Ambassador Development Group

Firm Headquarters: Outside of Houston, Texas

Date Founded: June 2017

www.adgimpact.com

This Page was Updated December 2019

Investment Approach

INVESTMENT THESIS

Our investment thesis is to help Christian business owners transition out of their business without losing their kingdom impact. Our goal is radically impact lives for Jesus through the businesses we operate. ADG’s wholistic focus is on People, Performance and Purpose, through our proprietary P3 process.

INVESTMENT OVERVIEW

ADG’s Kingdom Impact Fund acquires a controlling interest in lower middle market companies. We transition owner operated business to a next senior leader, develop culture driven performance, and/or reignite companies from growth plateaus. The businesses we purchase typically have annual revenues between $5–20 million, an EBITDA of at least $1M, are located in the US, and have been in existence for more than ten years. We “buy, hold and grow” so we can truly sustain our purpose and impact. Therefore we are placing permanent capital through an evergreen fund structure.

Investments to Date: Under 10

Focused Geographic Regions of Investment: 

• Is all of your activity in the US? Yes

• What countries outside of the US are you active in? N/A

Focused Industries of Investment:

• Manufacturing

• Data, Software and Technology

• Healthcare

• Construction and Engineering

• Consumer Services

Investment Example:

We Believe:  Mission driven businesses are uniquely positioned to impact the world and solve problems like nothing else can. Healthy, missional cultures drive superior performance. A long-term strategy is essential for sustained growth and impact. Christian business owners’ hunger for aligned capital. Therefore we tracking spiritual KPIs. We promote, measure, and assess the impact of missional activates. These include but are not limited to: Bible studies, prayer times, chaplaincy programs, financial literacy courses and sending employees to marriage conferences. To achieve missional impact, we are descriptive versus prescriptive with our CEOs. Business leaders who own the mission, bring the highest level of creativity, passion and can contextualize the solutions. Since inception in June 2017 the portfolio companies we have a 18.85% dollar weighted ROI (updated Q3 2019). We pay a preferred 8% annual distribution on a quarterly basis. And essentially have a “2 and 20” fee structure. 

Previous or Active Portfolio Companies:

Capital Raise Strategy

Total Assets Under Management: $7.2 Million

% of Capital from Top 3 Investors: 25-50%

Financial Reporting Frequency to Investors: Quarterly statements and annual valuations

Average Investment: Around $211,000. This is reflecting our lower minimum of $100k when we started. Our fund structure launched November 2019.

Minimum Amount: $500,000, but for $1M we offer legacy services to our investor families. 

Setup to accept charitable capital through the National Christian Foundation or other listing platforms? Yes

Leadership Team

• Cumulative Leadership Experience in Accredited Investing: 50+Years

Steve Casbon | Managing Partner

Steve’s primary role focuses on mission and vision: building operationally excellent companies that radically impact the lives of people. He leads all efforts to identify and recruit talented people to the ADG team. Steve’s career began with an electrical distributor. Through implementing operational efficiencies, he assisted in growing revenues by over 400%. By 24, he was promoted to president of the company. Subsequently, he has held key business development and management positions with companies in the small–medium sized business sectors. In 2001, he founded the corporate entertainment and hospitality company Concierge of Indianapolis. The company grew to serve national and international clientele. Recently, Steve served as National Director of Field Ministry. He also served on the management team at CBMC, which is a national ministry in the marketplace. At CBMC, Steve helped re-establish their national brand as well as implement a leadership development and training process. Both initiatives have been contributing factors to organizational expansion and the development of national leaders.

Ladell GrahaM | Managing Partner

Ladell oversees the due diligence, investment selection process as well as the ongoing systemic growth process of our investments at ADG. Ladell and the ADG Management Team work alongside the portfolio company management to build and maximize the performance, profitability and marketable value of our investments. Ladell rose to the top of Wall Street as a manager of a $10.2 billion investment fund, which was the second largest in the country at the time. He then moved to Houston and co-founded Smith, Graham & Company Investment Advisors, L.P. – a premier fixed-income management company with over $2.5 billion of assets. Ladell served as president and chief investment officer of the company. His clients included the who’s who of the nation’s top corporations and municipalities. Ladell has been featured in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, Black Enterprise Magazine, Pensions and Investments Magazine and on the NBC special, Succeeding Against the Odds. He has received numerous awards and honors, including being listed in Who’s Who Worldwide.

