Fixing Baltimore’s Nonprofit System with Jay Nwachu of Innovation Works

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I want my kids, when they grow up in Baltimore, to say, Baltimore is a place I choose to stay. Baltimore is like many cities in the fact that we have a lot of challenges, that people are waking up every day trying to solve for 20 people are believed to have fallen in the river. Unfortunately, we have convinced enough people that the only way to solve problems in your community is to start a nonprofit. The corporate foundations think of their backyard first. Most of our large corporates, they've either sold to much bigger companies. We are no longer there. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Is moving its North American headquarters out of downtown Baltimore. [00:00:33] Speaker A: So we don't have as much philanthropic capital flowing. So I don't think we have more than other cities. I just don't think we have enough of the machine to sustain it. If you're sitting on the sidelines, believe and take a step, whether it's writing a chat, getting your hands dirty, or just simply, like, paying more attention to the good things. Welcome to H. Rodney Buckley talks for the Superstars tonight. Tonight. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Hello, everybody. I'm Britt and this is Mick, and we are the host of Love and Business podcast. [00:01:03] Speaker C: And today's guest is Jay Nwachu, president and CEO of Innovation Works and Ignite Capital. Jay's committed to identifying seed capital and matching it with successful Baltimore entrepreneurs to ensure the success of Baltimore City into the future. [00:01:18] Speaker B: And if you like what we're doing and you appreciate what our guests are doing, like Jay, please do us a favor and subscribe. Take the one second to do it. It really makes a difference. Let's get into the episode. [00:01:29] Speaker C: Jay, thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to join us. [00:01:33] Speaker A: It's a pleasure. I'm glad to be here with you guys. [00:01:35] Speaker C: So, Jay, we always start off by, by letting our guests give us elevator pitch background story. We'd love to tell our audience what you've been up to and, and how you got here, not just here today, but how you got into. To Innovation Works and, and a little bit out what you're doing. And then we're going to pull on all of the threads that we can and make sure our audience knows exactly who you are and hopefully share some, some great background stories because I know you're doing some cool things in Baltimore City, which, you know, obviously we're big fans of and, and really looking forward to talking to you today. [00:02:05] Speaker A: Got it. All right. I will try to give you maybe the, the, the chapter version of the elevator pitch. Yeah, yeah, maybe by chapter, like chapters. Then you can dig in whichever chapter you want. [00:02:17] Speaker C: And also don't forget Jaden Watchu too. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I'll do the chronological version. So, Jay, born and raised in Nigeria, migrated here from ninth grade to Maryland, went to high school in Prince George's County. Found myself in Baltimore for undergrad a little over 20 years ago. Went to UMBC and then University of Baltimore for grad school. My first career was in talent acquisition, helping corporations and some federal agencies and nonprofits find talent for their organizations. Eventually left that field to pursue supporting entrepreneurs full time. And, and that is how I find myself now at Innovation Works and Ignite Capital where we are supporting social entrepreneurs that are both businesses and for profits and nonprofits in the city of Baltimore with the goal of growing our local economy by supporting these folks. A lot of work being done around supporting them with training, education, mentorship, technical assistance in some regards, connecting them to revenue sources for more sustainability long term. We have a neighborhoods angle where we are supporting local neighborhoods with economic development thinking our main street corridors. And then we have Ignite Capital, which is our impact investing arm, where we're actually lending and investing capital into the entrepreneurs that we support. And that keeps us pretty busy most days doing all of those things. That's the short version of the book. [00:03:38] Speaker C: Wow, there's a lot there. It's a short, short but not short boy, a lot there. So one thing that came to me immediately, tell us about how you identify or how, how do people that they have an idea or they have an entrepreneurial spirit, how do they find their way to you and your organization and, and are you looking for them? Do you advertise in a way that that would catch their attention and say maybe this is the ignition point or the accelerant that I need to get going. How do you find each other? Maybe that's a better way to position it. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah. There are two primary ways people get to us. The first one is we have one particular program that we promote every year as an open source application in our network of how we support entrepreneurs. We can have that broken down to five different stages based on from ideation to scale. Essentially our program that's in the middle for early stage businesses, we promote that for every year for a cohort and we open applications. People come into system that way. Other than that, everything else is just word of mouth. There's folks that are already in our network who are saying, hey, I'm finding value here, you may want to check them out. And we then we have an intake form and intake process to get more folks into our system over the last 78 years. We now have roughly just about 200 businesses that we support in the city right now. [00:04:54] Speaker B: Wow. [00:04:55] Speaker A: And all that has been grown organically. I mean, every year we go through a nutrition process. We probably supported over 5, 600 at this point. But 200 we wake up thinking about every day because they've chosen to stay in the system. We think that organic growth is really meant a lot for us because those are based on relationships. Right. People come in if they find it too transactional and they don't feel like we're going to meet their needs long term, we exit each other. But the folks who find value about a long term relationship with a network organization or the folks that we do the best with, and we do that through relationship building and that takes time to build. So the 200 have been around. Some of them are still there from seven years ago. Some of them just got here yesterday. And we're continuing to build with them. [00:05:37] Speaker C: All right, so that was. I, I skipped ahead just to a future chapter before we go back. So family moved here to the U.S. you were in ninth grade. [00:05:45] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:46] Speaker C: And give us the background, I mean, tell me what you remember of, of prior to coming to the US and because, you know, we've talked to, we've had some guests that, that found their way to the US in similar ways in certain situations. The kids came and then ultimately the parents joined. So give us a little bit of a background, you know, Nigeria, moving to the U.S. give our, give our audience an idea how all of that evolved. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. So my family is from the eastern part of Nigeria. So farming community. Grandparents were farmers. Prior generations were all farmers. That's where the assets around us were. My parents were the first of their lineage to really like look for opportunity outside of that community. My father, the story goes, it is a very believable story cause I've confirmed it that community members really put together some resources to allow them to, to go to Ghana actually for technical trading school. So he went to go study accounting or bookkeeping at the time, this is a long time ago. And then he came back and then decided he wanted to pursue a career in accounting and found a job with some corporation. That then eventually led to him working at the US Embassy in Nigeria as a staff accountant. So that's how he got to the big city, Lagos, which is where we were born and grew up, because he was working at the embassy in Lagos. My mother, on the other hand, was an entrepreneur. She launched her hair care salon and that was a business she ran while trying to raise Five children at the same time with my dad. I'm the oldest of five. And that was really my life growing up. I like to imagine that in hindsight looking at it in a pretty low income community in the main streets of Lagos. But if I were to compare myself to a lot of my friends, I would imagine we were probably more of the stable household even in the community that we were in. There was some thing at the American Embassy that if you put in enough year service years, you could apply for a green card and they would advocate for you to get a green card. So when I hit got close to ninth grade, my parents decided the oldest of five is getting to this formative years of education and we need to do something different because we don't know that the path here is going to get us to a place where we want our kids to be. And that's what inspired them to kind of pull on that lever and apply for a green card to get here. So that was the pathway here. Probably not without pain because all their life was there, right? Their friends, all that stuff. So it was a major sacrifice on their end to be able to do that. So my father and me and my younger brother, the first two boys came first, spent a year and then sent back for the last three. And my mother who then joined us a year later, which was, you know, we are transition to this country. I joke with folks. We arrived here 1995, so be whoever mainly did math at 35 years. Now this year, the day before Halloween, 30. [00:08:40] Speaker C: Like your 30th anniversary is right on, right? [00:08:42] Speaker A: Yeah, 30, right. You're 30, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah, 30 the year, the day before Halloween. Never having left the country before. [00:08:49] Speaker C: They're coming right up on your 30th anniversary. [00:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah, right up on it. [00:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Never having left the country before, growing up in a mostly Nigerian community in Lagos, Nigeria, and then getting off the plane in America where it was cold. And then the next day, people were showing up at the door of my dad's mentor's house where we stayed in for a year in costumes. [00:09:12] Speaker C: And how old your younger brother? [00:09:14] Speaker A: He's two years younger than me. He's like ten at this point. [00:09:17] Speaker C: Wow. [00:09:17] Speaker A: And we're like, what the heck? [00:09:21] Speaker C: Did we go to Mars, Dad? You said we were going to the. [00:09:22] Speaker A: U.S. that was our real welcome to America moment. It was cold, it was