Faithventure Forum

A recent segment on CPR's Colorado Matters highlights Colorado Correction Industries , the organization that runs several enterprises that employ offenders in the state prison system. The various ventures include farm-raised fish, forest fire fighting, office furniture assembly, and buffalo milk. I was particularly interested in the radio host's line of questions pertaining to perceptions in the community that the prison projects were hurting existing businesses. This is a complaint that on occasion surfaces whenever community organization start operating businesses. Numerous examples exist of nonprofit ventures receiving such criticism from for-profit competitors, especially college bookstores and hospitals. To lessen such criticism, social enterprise leaders need to focus, focus, focus on their mission. They must actively sell what benefit they provide to the community as a whole and carefully work to avoid the perception of unfair advantage by not taking unfair advantage...

The North Lawndale Employment Network provides an innovative answer to the problem of ex-offender employment with its Sweet Beginnings urban honey business in the Chicago area. This social enterprise hires formerly incarcerated individuals to harvest honey and manufacture a line of honey infused skin care products. Program employees train in the areas of landscaping, beekeeping and food processing and then transition into jobs in the community. The program has been able to achieve a 4% recidivism rate, far below the national average of 65% and the Illinois average of 55%. Learn more about this program by viewing the the ABC7 Chicago segment below. Or visit the web site at www.sweetbeginningsllc.com to purchase raw honey and skin care products.

It’s probably one of the toughest tasks in Christian spiritual development to unify all the parts of our life towards following Christ. Over the years, I’ve met many Christian business people who struggle with the feeling that their Sunday life has very little overlap with their Monday life. Or they have the nagging sense that being a Christian in the workplace means more than just sharing your faith. Yesterday, I heard about a businessman who’s been searching for a way to unify his work life and his faith walk. He’s been asking for friends to pray for the ability to expand his sprinkler business by two positions this spring. He has a desire to hire two individuals rebuilding lives, train them in sprinkler repair, and actively mentor them in life. At Belay Enterprises , we have a goal of incubating businesses to create 750 jobs in five years for people rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness, or prison in the Denver area. But this goal would be much too low, if Christ-fo...

Successful ex-offenders are employed ex-offenders. The top indicator of a future free from incarceration for an ex-offender transitioning back into society is employment. But most employers will not hire ex-offenders. This reality forms the foundation for the Belay Enterprise mission of partnering with the church to create businesses that employ and job train individuals rebuilding lives from prison. Over the past 16 years, Belay has incubated four projects that have hired hundreds of individuals. Last year alone, our businesses employed 75 people rebuilding lives. At different points over the years, we have set various goals of incubating x number of businesses in the future. But we realize more and more that this is not enough. If we are going to positively impact recidivism rates in Colorado through employment, we have to think bigger than ourselves. Over the next 5 years, Belay Enterprises is aiming to create 750 employment and job training positions a year. By focusing on...

Snow storms and 9News seem to play a recurring role in building faith venture businesses in the Denver area. 11 year ago, a major snow storm and a 9News live remote played a key role in b oosting the profile of Bud’s Warehouse , a business as mission that hires individuals rebuilding lives from homelessness, addiction and prison. This past November, the pattern repeated itself when 9News used the season’s first snow storm to profile Metal Mover’s snow tire business . But people probably don’t realize that Metal Movers is one of the area’s most exciting for-profit faith ventures, committed to employing ex-offenders and other individuals rebuilding lives while serving the community. Metal Mover’s has grown rapidly in 6 years largely because of the passion and tremendous personal story of founder George Medley. It started a short time ago with George and his wife pulling cars with a tow rope. Very quickly it has blossomed into multi-million dollar firm employing over 35 employees a...

American society finds it difficult to give felony offenders a second chance in the area of employment after they are released from jail. Business insurance requirements and owner liability concerns make it difficult for businesses to hire individuals with felonies. Yet, the post-incarceration success of offenders is directly related to their ability to secure employment. At Belay Enterprises , we’ve had success placing non-violent felony offenders into real jobs in the community after they’ve completed 6 months to one year in one of our employment training businesses. Private businesses are willing to hire offenders after they’ve proven themselves with an employment history and the successful completion of a program. But for offenders with a violent felony offense, future employment opportunities are almost completely nonexistent. This is the case even though, in our experience, there are significant degrees of variance in the seriousness of violent offenses. For insta...

Electronic Recyclers International, Inc. is an innovative triple bottom line faith venture enterprise that actively seeks to employ ex-offenders and former gang members while benefiting the environment: John Shegerian, CEO of Electronics Recyclers International, was one of the co-founders of faith venture Homeboy Industries back in 1993. In a recent BNET post, Why I Hire Former Convicts and Gang Members , he details how that experience was a foundational moment in his life and impacts his current venture. He is now a vocal advocate for hiring ex-offenders: I think our hiring practices make our company stronger because they show that our management is sensitive to the human condition. We’re all one accident or one tragedy away from being in a tight spot. Business can be a battle, but when a company shows its DNA this way, it makes for a very tight-knit group and helps us work together. There’s not a community in America that isn’t suffering from drug, gang, and recidivism...

