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...

If there is such a thing as a moment, the social enterprise movement is experiencing it right now. This approach has become very popular in the non-profit world, especially among millennials seeking to create employment training opportunities. Almost every week someone contacts us here at  Belay Enterprises  wanting to learn about our model as they develop their own start-up social venture. In the rush of enthusiasm for social enterprise, potential practitioners often overlook how hard it is to start and sustain such projects. I spend a lot of time encouraging people in the non-profit sector to start taking risks because the sector often is biased against such action because of its funding model. Leaders don't want to disappoint donors because a project didn't work out. But organizations need to take risks in order to achieve growth in social enterprise. In addition, sustaining such a project can be equally difficult. Ventures that survive the start-up phase often require ...

As human beings we are fundamentally designed for each other. Even the most introverted personality is still at some level stamped with the image of God. And community is the most essential expression of God in His Trinitarian form. We need community because we are created for community. So many of our society ’s problems arise from the fact that we have lost sight of our essential need for other people. We have become so curved inward on the self that we have forgotten others and our interrelationship with them. I am convinced that one key to healing the ills of the urban city (or, indeed, the world) is building community. Any charitable or governmental activity aimed at alleviating the problems of poverty without including community at its core is destined for inefficiency and ineffectiveness. At Bud’s Warehouse and the various businesses of Belay Enterprises , we start every morning intentionally striving for community by meeting together. One morning we do a bible study, another ...

Over the last 13 years, I've seen how ex-offenders provide a unique and untapped talent base for business. This short segment on PBS's News Hour shows how WeRecycle in Westchester County has been able to partner with the Bard Prison Initiative to identify and hire excellent ex-offender employees. And when businesses hire ex-offenders, not only do they get a high-quality employee but they also help to save society money by reducing recidivism. Watch the full episode . See more PBS NewsHour.

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...

Homelessness and joblessness are synonymous. It is very difficult for a homeless person to find employment without an address, phone number, email address, and identification. But employment becomes even more challenging for young people living on the streets, which sadly is becoming a bigger problem throughout the United States. Creating employment opportunities for homeless youth is a challenge ripe for the attention of Christ-following business people. There is a big need for urban faith ventures to employ young people seeking to leave the streets. In Seattle, Washington, New Horizons Ministries runs Street Bean Espresso , a coffee shop that provides employment and job training for young adults working to exit the street life. As the Street Bean's web site explains on its story page : One of the keys to getting off the street is steady employment. We had always dreamed of opening a business that would provide supportive employment for the young adults we serve—a plac...

How odd is it to lead an organization where we often don’t hire the “best” person for the job but people with potential in the eyes of Jesus. That is definitely not what a human resource 101 class would teach. But it’s the whole point of what we are attempting in a faith venture. We seek to run a business as mission that employs individuals rebuilding lives from situations like addiction, homelessness, and prison that would normally make such persons unemployable in society’s eyes. Inevitably, every faith venture organization attempting such a mission is going to wrestle with the hiring decision. The tricky part comes down to walking the fine line between achieving the redemptive employment goals with the need to have employees capable of serving the customer. As a result, hiring is not a science, but an art with an eye firmly on Jesus seeking his guidance every step of the way. To navigate the hiring decision, we look for the following four items when choosing program...

Earlier this year, some friends of mine in New York City with a desire to create a social enterprise that employs ex-offenders hosted an idea contest that received over 125 entries. On Monday, they announced their five semi-finalists: Jurrien Swarts – Farm fresh food prepared into microwavable meals for locovores and people living in “food deserts” Heather Burkman – Digitizing small business records and storing hard copies off-site Nickalas Goettling – Seal coating asphalt roads and parking lots Kendra Pierre-Louis – Restoring brownfields through phytoremediation Michael Cozzolino – Manufacturing decorative architectural wood wall panels On June 1, 2011, Spring Into Action will announce the finalist, a task I do not envy in light of the five excellent finalist ideas. At first glance, all seem to fill innovative and sustainable market niches while providing rich opportunities for employing individuals rebuilding lives.  I am especially intrigued by the architectural w...

Bud’s Warehouse has been providing employment and career development training for individuals seeking employment while rebuilding lives from homelessness, poverty, addiction or prison for over 16 years. We are in the sixth month of an exciting relationship with local transitional housing provider Providence Network . As part of an innovative grant funded by Mile High United Way, individuals get a supportive transitional home program as well as employment and job training through a comprehensive partnership. I'm excited to share Jason's story as one of the first graduates of this innovative program. Bud's Warehouse - Jason from Andy Magel on Vimeo .