frigid, and there were customs and we enrolled in school. So I went to Laurel High School in Prince George's County. And yeah, that was a transition in itself. Weird. Being in like, Esau class with all the other foreign students, but like speaking impeccable English because I skipped the sixth grade because I was doing well in school back there. They put me back a grade. Actually in America, they didn't honor my skip because I thought I was too young to be going to ninth grade at the age of 12, which I think makes sense. [00:09:56] Speaker C: So touch on that. I mean, having come here as a freshman in high school. Right. Your English is impeccable. So what does the English curriculum look like in Nigeria? Is that where the basis starts? [00:10:10] Speaker A: I mean, we were colonized by the British, so, you know, part of a lot of our education is dependent on the British system for English. So, you know, you go to school, it's primarily English, and then you go home and then all the other languages pop in. So before we got here, I spoke to Nigerian languages fluently and English at the same time. So it made it a little bit easier to transition when there wasn't as much of a barrier. And like, the accent is one thing, but the English was not necessarily an issue. [00:10:36] Speaker C: And what did your dad do? So what, what, what? Obviously accounting stay in that career path when he arrived here in the US took a while. [00:10:43] Speaker A: It took about maybe two, three years of both of them doing a bunch of odd jobs, working in hotels, cleaning beds, dad working at a grocery store. Because trying to re enter yourself into the government system was not as easy, apparently. So it took him a couple of years, my father, to regain his footing in the federal government. He just retired this year from USAID after all. 30 years now. And my mom going into entrepreneurship was just not as available. It was like a new environment. So she did what a lot of Nigerian immigrants do, which was go study to be a CNA certified nursing assistant. And she worked in nursing homes until she retired 2020. Oh, wow. [00:11:23] Speaker C: Yeah. What a cool path. [00:11:25] Speaker B: So I imagine, I mean, it had to be a massive cultural shock in every way. What was the hardest part of that transition for you and your siblings and your whole family? [00:11:36] Speaker A: I would imagine something around values. Right. We grew up in a pretty collective environment where if you didn't have your neighbor had, right. Nobody had to call to visit your house on Sundays if you were home or not. People just show up and knock on your door and say, are you here? Because, I mean, there's no cell phones. Right. Nobody has to call. We're pretty open here. It felt a lot more guarded, like everyone was on their own thing, Everybody was hustling in their own way. You had family, but you didn't really see them because everybody was working so hard. It was just something about some level of isolation in the immigration, in the immigrant community. Well, you were all there, but you weren't there because you were all. You all came for a purpose. Right. I think my family felt some of that because we didn't come with other family members around us. So my parents spent a lot of time re engaging community back home. Every morning as I'm getting ready for school, they're already on the phone with people back home, just reconnecting. Meanwhile, we're trying to go to school to figure out how to build new friendships in a different environment. Which I think if I were to really study that, that was probably difficult for the first couple of years in school. [00:12:47] Speaker C: Tell us about the rest of your siblings. So, younger brother. Because I always like to really understand, you know, the birth order and the dynamics of the family too. So tell us about the rest of your siblings. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah, so four boys and the very last one is the girl, the baby. And my mom kept going until she had her girl and she was not gonna stop. [00:13:00] Speaker B: And she's well protected. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Exactly. My younger brother, he's an engineer for Amtrak. So he got a degree in whatever, systems engineering from University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. He's in Prince George's county, married his own kids. My third brother, he's in Atlanta. He works in education, special education, working with young kids in Atlanta public schools. He's married with his family down there. My fourth brother, he is the entrepreneurial heart of the family at the moment. He works at a car dealership and sells cars and is like a beast selling cars apparently. He also is in Presurge county, married with his own children. And my sister, who is the last of us, recently married with a one year old, works for a nonprofit that tries to encourage STEM in young girls. [00:13:57] Speaker C: Oh, amazing. Oh, that's awesome. [00:13:59] Speaker A: She's also in Prince George's County. So I'm in Baltimore, one in Atlanta, three in Prince George's county, close to my parents. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah. That's amazing. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:07] Speaker B: So what led you to want to do this kind of work? What inspired you? [00:14:13] Speaker A: There's weird story there. When I went to UMBC, this was just before 1999 at Y2K. I don't know that I really had a career path in mind, to be honest with. When we migrated, my parents had a bunch of ideas for me. I was supposed to be a reverend. I was supposed to be, I don't know, an engineer of some sorts or a doctor. I remember going to College, figuring out what I was going to study. And computers just made sense at the time because it's all we talked about. So I actually went to UMBC and studied computer engineering and math. Did that for the first three years. Would it be average? Got through all the physics and hardcore math and calculus and all that stuff and just had a crash. Junior year was like, there's no way this is my life. I don't think this is the exact moment, but I tell myself the story about Ann Gates and or Gates in a lab and recognizing that this is not it. I was more of a people centered person and I really, really probably wanted to do entrepreneurship. To be honest with you. That's just in my blood. But UMBC did not have a business degree and I was not transferring to College park five minutes down the street from my parents house because it would kill me. [00:15:21] Speaker C: Good point. [00:15:22] Speaker A: That's great. So I mean, I kind of had a moment between junior and senior year. Did a research program looking at psychology and business and the combination of the two. Fell in love with the field of industrial psychology. But that's what my master's degree is in. So I finished my last year and a half just like cruising through the psychology program and getting a psych degree and then going to grad school after that. So my first career as a result was in talent acquisition because it was part of this industrial organizational psychology. Talent for systems and things like that. Enjoyed that for the first 10, 11 years of my life. [00:15:59] Speaker C: So talent acquisition, a. A headhunter of sorts. Local, something like that. Staffing agency. Right. Technical side. The first, no, no shortage of those in this. In this fight, oddly enough. [00:16:08] Speaker A: So my first, you guys might appreciate this. The first. My first job was the only person who would give me an internship my senior year was a gentleman in Ellicott City to go work for aflac, the insurance company. [00:16:21] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:16:22] Speaker A: To help recruit agents. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Wow. [00:16:24] Speaker A: Which was thrilling for me. Right. It was like, get out there and go talk people into selling insurance. Because nobody wakes up every day saying they want to go sell insurance. [00:16:33] Speaker C: Right. [00:16:33] Speaker A: That was a challenge. [00:16:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. [00:16:35] Speaker B: I would say. [00:16:36] Speaker C: And with a duck. [00:16:37] Speaker B: We always talk about this. And I still believe this to this day. People in staffing tend to be the most persistent and relentless of all people that I've met. [00:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It takes a lot to convince people to go do something that they just. It's not shiny out. It's not. It's not what we, you know, go to school wanting to study. Right. But I loved it because for Me, it was an opportunity to help people see a world that they didn't envision and recognize that there's clearly opportunity in it. Did that for a couple of years. Then finished my master's degree at the same time and wanted to go into more of a structured environment to put the degree to work because the sales structure was just like all over. It was the wild, wild west. I loved it, but I needed something a little bit more structured with the degree. So then I went to another nonprofit to help lead recruiting internal for them and retention work to attract people to Baltimore to serve young people in Baltimore. Did that for a couple of years, then pivoted back out because I wanted a blend of private sector again. It was too nonprofit at the moment. So I went to an agency model that was supporting 200 to the Fortune 500 companies with talent strategies, more about bringing diverse talent to their workforces. Some federal government clients were in there as well. That's where I spent the last seven years before pivoting to entrepreneurship. And I loved that space, but eventually got weary and tiring, exhausting. I was starting a family, I was on the road four days a week. That was not healthy and I needed to just slow down life a little bit. And then when we had first son, that forced the issue because he was like, dude, you're raising a kid in Baltimore. You can't be gone four days a week. So focus on local entrepreneurship made sense at the moment to pivot back, rewind two, three years before that, my wife and I had co founded an organization to support social entrepreneurs in Africa on our own time. While I was trying to figure out how to wind down career number one. [00:18:40] Speaker C: Okay. [00:18:41] Speaker A: Her background is in international development, so we kind of did that on the side. And when our son was born, we were like, you can't keep doing this international thing. So we kind of figured I would switch my career to do it locally in Baltimore. That's kind of how I pivoted. [00:18:54] Speaker B: So I know because it was nine years ago when I started my company. It's really scary to bet on yourself, go all in. You risk that stability, especially with a child and a family. What gave you the confidence to be able to do that? And what did that initial start look like for you? [00:19:13] Speaker A: Yeah. The good news, I recognize quickly that me starting something that was