“He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.” 1 Samuel 3:19, NIV If we went around the table at Bud’s Warehouse discussing how this verse from the Old Testament makes us thankful, there would be no shortage of conversation. In my experience, individuals rebuilding lives from prison have a heightened awareness of God’s love and care for each of them. So, one by one, stories would be shared of how people were thankful for an ability to trust God and how he brought good into their lives. But if we backed up and looked at the preceding chapters 2 and 3 in 1st Samuel, the discussion would become more difficult. These great words of faith and trust were spoken by the priest Eli after the young boy Samuel received a rather dramatic call from the Lord and a troubling message from God: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning...

My favorite blogger on ex-offender employment issues had an interesting post on felons as the new “untouchables class” last week. Kathleen Murray wrote about an interview on NPR’s Tell Me More show with Michelle Alexander about her new book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Murray shared: What jumped out at me was her reference to caste. We here in America like to think of ourselves as living in the land of equal opportunity, I know. But this particular term is one that’s come up a lot in my discussions about the offenders and the criminal justice system, lately. An offender turned reentry advocate I talked to a while back put it even more bluntly: “I think we as humans need an untouchable class. Before it was race that held people down, now it’s that you’re branded and ostracized because you’re an ex-offender.” Are ex-offenders the new “Untouchables”? I would answer yes. But like Kathleen Murray, I would also add that it is a matter of...

When you work with ex-offenders trying to rebuild lives, sometimes your heart will be broken. One thing seems to be constant for individuals trying to start over after prison. The past often stalks the future. For some, bad choices will be made, promises broken, and they will find themselves no longer in our program facing new legal consequences. But as I've written in the past, even in those individual cases that might be labeled “failures”, God is still at work. And our organization’s "biggest failures” are often transformed into some of our biggest successes. The reality is we live and work in a world where God often chooses to hide Himself. Sometimes God's activity in the lives of our program participants is hard to see. And other times, God's power whacks you in the face. It’s impossible to miss and all you can do is worship the Creator for his power, grace and goodness. Over and over, God chooses what our world calls “lost cases” so that His goodness is dis...

Harry Truman once said “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Yesterday, that was the theme of a great lunchtime meeting with a minor tweak to the quote: It is amazing what God can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. I shared earlier this week that “sometimes it seems that you pour all your time, energy and heart into a project or task only to see little movement towards your goals. Other times, all you did was get out of bed and big things started happening.” I argued that one of the keys to arriving in the “sweet spot of faith” was to make sure you first seek guidance from God in community with other followers of Christ. As Americans firmly entrenched in the prevalent ideology of self-reliance, we tend to overlook the community part. It’s easy for us to miss how early Christians—and by early I mean pre-Enlightenment Christians—would have had very little notion of self. All activity was seen in relation to community. Individual ...

Kathleen Murray’s blog “ Out and Employed ” is worth following if you’re interested in ex-offender issues. She recently highlighted some key findings of a 2008 study by the Brookings Institution on ex-offender re-entry issues. In the discussion paper she reviews, Bruce Western, a professor of sociology at Harvard University, argues for the creation of a national prisoner reentry program . While I am unsure about the value of a national government program attempting such an ambitious undertaking, I am convinced that high-quality community-based transitional employment combined with transitional housing is one of the most effective ways to impact poor urban communities. I have four concerns with a national government program: the destruction of natural wages by such large pools of government run labor, the resulting unfair competition with private businesses, the political unpopularity of such a program, and the unwieldiness of administrating large groups of ex-offenders in depersonaliz...

Individuals rebuilding lives from homeless in a transitional housing program often have a difficult time finding employment even in the best of economies. Yet, when they have a job they are more likely to succeed in the transitional housing program. Leaders of such programs intuitively know the positive relationship between housing and employment from experience. Indeed, the importance of healthy employment environments for transitional program participants was one of the reasons behind the formation of Bud’s Warehouse and Belay Enterprises 15 years ago . Yet, we’ve found it difficult to find studies that substantiate what seems so obvious. I recently became aware of a 2007 Urban Institute study of L.A. Hope , a federal housing and employment demonstration project in Los Angeles. This study gives empirical evidence that when homeless residential providers connect housing with intensive employment services individuals with large barriers to employment succeed in jobs while maintaining...

