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We are so excited about the abundance of opportunities we’re learning about outside of America. And today’s guest is going to tell us all about those specifically in Africa. Ndidi Nwuneli founded LEAP Africa—a leading nonprofit that provides social entrepreneurs, youth, and small scale business owners with leadership training and executive coaching services. 

She is also a co-founder of AACE Foods, a Nigerian food processor. Ndidi is a leading authority on social entrepreneurship and, in addition being named as one of the 20 Youngest Power African Women by Forbes, in 2004 she was bestowed with the national honor, Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) by the Nigerian President. 

All that to say, through her work in food and agriculture, and as a leadership development mentor, Ndidi is building economies in West Africa that you’ll want to hear about…

Useful Links:

The Role of Faith and Belief in Modern Africa

Rage for Change

20 Youngest Power Women in Africa

Social Innovation in Africa

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Ndidi Nwuneli: You know, seeing the face of Africa, the hungry child makes me angry and I believe we can change that narrative as Christians and as people of faith. And so that propels me. I started LEAP Africa because I was angry about the concept of leadership and the conviction that everybody could be a leader. And leadership is an act, not a position. And but a lot of people in positions of authority were rulers and not leaders. And that we had to change that message was something that propelled me to start an organization called LEAP that is now 18 years old and works in six African countries. So I think that anger stimulates an emotion that propels me to want to do something about it. And I think a lot of us are angry, but we just complain. We point fingers, but we feel powerless about actually effecting change.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. It is great to have you back. I’m here in the virtual office in studio with William Norvell. William, good morning.

William Norvell: It’s good to be here. Good to see you.

Henry Kaestner: And also, we’re going we’re going international today. We’re going all the way to Africa. We’ve gotten to know Ndidi over the course of the last several months as a number of different trusted contacts we have in Africa have pointed us to her and her very, very, very compelling, very widely viewed. Ted.com talk about what it looks like to be a Christian in Africa and boldly and courageously sharing her faith in her personal witness and testimony. And if you’re going on a run or if you’re sitting down to a family dinner and you’re looking to do a family devotional, this is something I highly recommend. It gives you just a really good sense of a woman’s story and her journey and just a glimpse into what it looks like to be a Christ-follower in Africa, in the marketplace. And so it’s a special treat for us to have you with us on the phone and on the podcast. And what I want to be able to do is we get started and hopefully Ndidi you be able to help me to do this as I want to be able to just paint the picture, if you will, the canvas of what Africa looks like. I think that as we start this podcast and someone’s listening in and they’ve got a picture in their mind about what Africa means, and for some people it means game parks and for some other people it means extreme poverty. And some of the people and maybe it means opportunity. It can mean a whole bunch of different things. But if I’m honest, as I thought about Faith Driven investments in Africa, I thought of the fair trade coffee deal. I thought of giving African farmers a fair wage and selling those wares in church. I had not thought of the dynamic and bustling economy and marketplace that have come to understand that Africa really is. And it wasn’t until I went to Kenya probably I guess it was 18 months ago and was just really just captivated by the energy of the marketplace in Nairobi. And I’d been to South Africa many times over the course of the last decade. But I thought that maybe that was just kind of a one off. But I was ashamed to have just had such a small view of the opportunity in the African marketplace. We had sovereigns had been focused on Southeast Asia and some of the other economies, but came to see just a really vibrant market, SAS companies, innovations in technology and medical devices and cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning. And it gave me just a completely different view of Africa. And as I started looking more and more into that, as we wanted to support the work of Faith Driven Entrepreneurs in Africa and Faith Driven Investing, we came to understand that there is a massive continent that most of us have missed. And the world is littered with the stories of people that have lost money in Africa or have been reading books like Dead Aid. And yet people, I think, in my estimation, haven’t really persevered to get the sense of the opportunity in Africa. Ndidi, I want to get your sense on this, but one of the things that’s really captivated me, too, is that during this time of pandemic gives us some time to reflect on economies and markets. That’s what we care about in the Faith Driven Investment world. And we’re looking at a time where seven of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya are seven of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world. So I think that maybe we’ve missed this a bit. One of the people that connected to Ndidi is Efoso Ojomo, who is the coauthor, along with Clayton Christensen of The Prosperity Paradox, in which he portrays a broader picture of opportunity in Africa, talking about the fact over the next 20 or 30 years, there will be more entrants into the marketplace, into the job market in Africa than India and China combined. So Africa is something altogether different than maybe what we had thought of. And as we think about where God might call us to steward his assets for his glories over the next 20 or 30 years, Africa probably needs to be a place we need to look at. And Ndidi how would you help us to think about the continent in which you live?