going to be my only source of income was just not in the cards for me at the moment. Again, oldest of five, still have families back home that were relying on me and my siblings for some things. And I just never had that. That. That ability to say, I can just risk it all. [00:19:38] Speaker B: I think that's really important because all you hear is the stories of, like, I risked it all I had. And that's just. That's just not the reality for a lot of people that start businesses. So this is not at all. [00:19:48] Speaker A: And after a lot of reflection, one person who I love dearly now is a friend. Fagan Harris, who's now about to be exit in chief of staff to the governor at that point, just launched his own nonprofit. He started something. It was about 2 years old, and he convinced me to join his team. Right. It was a growing organization. I'm looking for something exciting, new. It was a great place for me to go help build something that he already had a vision for, that I really, really appreciated. So I went to go work for that organization first, and then while I was there, helped launch a couple of initiatives, including their entrepreneurship support initiative while I was there, and then eventually realized, okay, I really, really want to do this thing. And then that led me to Innovation Works. At the time, there was an idea that a founder was kind of shopping around Baltimore, and then I got hired to help launch that new thing that somebody else had already, like, put some thought into the formation and raise some of the early capital, and then say, we need somebody to actually go launch it. So there's no clean. Like, Jay just got up one day and just did it. It's following somebody and then showing up as either number two or number one and then taking it from there. And that's been my path, essentially. I don't know, maybe the third chapter of my life would be me just going, like, scratch and doing something. We'll see. [00:21:11] Speaker C: What would that look like, though? Because it sounds like you built such a great base. I mean, going scratch, which would almost. It would almost infer a departure from this versus an evolution of this where you already have a great basis and you have the. You have the. The resources, the relationships. I think probably more important than the resources. Why would it be a scratch versus an. A future or further evolution with this as the launch pad. [00:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:34] Speaker C: And continuing on this trajectory of sorts of. [00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Whatever it is. My sister asked me this question when I turned 40 a couple years ago. [00:21:40] Speaker C: She was like, oh, God, that's a tough day. Right. [00:21:43] Speaker A: She's like, when you're 40, you're two careers in. You have two kids, your wife, you're generally happy. What the heck are you gonna do next with your life? [00:21:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:52] Speaker B: Sabotage. [00:21:52] Speaker C: This sounds like a sabotage moment for us. We would Sabotage the hell out of that Jay. [00:21:57] Speaker A: And I was like, I don't know. What I know is I've abandoned some of the early stories I told myself that you're crazy career to be scripted. I'm living in a moment right now. So I don't know what it's next. I don't know if it's going to be an evolution. I keep joking. Maybe I'll just move back to Nigeria and go milk cows for two years. Just take a break and have no direct reports and have no P. L. Yeah, right. [00:22:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:20] Speaker A: Or maybe I'll go join one of the founders that we support and join their team. [00:22:23] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Yeah. [00:22:24] Speaker A: We call. [00:22:24] Speaker C: Those are called individual contributors. It sounds attractive certain days. Yeah, exactly. [00:22:28] Speaker A: So I don't know. But it will be. I don't know what the cards will hold, but I'm having fun what I'm doing now. And the problem with me is that with too much exposure to information and systems and knowledge about all the ways industries work, I could go in almost any direction. Which is a curse in itself because there's no discipline in finding the one thing that you want to pour yourself into. Going from recruitment with a bunch of agencies in mind and now supporting a bunch of entrepreneurs. I've just found a good space about helping to lift up other people's vision. [00:23:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:06] Speaker C: It's funny what occurred to me as you were saying that you know that dabble mentality right there is also something I just coined this year. Death by dabble. Like you're, like you're. You're spread so thin. Right. You become this cross training shoe where you're actually not good at anything. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:18] Speaker C: You just, you're, you're spread thin and, and I think that can be a challenge as someone that you know. [00:23:23] Speaker B: Generalist. [00:23:24] Speaker C: Yeah, generalist. Or you know, we'll spin up a company along the way or you know, certain things. And I think that death by dabble could be something you have to be careful of because you're so interested in so many different things and you're like oh, that's cool. I mean be chasing shiny objects indefinitely. Which is something that I could certainly be guilty of. I have a question. So the, you know, we have are on the boards of non profits and support in any number of ways, whether Salvation army, junior Achievement. One thing I have noticed in Baltimore there's a lot of non profit so maybe that's every city. And I can only speak to this one having been on a number of different boards. It's. It seems that There are so many at times that they, that there is this dilution. And by that I mean there's only so many dollars you can buy for. Right. Whether they're philanthropic dollars. You said that, you know, a local founder had an idea they were shopping someone to engage and materialize their vision. That, that. My comment about so many non profits, how does that work and what do you think about the collaborative spirit between them? Because one of the things we struggled with along the way is, you know, you can, you can only cut things up so much or fragment it so much where the voice, you know, the collective voice of just becomes unintelligible. You can't even hear it. So what does it look like in the nonprofit environment in Baltimore? Is there a collaboration? Are there enough dollars to fuel and fund all of the different initiatives? Or quite frankly the opposite of that Is is there some type of a consolidation that would be healthy and necessary? And that's some things we commented or along the way. [00:24:58] Speaker A: What do you see there? Yeah, I mean, I take a market approach to that conversation. Right. It's not, it's not the first time this has come up in my own world. The way I see it is that typical to any sector out there, there are going to be the juggernauts and they're going to work your way down to the folks who are doing a small pieces. But all feeds a system. Right. The nonprofit system is no different than that. Right. I would think that the unique challenge of the nonprofit sector it is that is relying specifically on philanthropic capital to fuel it, not a market based system where if you're not seeing any profit, you have some decisions to make. Right. A nonprofit can literally sit in the same place and never grow for 30, 50 years and just be fine. Right? Yeah. And I think sometimes we have to ask ourselves, is that okay? Or do we just expect every single negative nonprofit to want to do this thing right? I've come to the place of recognizing that the reason why people start nonprofits are personal. And when I engage nonprofit leaders, it is about what is your purpose and how do we make sure we right size expectations about your purpose. Right. From the outside looking in, clearly they're all competing for the same funds. But as a small nonprofit in West Baltimore, it's like I'm just here to serve my block and I don't need funds to serve my block. I'm relying on just local relationships and that little church right there to give me a little bit of money. And if that person accepts that that is what they are trying to do, then they fit right into the system because they have their clear purpose. Now, if you have four of them on the same exact block doing the exact same thing, then there's a problem. Do we have enough resources to fuel all the non profits in the city? Absolutely not, unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending on the day. Baltimore is like many cities in the fact that we have a lot of challenges that people are waking up every day trying to solve for. And unfortunately, we have convinced enough people that the only way to solve problems in your communities is not a nonprofit. As opposed to like. No, there might be a market driven approach. There may be a blended model out there, right? Or maybe you could sit on a board of a nonprofit and keep your day job. But as a culture about entrepreneurially, you want to do something and you see two boxes. Either start a nonprofit or I start a for profit if I want to do something of my own. And most people go this direction to the nonprofit side because that's what they know, that's what they've seen. They don't have anyone to say, well, that thing you are simply using a nonprofit designation for, it actually makes better sense as a for profit because of where the revenue is likely to come from. There's a lot of miseducation in that regard. We don't have a lot of local big corporate foundations similar to Boston's in your New York cities where the corporate foundations think of their backyard first. Most of our large corporates have either sold to much bigger companies who are. No, we are no longer their backyard. So we don't have as much philanthropic capital flowing. So I don't think we have more than other cities. I just don't think we have enough of the machine to sustain it. Could there be room for consolidation as of that? Yeah, sure. Every day. And I see it happening. People are partnering, people are dissolving just like the market does. Speaking to collaboration, there's a lot of collaboration happening. I don't think it is as celebrated, I don't think it is as lifted. But I see it happening all, all the time, especially in the entrepreneurial community that we support and my peers who also support entrepreneurs, we all know what our niches are and we're pushing each other a little bit and trying to collaborate on things. That does not necessarily solve the problem of there's still not enough money to support all of us, but it is happening because it is by necessity. Right between Covid the economic situation we are in now. Go back to 2008 in the financial collapse, those things Force collaboration, whether you like it or not, or you're not gonna survive. And I think it's happening. We're just not telling stories