About a year ago, the commodity market for recycled materials like cardboard, metal, and glass crashed along with the economy. At the time, we were looking at expanding our operations at Bud's Warehouse into those areas because of the significant revenues we were starting to see by recycling appliances that were in too bad shape to sell in our thrift store. We also saw some potential income from the flood of cardboard that arrived with our donations. In the last few weeks, the commodity market for recycled products has recovered to rates which can sustain a business. I've always been a big fan of start-ups with a focus on recycling as being an excellent faith venture business to create opportunity for individuals rebuilding lives. If you're exploring the potential of starting such an urban business as mission, I recommend you take a look at recycling of cardboard, metal and even auto parts. I think God smiles at faith venture operations that seek to recycle lives while rec...

I have a confession to make. Occasionally, I show up to our morning Bud’s Warehouse Bible study and I have no idea what I am going to talk about with the group. I used to feel guilty about my lack of preparation, but over the years, I’ve come to really trust God to show up in places where I leave space for him. So some mornings, I ask the group for topic recommendations. Inevitably, we find ourselves in a rich discussion about some passage extra relevant to our lives. Other days, I rely on the Moravian Daily Texts for leading us into a Spirit-filled discussion about a particular Bible verse. For the last 280 years, the Moravian church has been publishing world-wide a Bible verse specially selected for each day. (You can subscribe for a free Daily Text email here .) There is something extra-rewarding about examining the same verse as many thousands of Christians are doing throughout the world. (I also enjoy the fact that the Moravians were the first pioneers of the Business as Missio...

I was recently asked in a meeting of executives what was one thing I would recommend to a Christ-following business owner wanting to bring his or her faith more directly into the workplace. Without hesitation, I immediately recommended what we call the “hood-check.” This particular discussion was interesting because most of the participants came from the for-profit world and they were really struggling with how to appropriately increase the role of faith in their companies without alienating employees or running in violation of discrimination rules. I have a slightly different perspective because our non-profit organization, Belay Enterprises , was specifically set up as an urban business as mission incubator. We actively combine faith and business as instruments in rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness or prison. Sometime other business owners seem to think that this special perspective from our unique “DNA” makes our approach not immediately replicable in a tradition for-prof...

I think one of the most interesting changes occurring over my last ten years at Bud’s Warehouse has been government’s new willingness to partner with our faith-based organization. When I started in my role there was a definite wall between government and faith-based organizations that went both ways. Government didn’t want to work with faith groups and we returned the favor. Many religious organizations didn’t want to work with government because it added layers of bureaucracy and threatened an organization’s independence. But without doubt, that wall has come down. Recently, I was told by a government case manager that they loved working with Belay because we were the only organization in town that would employ and job-train individuals with certain types of felony convictions. In a metro area of 2.7 million, we’re the only training program in Denver for felony ex-offenders trying to find the skills for gainful employment. I love the fact that employees in government are comfortable...

Five years ago when we rented a new location for Bud’s Warehouse , we dreamed about 25,000 square feet of wide aisles and immaculately organized sections. We had visions of becoming the “Home Depot” of thrift stores by dramatically increasing our retail appeal. But two days before we moved into our meticulously organized new warehouse, we received a call from a national cabinet manufacturer. They were changing product lines and had 10 semi-loads of cabinet doors to donate. It was too good to pass up so we decided to make space. Gone were the dreams of clear aisles and neatly racked product areas. In its place were cabinet doors, cabinet doors and more cabinet doors. We were literally drowning in cabinet doors. But our impulsive yes was born out of experience. Swelling to accommodate this unexpected influx allowed us several years of great sales as customers sought the doors for cabinet resurfacing projects. Fast-forward four years to last spring. We received a call from the same manufa...

I had a chance to quickly glance through Neil Johnson’s latest book Business as Mission this week. Wow! I am going to Amazon to order a copy. Since the release of his 2003 book, Great Commission Companies , Johnson has been the leading scholar of the business as mission movement. His new book will add to his credentials in this growing academic area. I plan to review the book at some point in the future. Over the last few weeks, I have had the pleasure to work with Chad Stewart, an MBA student currently enrolled in Johnson’s class at Bakke University. Belay has been able to partner Chad Stewart with one of our volunteers, Andy Magel, to assist a local Denver area chef developing a for-profit culinary school for young adult ex-offenders. I’m excited that Neil Johnson’s class is making a direct impact on the development of an exciting business as mission in the Denver area.

I like pumpkin pie. In fact, it’s my favorite part of Thanksgiving. But over the years as my family has grown, my annual share of the pie has decreased. A few years ago, it was common for me to have a slice after the big dinner, another one a few hours later before bed, and then what Thanksgiving Friday is complete without pumpkin pie and a coffee first thing? Today, with my kids knocking on the door of high school and the teenage years, I’m lucky if I get a piece after dinner. We have a serious need to increase the production of pie around our house. I’ve noticed lately that people are approaching life like it’s a box of pumpkin pie. No, we’ve not collectively bought into a Forest Gump holiday-themed philosophy. But society is operating under the big fear that there are only a limited number of pieces in the pie. To get ahead, you have to fight for your share. We seem to have forgotten that we are capable of baking more pies. Over the last few months, the volume of complaints about e...