Top 5 Lessons Students Learn Through the Beyond Angel Network at Cedarville University
Photo by Eliott Reyna on Unsplash
Recently, we were able to sit down with Dick Blanc to discuss how the Beyond Angel Network at Cedarville University is preparing future Faith Driven Investors and Entrepreneurs. Amanda Lawson captured their story below.
Would you be surprised to find out that some of Jesus’ disciples could’ve been as young as 13? So was I.
While we can’t completely confirm the exact age of the disciples, we know they were young. When you look at the responsibility Jesus gave them, it’s surprising to think about how modern society often neglects the insight and ideas of our youth due to their lack of experience on a resume.
Jesus saw power, potential, and passion in the young men and women that surrounded Him.
So, it shouldn’t be surprising that Christian universities across the country are taking Jesus’s discipleship model seriously—encouraging and enabling their students to participate in making world-changing decisions. Cedarville University is one of the newer schools to join this movement. Through the Beyond Angel Network, they are giving college undergraduates the power to influence major capital investment decisions and shape the real-world economy.
After talking with the students, faculty, and leaders of this program, these five life lessons continued to arise in our conversations.
Education that Empowers is Education that Endures
Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12
Cedarville’s VCAT (Venture Capital Analyst Team) members are chosen after a rigorous application process. The eight students who are chosen are tasked with engaging in a deep dive of due diligence practices to evaluate a variety of companies seeking funding from their angel network. After substantial research and evaluation of the company, student teams narrow the pool of applicant companies to the top four which present to angels at an annual pitch competition.
VCATs prepare lengthy executive summaries with their recommendations for the angels in preparation for the pitches. They maintain communication between the angels and the founders, serving as liaisons throughout the process. This hands-on experience not only gives students the practical skills of research and communication but empowers them to make recommendations to angels who are investing significant amounts of money based on the VCAT reports. The students become the experts and their wisdom results in lasting, real-world impact.
Community and Mentorship Make a Difference
The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. 2 Timothy 2:2
Scripture points to community as including peer and mentorship relationships. Beyond Angel Network does as well. The eight students on VCAT are divided into four separate two-person teams. Each team is intentionally paired to match an underclassman with a senior, therefore encouraging peer-to-peer work as well as a mentorship model within each partnership. Younger students learn from their senior partner and together, they are matched with an angel mentor from Beyond’s network, further extending the discipleship model.
The goal of this structure is to bring encouragement and wisdom from senior students and angels who are able to speak to their own experience and history as Christian investors learning to navigate different situations that arise in faith-driven investing. This model provides students with leadership experience (in their second year) and invaluable wisdom and encouragement as they venture into their own careers at the end of their tenure as a Beyond Angel Network VCAT.
You Have to Measure What Matters
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’s knees and said, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for men.” Luke 5:8-10
Beyond VCATs have to prepare summaries for angels, recommending for or against making an investment, so having quality financial analysis is a necessity. But financials are not the only important measurement. Beyond teaches students to evaluate companies on a set of qualitative and “soft” quantitative measures that they explain are rooted in the Great Commission and/or the Great Commandment.
This means that some measures are explicitly connected to the message of the gospel (gospel proclamation) while others more deeply emphasize the command to love God and others (action-driven). These may include how the company treats its employees, general conduct of the leadership, consistency across the words and actions of the company and its leadership, and/or if the company employs typically marginalized people. In this way, VCATs are trained to evaluate companies through both qualitative and quantitative, kingdom-focused, measurements.
Opportunities Exist to be Seized
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:37-38
Cedarville University recognized the opportunity to involve students in real-world financial analysis and participate in the growing global movement of angel investing networks. The founders of the Beyond Angel Network recognized an opportunity to engage students in this space and teach them to recognize and evaluate opportunities of their own.
While only four companies pitch at the annual event, that number is whittled down from twelve at the discretion of the student analysts. There is an abundance of funding-seeking ventures. The responsibility of the VCATs is to recognize the best ones and put those forward for funding. College students are the business leaders of the future, so training them in due diligence financial analysis and opportunity evaluation rooted in biblical principles is a crucial step toward developing a strong and successful entrepreneurial economy for years to come.
Money-Making Can Create Ministry Opportunity
Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. Acts 6:3-4
Everyone has unique and purposeful gifts and callings. Very few senior pastors could or should be financial analysts, arguably by design. But when there are investment dollars and entrepreneurial passions in the hands of Christians, sound biblical wisdom needs to be a part of the process. Beyond Angel Network provides that in every facet of its program: from assembling and developing VCAT students, to training them to recognize and evaluate important factors for investing, to offering recommendations to angels with humility and confidence.
In doing so, these students are participating in marketplace ministry, incorporating their faith-driven values with real-world situations. At the pitch competition, students lead the Question and Answer sessions, facilitate presentations, and get to see the early fruits of their labor. As Christian funders come together with Christian founders—built on the efforts of eight college students—the market begins to change and the message of the gospel is furthered in industries that pastors often struggle to reach. Showing these young leaders that their efforts are valuable and can affect change for the gospel and the glory of God in the business world empowers them to pursue the giftings and callings God has given them, regardless of their industry.
Taking Jesus’s model of discipleship and scripture encouraging young leaders, Cedarville’s Beyond Angel Network has, even in its infancy, developed a program that brings significant value to its students and angels for the sake of the gospel and the glory of God.
So, why would an undergraduate university engage their students in this kind of program? Because Jesus did.