about it, which I think is a fault of the sector, because most folks get money and they wanna go do the service to the community, not spend money telling a story of how they're doing it. And that's just an allocation of resources that's not balanced in between storytelling and just going out to do the work every single day. [00:29:20] Speaker C: So two questions. One, is Innovation Works a for profit or nonprofit? And how do you shift? Like, because the comment you made a second ago, and this is another thing we have a lot of conversations about and trying to help Salvation Army Junior Achievement. It's this idea of how do you get out of. And I, And I, when I'm trying to make a point, I will use the term begging, if you will. Right. The philanthropic aspect, how do you get out of. Or how do you. How do you evolve away from exclusively the philanthropic piece, which is, we all know when times get tougher is cut quickly. You know, where this mentality where a big corporation might say, well, in this moment right now, 2008, 2019 pandemic, the shock of going back to 2001, where nobody knew what was going to happen. And right in. In the wake of the planes hitting the buildings, how do you, how do you shift from the philanthropic piece to creating a value added organization? And do you think that ties to the profit versus nonprofit choice? Right. If I position myself, if I have access like Junior Achievement, we'd have a lot of conversations about access to kids and growing and creating and identifying and demonstrating career paths. Well, what we have is access to a resource or an asset called young humans that are going to need to be pulled into the workforce. So what's that? What does it look like? Or how would you suggest somebody stop being in the philanthropic side exclusively? Create a value proposition that has you vying for dollars that are in the different bucket than philanthropy. Philanthropy. That's a very hard word. [00:30:45] Speaker A: No, that's. That's a very, very. I mean, I was talking. [00:30:48] Speaker C: As long as I just talk to you, J. That's a very hard work. [00:30:50] Speaker A: All good. I was just reviewing a document from my team this morning about our corporate strategy. Right. Because everyone is asking that same question. And for whatever it's worth, at Innovation Works, I say we support social enterprises, whether they're nonprofits or for profits. Anything in between, don't care. The idea is we're trying to help organizations find better financial sustainability, which Means not being solely grant dependent. [00:31:13] Speaker C: Right. [00:31:14] Speaker A: And that is our mission to say, if you are a for profit, don't put all your eggs in one basket with that one client. Right. Or there may be other sources of other markets that you may be exploring. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Can you touch on those options? That'd be helpful. [00:31:30] Speaker A: So if you are a for profit, you have a tech company, right. And you think, I'm just going to sell a bunch of subscriptions to a bunch of individuals. That's a B2C model. There might be something in that model, right. That could give you a B2B play or B2G play. But if you're not thinking outside of the box and looking across your value chain to say, where am I creating value for a different audience along the way? Most folks aren't trained to see their business model in that way. We have to help them unlock that and say, hey, you have so much knowledge asset here. There may be opportunities to package as a training environment so that you can actually go figure out a way to diversify your revenue that's on a for profit side. And a lot of folks who start businesses on a for profit just still need that education. Right? Same thing on a non profit side. Most folks, oh, I started nonprofit. I rely on grants and they get smacked in the face in a couple of times. People are like, okay, Jay shows up like, let's think about how you can diversify your revenue or at least your sources of revenue. Right. You're serving young kids in a school system and you're trying to sell to their parents who already don't have a lot of money. Mm. Is there a foundation that sees that this is not just a grant to you, but they see a value in that product you're creating to say, is there an opportunity here where they're sponsoring a certain number of this thing, not just feeding your general operating? Right. It's the same money is looked at it a different way, Right. [00:32:51] Speaker C: A push versus a pull. [00:32:52] Speaker A: Right? Right. [00:32:52] Speaker C: A pull would be to take it to the consumer. [00:32:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:54] Speaker C: A push would be to give it to the founder. Right? [00:32:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Or you say, hey, the school system does do a bunch of contracts with after school service providers, Right. Is there a value fit there where we see this as earned revenue because you only earn and that's a four. As a nonprofit, you can do that, Right. Is there a way to expand this model outside of our market to increase our revenue opportunity? So those are things that we're pushing on every single day? I will say it is not the easiest thing. Folks Go through our six month accelerator program or our five day training program, they come out with all these brilliant ideas and you can't really test it because you need a new set of capital to test a new idea while maintaining the thing you've built so you don't destroy it along the way. And there's no philanthropy organization that's going to say, hey, let's go help you invest in a new thing that may gift you off of our dependency on this side because they're so used to funding this thing. Most foundations aren't saying, let me give you new money to explore the new thing that may make you less dependent on me. So think about the incentive system coming from that structure. Right. Right. And I love my foundation friends, but it's the push and pull about how do we like use philanthropic capital to also inspire innovation. [00:34:04] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:05] Speaker A: As opposed to saying, we'll just keep doing this, good luck figuring this out on your own. Right. Yeah. I'll give you this one last example. Over the last number of years, I think there was a movement to convince non profits to pursue government resources as a source of capital. And some did it and overdid it. And this year, huge pain coming out of that. [00:34:30] Speaker C: Sure. [00:34:30] Speaker A: With things being slashed left and right, you have a lot of nonprofits who have to go reimagine who they are, who they want to be moving forward. And a lot of times it wasn't. They were pushed in that direction by their boards. Right, right. [00:34:42] Speaker C: Because. Because B2G in that moment seemed like this never ending. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Right. [00:34:46] Speaker C: This never ending flow of, of, of resour. Which is really just payment for services. Right, Right. [00:34:53] Speaker A: We're struggling with that as our own. We are a nonprofit. The fund is a nonprofit loan fund. Ignite Capital Innovation Works is a loan fund. And there's a reason for that. On a loan fund side. Most of the folks we're lending to, they don't have the greatest profit margins to be paying me 12% interest. So we keep our lending at 6% to help them build their business sustainably. Right. There is not enough I can charge them to have a model that's relying solely on fees like banks do. Right. So for that reason, I have to find a way to blend. So I borrow money from investors and I blend it with a small portion of grants to make it work for the sake of the mission. Right. But it's mostly lending capital blended with some philanthropy to make the math work for the mission that we want, want to do. [00:35:43] Speaker B: So let, let's. I want to hold here because I'm curious what your J. Like, you're not. I don't even want to say day to day. Like your major responsibilities. Is it finding those capital sources? Like what is. I'm say your top, you know, one to three things that you are responsible for every day. What are those things? [00:36:03] Speaker C: And. And the mission fails without you executing. [00:36:08] Speaker A: I. My team might be. Might be scared for him to hear this part. [00:36:12] Speaker C: You know, we don't put this out on YouTube or anything. Yeah. No one people say I hope I'm okay to share. That said. Well, you just did share this enough. [00:36:23] Speaker A: It's fine. One is resourcing. Right. So the unique challenge for us, I have to raise money for two organizations. One is a fund investment fund that has some grants baked into it, but it's mostly borrowing money to that we pay back to investors at some point. The other side is all grant funded now we have some contracts in there, some earned revenue stuff in there where we actually use our knowledge assets and our training assets to deploy resources and we get paid for it. But we also have to do that in a way that is careful that we don't blow up our team because there's a lot of need. And I'm very mindful about us not watering down our value proposition to who we serve because we're chasing money. Right. We've built a significant amount of trust with entrepreneurs we serve that I wouldn't want to take on things that violates that trust with them simply because we needed to make money. So there's a lot of care there as well. So keeping the lights on on both sides of the house is very important. Beyond that, I think working across the ecosystem to just help strengthen this infrastructure around how we support small businesses. Social entrepreneurs in Baltimore is incredibly important because we are only one part of the system. But that system needs to work well with each other to make sure that the entrepreneurs that we are all supporting collectively don't feel crazy in this ecosystem of resources that's been organized for them. What is a seamless way to say why am I doing this accelerator versus that accelerator? If I need to borrow money, where do I start? Versus going to 10 different sources and hearing no from everyone because I wasn't sure who the right am I going to the cdfi? Am I going to the bank? Am I going to the foundation? Am I going to the impact investment fund? Like, how do we better organize the ecosystem? So a lot of conversations with peers around what that looks like. And then there's the internal like about we are still a Relatively young organization. Ignite capital is 5 years old. Innovation works is 8 years old. [00:38:21] Speaker B: Super young. [00:38:22] Speaker C: Yeah, super young. [00:38:23] Speaker A: So culture maturing team members, succession planning, doing the work itself, like continue to listen to the folks we serve, to continue to adapt our systems to meet their needs and not remain stale. That's a lot of the stuff that comes beyond the outside work. So, you know, it's like two startups at the same time, right? Yeah. [00:38:47] Speaker