Jon Reed | Director of Portfolio Services

Jon applies broad experience, skills, and passions to lift the cultural and performance levels of the companies and individuals he serves. Jon leads the cultural assessment and developmental process of ADG’s pre and post-acquisition efforts. Working with company leadership, he helps identify key cultural and developmental needs and then advances strategies to drive performance improvement. This unique cultural focus provides significant value to the areas of due diligence, change management, strategic planning and people skills development. 

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Team and CULTURE

While not complete, one of the things investors have found helpful in the past is seeing how employees, customers have reviewed someone online. As of the date of completing this out …

• Glass Door Rating: Not available

• Facebook Review Rating: 5 Stars (1 Review)

Spiritual Integration and Impact:

Faith Driven Investing can span a wide range from high yield to concessionary returns that have a higher level of spiritual integration. Having clear expectations of this philosophy is key for the movement. Each investment is unique and you might want to select multiples but if you had to choose one quadrant that best fits your groups spiritual integration and financial performance targets … What would it be?

We are growing in our spiritual KPIs and missional activities being tracked, reported and monitored in our portfolio companies. For performance, I say market is fair. We have seen an 18.85% portfolio return dollar weighted year over year since January 2017 (updated number for Q3 2019).

Describe the Spiritual Integration Activities of the Fund:

• We track Spiritual KPIs in our portfolio companies. We promote, measure, and assess the impact of missional activates. These include but are not limited to: Bible studies, prayer times, chaplaincy programs, financial literacy courses and sending employees to marriage conferences. We are more descriptive versus prescriptive. We feel, Business leaders who own the mission, bring the highest level of creativity, passion and can contextualize the solutions.

Is Impact and Spiritual Integration Tracked?

• The tools that are most useful to this effort are 1) Marketplace Chaplains reporting and 2) the Denison Organizational Culture survey. The former provides specific but discrete information regarding missional engagements with employees and family. The latter provides overall cultural assessment to insure that the companies are attentive to the holistic health of the organization. Employees beliefs and assumptions are keenly reflective of that reality. ADG’s missional metrics and measuring methodologies continue to be refined. We are adding a third assessment of missional activities that will track and measure the physical, emotional, and spiritual activities that are designed to show caring and impact on employees, families and communities.

Are you partnered with any other organizations?

• Marketplace chaplains has been a partner since our first deal. Ron Blue Trust business services division helps in parts of our due diligence. ThreeTen Coalition and Christian Employers Alliance is a partner. Ron Blue Trust business services division helps in parts of our due diligence. ThreeTen Coalition is a partner. The Marketplace Ministry folks like C12, CBMC, Truth @ Work, Convene, etc. are friends in the movement.

A lot of Investing Conversations look at Social Impact related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Is there one of these that most resonates with your organization?

• #8 “Decent work and economic growth” followed closely by #9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure

If you’re wildly successful how will the world be different?

WHY The FAITH DRIVEN INVESTOR?

• Why are you compelled to be certified and a part of the Faith Driven Investor Group? We love the community, developing partnerships, and Kingdom centered group forming here.

• Does the leadership align with the Unifying Principles on Faith Driven Investor and agree to the Code of Conduct? Yes

• Who nominated you to be listed on the FDI site? William Norvell, Sovereigns Capital

AFFILIATIONS- Are you a part of any third party groups, affiliations that you would like to list here?

• CBMC

• Christian Employers Alliance

• ThreeTen Coalition

Learn More

• Key Contact Name: Ladell Graham

• Phone: 317.412.3834

• Email: lgraham@adgimpact.com

• Mailing Address: 9955 Crosspoint Blvd St. 200 Indianapolis, IN 46256

• www.linkedin.com/company/adgimpact

• www.facebook.com/adgimpact