of more traditional businesses. As a faith venture business, we intentionally seek to hire individuals who are unable to get jobs anywhere else because of addictions, homelessness or felony convictions. These are individuals who find it difficult to find a job in any type of economy. Yet, even in the midst of this recession, we’ve been blessed with the ability to continue to employ at similar...

In the past, I have explored the differences between organizing a faith venture business as a non-profit or a for-profit entity . Both of these organizational structures have definite advantages and disadvantages. For organizations exploring a non-profit business venture, I am frequently questioned over the issue of unrelated business income tax (UBIT). The UBIT tax applies to income earned in activities not “substantially related” to the charity’s exempt purpose. Thrift store operations are automatically exempt. But other business activities need to be designed to actively incorporate the charity’s mission or else to allow room in the budget for UBIT tax expenses. As is often the case with IRS organizational issues, the definition of “substantially related” has some gray areas that need to be explored. These difficulties arise when organizations see the business as primarily an income generating enterprise to support other charitable activities. But, overall, the UBIT tax is not to be...

We have seen a large increase in the number of individuals applying for jobs at Bud's Warehouse over the last few weeks. The recession seems to finally be impacting the availability of warehouse and construction jobs in our community. This is happening at the same time that Bud’s Warehouse has several individuals ready to transition from our job-training program into employment in the community. We are now wrestling with the same dilemma that we experienced after 9/11. We have large numbers of people that want into our program while it is becoming more difficult to transition individuals out into better paying “real world” positions. So, unfortunately, the fear factor starts to rise in our program employees. We’ve always had to walk a fine line between encouraging our staff to actively search for jobs as they near the end of our program while assuring them that we will not graduate them until they have a new opportunity. But the reality is that most of our program participants rea...

A person rebuilding a life after an addiction, homelessness, or prison has the double needs of employment and housing. These both have to be in place in order to increase the odds of successful outcomes. It goes without saying that housing without a job or a job without housing are not scenarios that are destined for success. Over the years, Belay’s various faith venture businesses have partnered with transitional housing organizations such as Providence Network in order to serve the housing needs of our program participants. One of the benefits of such a partnership is that individuals receive 24 hours of services during a very difficult time of transition. Then, a natural step down from services occurs as people remain in our program and graduate from the transitional housing program into their own apartment. Individuals do not lose all of their program support at once as this slow progression allows them to return to full self-sufficiency in a more natural progression. We have rece...

We live in a culture that likes to be heard. And our society has forgotten how to listen. These two tendencies are very much at odds with each other. So we end up with a community where lots of people are talking and no one is really listening. Or even worse, we have a bunch of individuals talking about stuff that no one’s interested in. I have found that in ministry settings this can be especially true. The great danger is that we are missing the connection points with the people we are trying to serve in our particular ministry. In urban ministry, I think this is a rather common occurrence. The person trying to teach doesn’t connect with the participants because they have forgotten how to listen. This may be the result of a false paradigm where the leader sees the ones they are teaching as “broken” and in need of being “fixed” rather then as fellow sinners on a common path of redemption. We do our ministries well to actively seek out questions and to create an environment where peopl...

(As with all posts on this blog, these thoughts reflect my opinion and not necessarily the views of my organization.) The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives just released a final report on its performance as the Bush administration prepares to leave office next week. The report makes a convincing argument for the continuation of this program under the Obama administration. I think President Bush’s emphasis on breaking down barriers between government and the faith-based community has translated into real benefits for society. Though Belay Enterprises has never directly sought out funding from government agencies, we indirectly have been beneficiaries of this shift in philosophy. Over the last 8 years, I have seen a definite growing willingness of government agencies at local and national levels to work with faith organizations. President Bush’s initiative gave permission for agencies to move dollars and to collaborate with the programs that were having the mos...

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us… For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:6-8,10,NIV There are some choices in life that will permanently alter the path of one’s life. At Belay Enterprises, we exist because of society’s unwillingness to give individuals with felony convictions a second chance. Bud’s Warehouse and Baby Bud’s hire individuals for our job-training programs who are unable to get a job elsewhere because they are rebuilding a life from addiction, felony conviction, or homelessness. We’ve always strived to make our programs a place about grace… living examples of God’s willingness to die...

In most job interviews, an employer looks for the most qualified person for the job. At Bud’s Warehouse , we put a different twist on the idea of “most qualified.” As a faith venture that provides employment and job training for individuals rebuilding lives, our interviews are less about finding the most qualified and more about finding someone who can’t find a job elsewhere because of a felony conviction or a past addiction. If someone appears able to find a job somewhere else, we are less likely to hire them and quick to refer such a person to a job placement organization like Denver Works . One of my favorite stories is about how far we are willing to take this idea. Last year, an owner of a neighboring business discovered someone stealing copper from our yard at 3am in the morning. He called the police with a license plate number and they arrested the individual. The next day, the police called us to see if we wanted to press charges. The policeman, who was familiar with our proj...