B: I'm trying to wrap my head around this because I'm like, for Mick and I, for instance, like you said, keeping the lights on, like, we're concerned about keeping the lights on for our company and our internal employees. However many we have for you, it's keeping the lights on for your internal team plus 200 other companies that you support. Like, that's, that's a massive responsibility. I mean, that's, I'm just, I'm, I'm like, gosh, that's, that's a huge burden. [00:39:14] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I mean, we have a co investor model, so we lend money, but we never, we don't be the only ones. Long term, the goal is to help mature. We are usually going to be the first check that the people we invest in see, but we cannot, we're not going to be the last. [00:39:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:39:28] Speaker A: We don't want to be the last. Right. Yeah. The goal is to get them entering a financial system and eventually maturing them to a bank. [00:39:35] Speaker B: Okay, I understand. [00:39:35] Speaker A: Or venture fund. Right, right. Which means we have to bring those folks along the journey earlier. So when it's time to do the handoff is not some cold handoff. So my team spends a lot of time if I'm talking to a donor or an investor. If they say, jay, you're not the right person for the way my money is. I prefer to put my money into an early childhood education thing. That's my passion. Not you, the intermediary that's supporting them. Perfect. Rolodex. Who are the top five early childhood education folks in our system that I can talk about right now? [00:40:07] Speaker B: Now, are you injecting that money always on the beginning, like of a startup or could it be at any phase? It could be an eight year old. Okay. [00:40:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, any phase. Right. I mean, there are some folks who've done business for 10, 15 years, never borrowed money a day in their life. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:40:22] Speaker A: But it's time for them to like grow. [00:40:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:25] Speaker A: And they need that infusion at that. [00:40:26] Speaker B: Got it. Okay. [00:40:28] Speaker C: Tell us about your team, avol. How big is your team and what are their skill sets? Or what are their superpowers look like? Because we've touched on a lot of things. I mean, I'm having an. You know, I have a million questions. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:37] Speaker C: An epiphany over here. About what? Because what I learned when I. When we do these. These interviews is how little I know about certain things. And this is one of those big. [00:40:45] Speaker B: Moments about our community that, like, we love. [00:40:48] Speaker C: All this is going on right underneath our nose. And thank you for coming in and awakening us. So what does your team look like? What are their superpowers? How big? Maybe give us a quickie org chart look about who does what to whom to keep all of this. This flowing and the lights on. [00:41:02] Speaker A: As you said, without feeling like feeling a trauma in the moment of how underwater we are. I have a leadership team. Team. There's essentially one leader per key area of the organization, right? Six people. Hr, ops, finance, all one person, right. For both sides of the house. Right. [00:41:21] Speaker C: Person's busy person. [00:41:24] Speaker A: We have a systems person, so database CRM to manage this network of. So there's a 200 entrepreneurs, roughly. And we also have a database or network of about 100 mentors and advisors who pro bono volunteer their time to work with the entrepreneurs. Is there executives, retirees, they're actively running businesses. So there's a lot of matchmaking that happens. Right? So there's systems. We have like a internal LinkedIn system where they all have profiles, they can talk to each other and all types of stuff. And then there's a. Another database that we have to manage all that stuff. There's one person. [00:41:54] Speaker C: Is that internal proprietary that you built out on your own or. [00:41:56] Speaker A: We licensed it from an international firm. [00:41:58] Speaker C: Okay, got it, got it. [00:42:00] Speaker A: So there's that person. There's our fundraising person. One director, fundraising, just me and him. That's it. And then we have a marketing and events person to a lot of events because we're about community building. So she does all the events and like, just like customer experience plus all the external stuff. One person who runs the fund in partnership with me. So our director of lending and portfolio operations is the other person. And then our director of programs, who I feel bad for, because when I say we have a neighborhood strategy, we have this bit about helping them, like, attract more revenue for the entrepreneurs. All of our programs, the accelerator, he runs all of that. So he has a team of six. Entire organization, about 15. [00:42:49] Speaker C: Okay, that's helpful. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:52] Speaker C: Can you give us a. And if you can't name names, if you can do it more as a case study, could you give us an example because it helps me to frame it around a specific journey. Is there a company that you engage with early on and can you. And. And can be any level of success. But give us an actual case study of a story where, you know, Mick came to me and he had an idea was a product, it was a service. And then we. And then we. And then we. Can you walk us through that? [00:43:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I try not to pick favorites, but I have to. [00:43:22] Speaker C: That's why I said you could leave names out. [00:43:24] Speaker A: No, it's all right. I'll stop winning, Kenji, because I just drove past 4 shop on my way here this morning. So in Kenjay, when we met her, she had been running her business about 15 years. Early childhood education center. She basically had a. The east side version of a row home. So houses that were smaller but connected to each other somehow in the Franklin. No Harford Road corridor. One of those off streets there. And that building where she worked with a small team of like four or five, including her mother, supported about 20 something children. So like really wraparound services though, not like you come drop your kid off a daycare. Like family members were getting served while kids were getting served and you know, the adult kids will come after school to hang out while the parents were still coming home from work just to make sure they stayed up a little later. It was a bunch of things around family centered early childhood education. She is of Baltimore, loves Baltimore. Like this is her life. When we met her, she knew she had bigger ambitions. So she did our first boost program, which is the. It was three days then, now it's five days. And she came out of that with a mentor sitting next to her the entire time for three days. You know what? Yeah, I always knew I wanted to do something bigger. I want like one of these in like 20 different neighborhoods across Baltimore. And I'm like, you have one right now. She was like, all right, cool. So we then had her do our accelerator a couple of months later. They say, before you go blow up the thing you've built, let's spend six months in a lab essentially with two mentors assigned to you for you for six months to really think about what it would take to get 20 of these in. Every single neighborhood goes through a six month process which include a lot of like geo mapping of neighborhoods based on key indicators about where the best customers would be and all that stuff. It was a lot of work planning happening. She came out of that six months saying, yeah, no, there's no way I'm doing 28s I don't have enough energy to replicate this would require so much of me. We said, okay. Laba would just grow into one larger one. You could have two locations in the same neighborhood not too far from each other. So you can at least get back and forth very easily as a way of testing it out. She said, great. By the time we got done with that process, she shut down the first one and simply went to the larger one. So now she has a 90 capacity center. [00:45:45] Speaker C: Wow. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Where she's now using as a way to like build a larger team, serve more people. Really think about documenting operations in a different way. And she's been doing that now for. So we, we invested in that business in 2020, 2019, hoping she would open that building up that year. And then Covid hit a couple of months later and she didn't open that building for a while. Right. We design our capital to be really patient and flexible. So we were able to like put her loan payments on hold for a while because there was no business happening. Cost of doing things went up. She had to build like a playground in the backyard to get her certification and all types of stuff. Well, she's a hustler. She got it done. She's been running that site now for a while. She's doing great. She's a thought leader in this space across the state. And what she really wants to do now is help do more of a licensing model because she recognizes there's so many people like her in Baltimore running these small centers. If she can simply help them understand what it takes to just make them a little bit better, she doesn't have to be the one to do it. [00:46:45] Speaker C: Right. Sure. [00:46:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:46] Speaker C: Give them that playbook. She's just giving a playbook. [00:46:48] Speaker A: So right now we're in the process of trying to figure out how to like develop this playbook and a licensing model to allow more of her to be able to do things she's been able to do, I think in the state of Maryland for like the interstate level certifications. There's a certification. Level 5 is the highest you can get. She's in a process of securing a level five. Wow. Which would make her one of the only few in the state. [00:47:07] Speaker C: And. And what does that come. Because we love to give shout outs. Right. What is that. What is that organization called? [00:47:11] Speaker A: Learning How. [00:47:12] Speaker C: Learning How. [00:47:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:13] Speaker C: Okay. And Kenjay is the Kenji. [00:47:15] Speaker A: Yes. Yep. Right off of Erdman and where Catholic High school is. [00:47:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:47:20] Speaker A: Shopping center right across the street. She's the building right in there. In the Shopping center. [00:47:24] Speaker C: That's right where you started your business. [00:47:25] Speaker B: It is. [00:47:25] Speaker C: That's where Brooke came from for, for early years. [00:47:28] Speaker A: Okay, there you go. Yeah, so that's where she is. But I mean she represents the spirit of so many entrepreneurs in this city who not only have ambition but also care for like other people around them. Right. But