Faithventure Forum

If you are in the New York City area on Thursday, September 27th, you should consider attending New York City Leadership Center's Movement Day . They have a fantastic line up of speakers throughout the event including Timothy Keller, Ajith Fernando, and Luis Palau. I am particularly excited about the Urban Compassion track where Cebert Danvers of the Bowery Mission, Jamey Nordby, also from the Bowery Mission, Catherine Rohr, founder of the Prison Entrepreneurship Project, and myself will be presenting on how to employ the hard to employ. Watch the video and learn more here . Movement Day 2012 Promo from NYC Movement Project on Vimeo .

I am so excited we are nearing our start-up funding goals for our planned Purple Door Coffee shop to employ some of the large number of homeless young adults in the Denver area. Our talented Purple Door leadership team of Madison Chandler and Mark Smesrud have done a fantastic job sharing the vision for this project with the community positioning us for the next step which is renting the shop location. Please keep praying for this project and stay tuned for more updates as we continue developing this program. And here's my thoughts on Purple Door in a recent interview: Jim Reiner Interview from Purple Door Coffee on Vimeo .

If an ex-offender finds a job upon exiting prison, research shows that his or her chances of going back to jail are significantly reduced saving the $50,000 a year it costs a state to incarcerate an individual. With that in mind, Belay Enterprises' latest start-up New Beginnings Custom Woodworks employs and job-trains ex-offenders like Patrick Stewart in a faith-based cabinet shop venture t hat was recently profiled on 9News and in the Denver Post . "I got out of jail 9 years ago, but was unable to find a job because of my past offense," Patrick says. "It was only when New Beginnings was willing to take a chance on me was I able to get off welfare and start supporting my family."  Before starting at New Beginnings, Patrick had never built anything before. Now he's become an expert in crafting beautiful custom cabinets. "At one point in my life, I was just empty flesh walking around," he told the Denver Post , "Now, I have ...

As I have explored before on this blog, one of the big problems with unlocking the capital markets for social enterprise is the difficulty of providing adequate financial returns to reward investments with social aims. I've also written about how reducing recidivism can provide big savings to the government by reducing the cost of incarceration. In Great Britain, Big Society Capital has creatively married these two issues in a Social Investment Bond it has formed as part of its social investment bank, Social Finance. As the project reduces recidivism among its target of 3000 prisoners, the investment delivers corresponding increasing returns. This is a fascinating approach which you can learn more about in the latest Stanford Social Innovation Review available free online until the end of the month: The target population of the first SiB-funded program comprises 3,000 prisoners due to leave Peterborough prison over six years. In the United Kingdom, around 60 percent of s...

Via Rudy Carrasco's blog Almond Nation , I learned of Edge Manufacturing , a faith venture business as mission in Bluffton, Indiana. The company manufactures high-quality plastic and metal baskets for various different commercial uses. Interestingly, Mike Rowe, the former Taylor University campus police chief and current assistant professor of Economics has recently taken on the COO position for the manufacturing company. They are committed to hiring ex-offenders rebuilding their lives who are unable to find employment. Read more about Mike Rowe and the company in a recent article in the Journal Gazette here .

The success stories of people in our program provide the fuel for Belay Enterprises' efforts to incubate more business as ministries to employ individuals rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison . Viana has been in the Bud’s Warehouse job training program for almost a year and she's ready to transition into a new job in the community as soon as the perfect opportunity opens up. And she has a fantastic story. Join us in cheering her on! And if you know of a job opening for an amazing multi-tasker with excellent computer, phone and people skills, let us know. Viana's Story from Bud's Warehouse on Vimeo .

If you're interested in experiencing the crazy world of faith ventures , Father Greg Boyle's recent book, Tattoos on the Heart , is a must read. The book wonderfully captures the flavor of employing ex-gang members rebuilding lives at Los Angeles' Homeboy Industries . Instead of being a how to book or a history of Homeboy, Boyle organizes his stories around nine spiritual themes that arise out of his unique ministry. These include the importance of God, the damaging nature of dis-grace, the slow nature of God's work, the difficulty of defining success apart from God and the value of kinship. Indeed, these themes are fundamental to any faith venture business as ministry and are a good primer for anyone considering such an activity.  In particular, I loved how he understands Homeboy to be a place that absolutely needs God to show up in order to be successful. He tells how depending on God for resources became an exercise of faith. " We constantly lived ...