Individuals rebuilding lives need both supportive living environments and redemptive employment. If either is missing, the challenges of life can quickly become overwhelming and the bad choices of old get repeated with the resulting consequences. At Belay Enterprises and Bud’s Warehouse , we are in the third month of an exciting relationship with local transitional housing provider Providence Network . As part of an innovative grant funded by Mile High United Way, individuals get a supportive transitional home program as well as employment and job training through a comprehensive partnership. This innovative partnership is highlighted in a recent video produced by Providence Network for presentation at their annual luncheon.  It's a great video but be sure to have your tissues at hand. Road to Providence from Andy Magel on Vimeo . If you work with either a transitional housing or job training organizations, I encourage you to partner in the interest of better se...

Innovative faith venture Masterworks of Minneapolis operates three redemptive employment businesses for individuals with significant barriers to employment: an assembly, manufacturing and packaging business, an auto maintenance enterprise, and a construction company. Masterworks also provides an intriguing and unique organization history as a non-profit that has over time transitioned into both a for-profit and non-profit entity as detailed on their web site: Masterworks was founded in 1991 with a vision to hire those who for varied reasons have significant barriers to employment. These barriers include homelessness, felony records, addictions and chronic unemployment, often in combination. Our founder, Tim Glader, is a businessman and entrepreneur whose commitment to Jesus Christ brought about this compassionate and strategic venture. Through the years, God has brought hundreds of inner-city residents through our doors. For its first 15 years, Masterworks was primarily a self-...

Rudy Carrasco recently highlighted a faithventure business operating in urban Detroit in his Urban Onramps blog . Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corporation runs Cafe Sonshine , a family-friendly restaurant at 8902 Second Ave in Detroit. Besides providing healthy food to the community, the restaurant also employs and job trains 7 teens and young adults annually. From their website : Central Detroit Christian CDC is the managing organization of Cafe Sonshine, a family-friendly cafe (which employs 7 teens and young adults yearly). The restaurant serves a dual purpose--as a job training site for teens and young adults and as a store providing delicious food and desserts for the community. In 2007, we acquired the commercial strip just across the street from our apartment building and office. The Freeze, our ice cream store relocated here and Mr. FoFo’s, a famous deli & soul food restaurant, the anchor tenant, was been under our management sin...

How odd is it to lead an organization where we often don’t hire the “best” person for the job but people with potential in the eyes of Jesus. That is definitely not what a human resource 101 class would teach. But it’s the whole point of what we are attempting in a faith venture. We seek to run a business as mission that employs individuals rebuilding lives from situations like addiction, homelessness, and prison that would normally make such persons unemployable in society’s eyes. Inevitably, every faith venture organization attempting such a mission is going to wrestle with the hiring decision. The tricky part comes down to walking the fine line between achieving the redemptive employment goals with the need to have employees capable of serving the customer. As a result, hiring is not a science, but an art with an eye firmly on Jesus seeking his guidance every step of the way. To navigate the hiring decision, we look for the following four items when choosing program participants...

It’s not easy to rebuild a life from addiction, homelessness or prison. The inherent obstacles to overcoming these issues in an urban environment make success very difficult. It’s like attempting to get to the other side of a roaring mountain river without being swept away by the raging waters. In many ways it takes a miracle to get to the other side. And over the years, I’ve become convinced that apart from hearing and believing the good news of the gospel, the odds of success are very slim. But in addition to the power of the gospel, it also takes the practical to overcome. Individuals rebuilding lives need both supportive living environments and redemptive employment. If either is missing, the challenges of life can quickly become overwhelming and the bad choices of old get repeated with the resulting consequences. At Belay Enterprises and Bud’s Warehouse , we are in the third month of an exciting relationship with local transitional housing provider Providence Network . As p...

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...

The Bud’s Warehouse donation truck was missing in action. Our donation coordinator, Lanny, had been calling the truck for several hours that day 9 years ago with no success in reaching our driver. At the same time, frustrated product donors were informing us that our truck was not arriving as promised. We had a problem. Lanny and I jumped in our cars and started driving around to see if we could find our truck. About an hour later, he found it abandoned in the middle of 225. We were barely able to start it and drove it straight to the mechanic. I later found out that our driver stopped for lunch and made some bad personal choices. The truck then mysteriously broken down. The mechanics later told us they had never seen anything like this. Some silicon had clogged the fuel line and shut down the truck. We had to let our truck driver go. It is always upsetting when one of our program participants, seeking to rebuild a life from prison, addiction or homelessness, has to be droppe...

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...

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...