I think when we give them the space to really think and be thoughtful about how what they want to grow and then give them the right resources to do it, we can, we can unlock a lot from folks. [00:47:51] Speaker C: Yeah. You take that kind of energy and passion and then mix it with some know how. [00:47:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:55] Speaker C: And some capability and look out. Is there a certain profile that you look for? So we, you know, we've got a good friend and I'm sure you know him, Jeff Cherry, Conscious Venture Lab. Right. Which, and again ignorantly, I don't know if your models are similar or not similar, but is there a certain profile that you look a service versus a product. Like, you know, I'll, I'll talk to Jeff at times about, he'll be supporting someone bringing a product to market versus a service. Is there a certain profile that you find to be a sweet spot or your team is more capable of incubating than another? [00:48:21] Speaker A: Yeah, we're a blend. And the reason why I said is because our mentor network is so diverse. They're product people, they're service people, they're all in there. So as long as we have that group diverse, we can support entrepreneurs that are much more diverse. I would like if you came from the EDS and meds, I can't help you. Like that's just not. We don't do like biomedical products. We don't do anything like that. Right. But you know, on the product side, we invested in Wild Bay, Kombucha, Yerba Mate. They're probably going to do three, four million dollars in business this year. It's weird to me that up until recently they couldn't find investment anywhere after already doing $2 million in business. That, that was mind blowing to me. Right. We were able to help them organize a half a million dollar raise where we seeded it and got one of our mentors who just had means to just do the other 350 and just close the deal, done with it and move on. I mean he has big ambitions. Right. So we want a balance of scalable enterprises because for us, Baltimore's growth is dependent on creating jobs that are sustainable long term. Like when we see growth type oriented things, we get excited because of the opportunity that brings for Us, but we also have to make sure that, like, the jobs they're creating are meaningful jobs that we can rely on for a while. Right, right. So I get excited about the product folks, especially because of the scalability of products beyond the market. [00:49:40] Speaker C: Sure. [00:49:41] Speaker A: And then we have like our Main street folks who just need to have a healthy community. Right. Our neighborhoods need to have function in economies. So if you're going to go open up a brick and mortar on West North Avenue and be a staple in that community, sign me up. I'm just as excited because I think we need all of it. Right? [00:49:58] Speaker C: Yeah, go ahead. Because I've been dominating the queue here. [00:50:03] Speaker B: So you were talking about loving when companies stick with you and you have this like long lasting relationship, what does that entail? Like, is it constant mentorship? Like, what, what is, what does that continue relationship entail? [00:50:18] Speaker A: Yeah. The way I describe it for folks is that we have entrepreneurs that are in our network. And when you're in our network, it means that we are available to you when you need us. All of our solutions don't have to be available to you at every single moment. In an ideal world, you have a mentor that you've been assigned to and that's the person who you pick up the phone and call whenever you need them. If you need my staff or something that's different, you can call us and say, hey, do you know this person you can connect us to? My staff can do that. Oh, I need somebody look at my spreadsheet to make sure, like my model still makes sense. We connect you to a mentor for that. Right. So I think it depends on what they need at the moment. So there's a lot of this bespoke responses that go on and on. But if you do a program with us, we have a 30, we have a space in a harbor, the same building as the center club. It's one floor of a building with 30 businesses. It's an incubator. And the idea is we'll bring mentors in, we'll bring the resources in here. So you guys just show up to this space and that's for 18 months and we rotate to another group. Right. So that's there. There are neighborhood efforts where we have staff members going into neighborhoods to say, hey, these pictures of neighborhoods we've partnered with, we got to walk the streets and talk to them one on one because they can't leave their shop. Their relationship just looks different depending on where they are, what they need. But the idea, the promise is that if you remain in a Network. As long as your needs, your needs evolve, we will try to like grow with you. [00:51:49] Speaker B: It might be a stupid question, but is this like, is there like a subscription model to that? [00:51:54] Speaker A: No. Speaking of earned revenue, we've been thinking about, we've gone down that road. We just held off on it for a while. Right. It's just like there have been enough barriers in the traditionally organized ecosystems for entrepreneur support that we need to be able to just start with building trust based relationships with folks and sometimes just removing those things. Like we have to demonstrate our value first before I start asking you for something. [00:52:21] Speaker C: So as simple as you have a rent bill, right. Or maybe someone helps, you know, helps the organization and provides this space rent free. But that's something you're picking up. I mean, talk about valuable. A space where you can come and collaborate and have a suite of services available to you, whereas I need. There's experts down every hall for you in that spot. [00:52:40] Speaker A: So speaking of partnerships, again, we try to keep our costs controlled as well. The space was owned by Baker Donaldson, the law firm. They gifted it to us, essentially. [00:52:48] Speaker C: Perfect. Yeah. That good. That's. What a great answer. [00:52:51] Speaker A: And then JP Morgan give us a grant to hire the staff to manage that space specifically. That's the partnership, right? [00:52:58] Speaker C: Yeah. Wonderful. [00:52:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:52:59] Speaker B: And you are finding those partnerships. [00:53:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How do we grow our mission through partnerships so that everything doesn't have to be another like general operating grant. Right, right. [00:53:10] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. [00:53:12] Speaker A: Is the mustard that we're trying to exercise. Right. We have another partnership on the west side of Baltimore where it's like, all right, we're going to lend to businesses in this neighborhood. We have our fund. How do we attract other resources that went to the state? And we said, can you give us a small pool, J.P. morgan, give us another small pool. The more we can do with partners, the better. That's where the collaboration piece comes in. I've seen enough economic cycles to know that we shouldn't be growing a non profit sake of growing a non profit because eventually all comes crashing at some point. So grow it judiciously to do the work of the day. [00:53:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And make it and make itself sustainable. Right. Where there's so many talk about the city aspect, the government. You've mentioned the state, you've mentioned the city. It's most of what we talked about so far is what you, your team, other nonprofits in and around the space, the collaboration of those nonprofits. What does the cooperation and collaboration look like at the city level, the state level? Right. I mean, here city leaders talk about the needs for everything you're talking about, but. But historically, they come up short in the delivery of that. How do you. How is it so on the ground, as a person that's doing this day in and day out, what does it actually look like from a support, research or resources priority? That's a big one, right? The priority. What does it actually look like? [00:54:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I will say this. I don't envy the governor or the mayor. I mean, like, I couldn't do that job. Like, the demands on what all the things need to focus on on any given day is so much the way I've dissected the system is saying that the state and the city both have sub infrastructures that they've set up to help meet the mission of the day. Instead of looking at the mayor's desk, I need to look at the things that they've already set up to do the job and start there with partnership and collaboration at the city level. From an economic development standpoint, I have my eyes on Baltimore Development Corporation. Otis is now leading it and saying what is their role as a quasi economic development agents for the city? That is where most of my attention sits. And then we got the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund and Mark. And what are you doing over here to make sure we get capital out to build infrastructure projects in the city. When I look at those two places, I'm like, I see the good things that are happening. Are they talking to each other? Oh, yeah. Right. GBC is doing their thing. BDC is doing their thing. You know, everybody has their mandate. [00:55:33] Speaker C: Yep. [00:55:34] Speaker A: And the mandates are clear enough. We can hold them accountable. Accountable. Right, Right. [00:55:38] Speaker C: But also then doesn't subject. Because we talked about fragmentation. Right. When you. When you immediately throw out three different organizations. So if that mandate isn't clear, then you risk overlap redundancy. And then you have this fragmentation where nothing gets done. [00:55:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:55:52] Speaker C: Does it is it. [00:55:53] Speaker A: It feels that way. [00:55:54] Speaker C: It does. [00:55:54] Speaker A: It does. Absolutely. And I. I will say this. And you know, my friends in the mayor's office know that I've said this to them as well. Right. I don't know that Baltimore for a long time has had one economic development agenda that we can all rally around. [00:56:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:12] Speaker A: Now, three, four years ago, I was part of the group that helped like with BDC organize this. Like every five years, you got to file a document to the EDA to. [00:56:22] Speaker C: Say, this is the EDA is economic development agency. [00:56:25] Speaker A: Understood to say, as a municipality, this is our plan for growth for the next five Years. Right. It has to happen. In the past, how it happens has been very different. Sometimes it's just the team putting it together. This time around it was like a citywide effort to help inform this and give Colin a lot of credit for going down that road. But BDC files it with the ada. That doesn't necessarily mean that GBC is buying to the same plan or someone else is buying to the same plan. It's just that they had a responsibility to do this thing on behalf of the city and the mayor signs off on it. GBC's responsibility primarily for a long time was to the corporate community and their needs. So it's not the same audience. Right, right. So again they're responding to. And I studied the board, like who are the boards of any of these things? And therefore where is a signal coming from about their directions? You would need a really, really strong handed, powerful mayor to like pull on together. Right. I don't think Baltimore has been that from my observation. [00:57:27] Speaker C: Right. No, we totally agree. I think the thing that's frustrating what, what you, what you just said was there for whatever reason, there's been this inability to get this done over a long period of time, which I find frustrating. And certainly the mayors are different individually, but it's not like we see in Washington where is this pendulum swing back between parties. Right. And, and, and, and one just completely dismantling. They spend two years dismantling the last four years. Right. That's what goes level. Baltimore, on the other hand, has had a rather, I feel similar trajectory of wants, desires. That's the way its constituents vote. You know, if you look at the voting, which, which is frustrating to me in that somehow with what would seem like a similar. And the individuals change. I get it. But, but to me the, the messaging is similar. [00:58:15] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:15] Speaker C: We have this, we wanted the same thing for a long time, but have yet to actually execute around it in a way that gets anything done of any consequence. [00:58:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:24] Speaker C: Do you agree with that? [00:58:25] Speaker A: I don't necessarily know that I agree with that and that's because I'm an optimist by nature and maybe blame this on the organizational psychology background. I'm watching small wins along the way. [00:58:37] Speaker C: Sure. [00:58:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:38] Speaker C: And we don't see that. You're right. So thank you. [00:58:41] Speaker A: I see a generational shift in leadership across the entire city. What that means is there's a cultural shift that's coming with that and it's going to take years to be able to even see what that's going to lead, lead us. Right. A Big shift to gbc, a big shift to bdc. A big shift at what? Other agencies like EAGB and BG and GBC coming together to merge. Because it was like, why do you have two of these? [00:59:03] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, that one. Yeah, we would. Yeah. As city dwellers and we were. We would look at that and go, wow. [00:59:09] Speaker A: What are you talking about? [00:59:10] Speaker C: Well, you have this side of the street and you have that side of the street. Yeah, yeah. [00:59:12] Speaker A: So how you see a lot of these, like, fragmentations in the past, and things are slightly organizing and then new leaders are coming in and they now have these explicit visions that we can hold them accountable to. I'm watching those small mile markers. It's like, this is a generation of things that we got to solve for, not like an overnight thing. Right. I think so right now, obviously, in every opportunity we hear from our mayor and his team, we're going to hear about, like, the reduction in violence. Right. That is one big KPI. [00:59:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Right. I mean, and that's really important because as somebody who has to go raise money from outside of Baltimore and help entrepreneurs who are also raising money from outside of Baltimore, you can't imagine what the new cycle of Baltimore over the last five years has done to our ability to bring resource into the city. [01:00:00] Speaker C: We can, because we we spent a lot of time until we had. [01:00:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:02] Speaker C: And so we had a daughter recently traveling and whether. I mean, it would be as simple as an Uber ride. Where are you from? Right. The first day. Where are you from? Baltimore. I'm sorry. Why are you sorry? Because the wire was written 20 years ago. [01:00:14] Speaker A: Forget the individual sentiments. Yeah, well, people pushing resources from large foundations and they're like, wait, you've had how many mayors in five years? [01:00:22] Speaker C: Right? Sure. [01:00:23] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Like, we can't put our money in a place that we don't feel like it's going to be sustained. [01:00:28] Speaker C: That's right. [01:00:28] Speaker A: Because. [01:00:28] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. Because it's unstable. Right. There's a stability issue. [01:00:31] Speaker A: But that is shifting. I'm on a conference circuit right now. The fall was the big season. I just came from Chicago and Calgary from last week. And I will tell you, people are hearing like, oh, Baltimore heard, like, things are turning around. It's shifting. For me, that is a signal that I'm looking for. [01:00:46] Speaker B: So as an optimist, I mean, let's talk about those. I mean, you're talking about like a cultural or shift. But what are those wins that you're seeing that somewhat like Mick and I aren't seeing? Because the average show, at least there's. [01:00:58] Speaker C: A marketing problem because. Because that is not getting out to us. Right. The messaging isn't as strong externally as it could be someone who's right here and can't hear it. [01:01:06] Speaker A: So there's a. A lot has happened in the philanthropic community around the philanthropic community coming together to talk to each other over the last number of years. Covid was a big part of, like, forcing partnerships. [01:01:17] Speaker C: Yes. Survival mandated it, Right? [01:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's happening. [01:01:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:01:21] Speaker A: And it's still happening. And we have to give credit to that. Right. The entrepreneur ecosystem is definitely far better organized. There are a couple of, like, bodies that are formed to help us all get around the same page, at least talk to each other. The base network that's housed at bdc, forced by Covid, is the leaders of all the different entrepreneur support organizations in the city that have been meaning monthly since 2020 and still happening. It's not weekly since 2020. [01:01:45] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [01:01:47] Speaker A: It's a zoom call every single week where these folks come on. A call to talk about what we're seeing, what you're seeing, what you're seeing, and how we can be innovating that. That's happening. When I watch GBC roll out their agenda, very ambitious agenda. I'm like, at least I know what the agenda is. I can hold you accountable to for the longest time. I know what GBC did. Right, Otis, at bdc, like, I posted like seven jobs recently, and I can go into every single job description. I'm like, oh, wow, I know what your vision is based on a job description. Before then, I don't even know, like, what the thing is. There's a lot more clarity and visibility that I think we have to celebrate in a moment. It will take time to turn the tide on the economic development side, and I think the alignment of resources is going to be a big part of that. And I do see a lot more collaboration across all these different leaders than I've seen in the past. Because it was kind of laughable in the past when folks just weren't talking to each other. [01:02:46] Speaker C: Okay, put your mic a little closer too, because you're saying some great stuff. I want to make sure we don't miss anything. [01:02:50] Speaker A: Got it. [01:02:51] Speaker C: Huh. [01:02:51] Speaker A: Interesting. [01:02:52] Speaker C: Boy again, I'm still over here just drowning in the 10,000 questions. [01:02:55] Speaker B: I. I know. [01:02:57] Speaker C: Do you feel like so a lot of. A lot of successful people out of Baltimore and. And we know any number of the foundations. [01:03:06] Speaker A: Do you. [01:03:06] Speaker C: Would you say that the support and optimism from those organizations is the same or better than has been historically there's been a lot of people, right, a lot of great foundations that have invested in Baltimore through some really, really tough times. Right. I mean, they have not lost the fight, they have not turned their back on the cause. Do you sense the same type of commitment that there's been historically? Better, more flow. I think we spent a lot of time talking about the promise of Baltimore, the potential of Baltimore. You know, when I'll travel, we'll go to Nashville and I'll say Nashville has nothing on Fell's Point, right? I mean the water, nothing. It's that messaging. They don't have 65 non stop flights from Southwest every day coming into their city. Yet we fail to leverage. So how would you say, what does that look like in that level where you have a lot of the big dollar donors that are still very committed to Baltimore, The Under Armours, for example, what's the temperature of that part of the ecosphere? [01:04:04] Speaker A: All right, I'll say this so if I don't get in trouble saying this. [01:04:06] Speaker C: I know, and I'm trying not to put you in a difficult spot in asking that question. [01:04:11] Speaker A: Private philanthropy, let's start there. Like foundations that have websites, able foundation, go take a foundation and all these guys, I think for the longest time, like they have trustees and they have staff members. And when you have that infrastructure, it means that you tend to have a different type of relationship with the folks that you put your money into and therefore they are partners in the work and you hear from them directly. I think those folks are even like double down, like ambitious about what is. Because they've been in it for so long. I think they've had the opportunity to see so much more. I think where we have the deficit is the private non visible capital that picks and chooses when it plays. I think we have far more of that capital in Baltimore than we do from the private philanthropy. Private philanthropy, you can go look at their balance sheet and tell you how much assets they have. That's just what it is. I think we have far more sitting on the sidelines that are not being deployed. And those ones, the temperature swings on any given day, right. And these are our just individuals who are like, I've been pouring money into the city through my charitable donations for 40 years and I've not seen a lot. So I'm just going to stop or I retired and moved to Florida and my resources just went with me. I think there's a lot more to bring those folks back to the table. My fear is that in this moment, and I mean I Think we have one of the only moments I've seen in my almost 30 years in Baltimore or 25 years in Baltimore now, where it feels like everything's fully aligned. You have amazing leaders in place. You have big, ambitious plans in place. Whether perfect or imperfect, it's there. And it's going to require so much more fuel to make the big turns. Like, everybody's gonna do their part, Bramble's gonna do his part, and this person's gonna do their part here, and Wanada's gonna do their part in West Baltimore. But for us to see everything shift in the right direction together in a consolidated way, you're gonna need a lot more resources. And I don't know where that's gonna come from. People always talk about, oh, Detroit in the Renaissance. I'm like, okay, Detroit had one massive source of capital, and that was Dan Gilbert and his family. [01:06:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:29] Speaker A: It wasn't necessarily the city. The city went bankrupt. You had a company and a founder and his family who, like, amassed a bunch of fortune and decided they were going to go all in. And they were already invested in the ecosystem. They have a venture fund. They have a bunch of things for entrepreneurial development, and they decided to go big. And, I mean, I think a lot of folks will credit that to having one bold visionary who said, I'm going to rally everyone else and just take the first. And that's something we have not seen in Baltimore. [01:06:58] Speaker C: And one step further as having interviewed someone who was part of that organization along the way. The companies that Dan Gilbert bought mandated come back to Detroit. If you were in Massachusetts, not anymore. You were fit. Your first. Your first mission was to figure out how to get that building back in the greater Detroit area. [01:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And right now we are investing so much money in scalable companies in Baltimore that when they sell, we have no ability to retain them. They're gone. We have the reverse problem. There's no one saying, we have to force you back. We're just leaking them all the time. And they've taken all of our investments. And, I mean, people exit. You create a couple of millionaires along the way. That's great. But from a economic development standpoint, that's not necessarily a business model we should have, is to, like, let companies go once we've invested so much in them because we got a couple of exits. I don't know that's the right move either. [01:07:47] Speaker C: Yeah. And what I was. You were speaking of the Kombucha company, for example. Right. The beautiful thing about that, as a manufacturer, we touched in around the manufacturing piece. And, and certainly I'm passionate about it. But one of the reasons is from an infrastructure sustainability perspective, they're sticky. Right. You know, we, we also think we could pay a little more attention to what we invest in. I mean, can you snatch a cyber security company from Baltimore to Denver in 2 seconds? Literally 2 seconds? You can not nearly as sticky as the infrastructure that it takes to make things. And if you don't believe me, look at the organizations that have yet to move New Jersey despite very high taxes and any number of things that would seem to be a challenging business climate. It's still too expensive to move that pharmaceutical plant here. [01:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:28] Speaker C: So I think it's also, it's incumbent upon us as we look to. And this is not a movie, it is a manufacturing advertisement. Just the idea that if you're going to invest in that, do it in a way that it has some stickiness. Right. And you'd look to say, well, what do you actually have to do from a root perspective to grow here? How deep is your taproot? Do you look like an oak or do you look like a weed where you can be plucked out and move somewhere else where that company are either finishing the A round. We watch our friends from Ready Robotics go to Columbus, Ohio for example. Right. Any number. We watch our friends from Boston boards go to North Carolina. All out of the old foundry. Right. And that's, you know, a former incubator and. But easily plucked out. Right. And part of that too though is that our local investor infrastructure didn't see the value to keep it here. That's the other part. And that disconnect has got to be solved for or this will continue to happen over and over again. [01:09:20] Speaker A: I mean, our fund is not that big what we fashion. Ours is a place based impact investment fund. So the portion of our portfolio that is like a scalable tech company is like probably like 3% on purpose. I'm looking for folks who can stick around who are making a commitment to stick around. Like verbal commitment. Because they're from Baltimore, they love this place so much. They're not just gonna uproot themselves. [01:09:46] Speaker B: So why would that's. That was my question leading in. Like why would you stick around in Baltimore? And I have my reasons that I would. [01:09:52] Speaker A: But I think a lot of folks have their reasons too. Right. It's like Baltimore is part of their life, it is their story and they wanna fight for this place despite all of the headaches. To be honest with you. There are so many businesses who could just Pick up and literally move to the other side of the Baltimore county borderline today. [01:10:07] Speaker C: Sure. Or Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania. Right, yeah, sure. I mean, take it one click further. [01:10:11] Speaker A: Sure. I don't question their reasons. I want to incentivize it. Right. And we do that by thinking creatively about what they need at the next step and then the next step and then the next step. And I think a lot of our companies, we're just not doing that because we're, they're not, oh, scalable right away. We can't get an exit in five years. I'm like, forget the exit. We want them to be here for 50 years. In 100 years. Right, yeah. That's what we want. And you have to reorganize your investment infrastructure to incentivize a hundred year old company. Not chasing the next exit right away. Again, no shade to my venture friends. We need a balance of all of it. [01:10:44] Speaker C: Sure, yeah, of course. [01:10:45] Speaker A: But we just don't have enough. Absolutely. For the sticky ones. [01:10:48] Speaker B: For someone listening that wants to help. Who should they contact? What should they do? They're like, this call is meaningful and I want to get involved. [01:11:01] Speaker A: Call me. I mean, I go crazy with my phone number out there. But no, no, I mean, so here's the thing. I again, Baltimore is a home away from home for me at this point. I love this place and I really, really do mean like our organization's mission is my own mission. It is to help grow the local economy because I want my kids, when they grow up in Baltimore to say, Baltimore is a place I choose to stay. Not because, I mean, the beautiful thing about what me and my wife talk about is we give our children options. That is a legacy. Right. My parents may not have had all the options. They took the option that they had and took it. They gifted us options. We're going to gift our children options. If my child one day says, I want to move somewhere else, I'm not going to stop him. But I want him to consider staying. And the reasons that he will stay are the things that we're fighting for today. I think there are many people around Baltimore who understand just that same fight. We are a cog in the wheel and I'm happy to take calls or emails from anyone who wants to be alongside our mission or if it's like, Jay, I believe in the broader vision, but not necessarily your mission. Let's talk too. I'll send you to my friends, you can go talk to them. But I do think we need more hands on deck. And people do actually believe in the moment. Because I have enough conversation with people who are like, I'm just waiting and seeing. I'm like, you can. Time is only passing us by, though. [01:12:23] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think the great part about what you build structurally is there's lots of ways you contribute. [01:12:28] Speaker B: Right. [01:12:28] Speaker C: Let's just say you're super busy and you want to write a check. Right. You want to back the fund or you want to be a mentor. Right. Much more, you know, roll up your sleeves. The, you know, the dirtier aspect of it, you know, shoulder to shoulder with an entrepreneur, helping them through the process. And I think probably every click in between. Right. As. As in vested as you want to be financially or from a time capital perspective. [01:12:48] Speaker A: Absolutely. And even in the manufacturing space, there's so many different types of people manufacturing in Baltimore with different types of products at the moment. If you are in apothecary space, I don't know how many mentors that have been in that space that we have in Baltimore right now that can say, I've been in this line of business, particularly for your product. Let me help you figure out how to grow. For our food and beverage folks, we have a handful of folks we've been able to identify, but there are just so many unique types of ways that people can. Like even from a sector breakdown. [01:13:19] Speaker C: Sure. [01:13:19] Speaker A: Because the talent in Baltimore is that diverse and that impressive, and we need people to really step up to say, hey, I know your business well, because I've done it. [01:13:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:28] Speaker A: For sure. [01:13:29] Speaker B: This was super insightful, but I think the better word is inspiring. Like, I. We love this. This city, and I think a lot of people do. It's such, like, there's so much texture here. So thank you for sharing all this. And as we wrap, we always end with. Is there anything that you'd like to share? Final words or just anything valuable with everybody listening? Anything at all. [01:13:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, believe. [01:13:53] Speaker B: Put your spot on. [01:13:54] Speaker A: I mean, believe. Right. Believe. If you're sitting on the silence, believe and take a step, whether it's writing a chat, getting your hands dirty, or just simply, like, pay more attention to the good things. Right. And rewriting that narrative. [01:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:08] Speaker A: And looking for the small wins along the way to kind of help fill your heart back up. Like believe and jump in. That's. I mean, we just need more people to do that. And I'll take your call anytime. [01:14:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:14:16] Speaker B: Believe and jump in. [01:14:17] Speaker A: I love that. [01:14:18] Speaker B: Great way to end it. I don't think we could end it on a better note. [01:14:21] Speaker C: Well, Jay, thank you. I mean, I. It's such a, you know, commitment to get here and spend time with us and share your valuable knowledge and. And we will be backing and talking about it and push the message over. [01:14:30] Speaker A: We can appreciate it. Thank you all. [01:14:32] Speaker C: All right. Thank you. [01:14:32] Speaker A: All right. Welcome to Ace. Rodney talks for the superstars tonight. Tonight, incredible, credible.