Ndidi Nwuneli: Thank you so much. And I’m just so excited of your passion and interest in the African continent. So just starting with the size of the African continent, it has a land area of thirty point three, seven million square kilometers. That means you can put the United States, China, India, Mexico, Peru, France, Spain and counting almost every country in Europe into Africa. And you still have space. So Africa is huge. And most maps that we’ve been conditioned to see from our childhood don’t represent a massive scale. So 80 percent of the world’s arable land is on the African continent. Africa also has one point two billion people and it’s projected to double by 2050. So when you think about the number of consumers on the African continent who wants to eat and have to eat at least three times the. They have to work clothes and shoes. I mean, this is a huge market and 70 percent of the population is under 35. So it’s a vibrant young market with lots of energy, talent and skills. Africa also exports much of the world’s natural resources metals. We all know about cocoa when you have a chocolate bar, 70 percent of the world’s chocolate is sourced in Africa. And we all love chocolate. But it’s not just commodities. It’s chemicals. It’s natural resources. It’s vibrant, vibrant ecosystem around mining. And also, when we think about the African continent, I often ask people, how many billion dollar companies do you think we have in Africa? And, you know, people say one or two. And a McKinsey study revealed that there were over 400 companies making billions of dollars. And so we often don’t realize that we have this many business. In fact, it’s four hundred and thirty eight businesses with over a billion dollars in annual sales. Some of obviously some of them have multiple billion dollars in sales. And this was in 2018. So I’d argue that today we even have a larger number. So the African continent for me is, you know, an emerging continent but has such diversity, 54 countries where we think about these 54 countries, their language, diversity, cultural diversity, but tremendous value. And the great thing about the continent is that it is dynamic. And with the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement, we are also starting to trade among ourselves. Historically, we’ve traded mostly with Europe, Asia and North America. But now there’s a lot more internal trade on the continent, which for me will not only grow the market, but ensure the competitiveness and the growth of the ecosystems and make us obviously less dependent on the rest of the world, which in my own view is actually positive because, you know, when a continent looks internally like Europe has done to improve the competitiveness of your products, your markets, but also see yourself as one entity which allows you to take on the world in a more cohesive manner.

Henry Kaestner: One thing I want to point out now, you and your husband have also gotten to know, know a tremendous amount about agriculture and food. And with 80 percent of the world’s arable land, Africa is not in a great spot to be able to actually to feed itself, but also to help feed the world. Some of the starvation we know about comes from what we hope to be a decreasing amount of strife that comes from military issues. So you know about that. And I want to talk about that to be clear. But there’s also a tremendous amount of innovation around telecom, some of the most creative and innovative companies in the world. And I mean, that’s not just the best in Africa coming out of Kenya, but the best in the world are coming out of Africa because of their advanced mobile communications technology, Safaricom and PASÓ, the ability to transact online and be able to have ewallets and fintech startups and telecommunications. All these things exist in Africa because of Africa’s ability to leapfrog traditional technology infrastructure. And I see that pace accelerating. And I think that that’s probably a new perspective for investors to look at as well. I want to go backwards a little bit and I want to hear about your story. Who are you? Where do you come from? You’ve got such a great story. And I alluded to that before when I was talking about this telecom talk that you’ve got out there. But tell us about who you are, where you grew up, what led you to the work that you’re doing today? And then, of course, what role faith played in all of this?

Ndidi Nwuneli: Yeah. So I am proudly Nigerian. I was born in Enugu forty five years ago. My mom is American and my dad is Nigerian. And they met at Cornell University and moved back to Nigeria in nineteen seventy four. I was born in nineteen seventy five. My parents were intellectuals. They actually did not believe in God actively actually discouraged us from going to church and it was actually university students on the campus where we lived who came to our house to invite us to church, where probably one of the few families that didn’t go to church on Sundays because we grew up in the southern part of Nigeria, southeastern parts where most people are Christian.

And so I turned 10 and my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said I wanted to be baptized. So all five of us, me and my four siblings got baptized on the same day. We actually got to pick out a godparents and we ended up going to church. And it was an amazing experience to get introduced to God as a young age and actually gave my life to Christ officially when I was 13 and, you know, answered the call to become a Christian, and what changed for me when I became a Christian is just a boldness and courage about my faith and a desire to live God’s way and to draw others to Christ. And I remember my classmates teasing me because, you know, during tests they would want to copy from my book. I’m sure many of you remember people saying, what was it? You know, I need the answer to this question. And I actually decided to give my life to Christ, started covering my paper so nobody could actually peek.

William Norvell: And that’s amazing.

Ndidi Nwuneli: It was actually really difficult because my sister had gotten the highest scores in the entire country two years before. And so we had been on strike for six months before this major national exam. And all the teachers pointed to my table and said she’s a local copy from her sister, got the highest scores in the whole country. And I had to cover my book. And I actually got threatened by people saying, you’re covering your book, keep your papers open so we can copy. And that boldness and courage to say, you know what, I’m a Christian, I’m sold out to God and even money, but then God will see me through. And whatever happens with this exam, it’s my name on it.

And so I think that boldness and courage came from really the Holy Spirit, and that has actually stayed with me throughout. I moved to the U.S. when I was 16. I went to a prep school called the Clarksons School and then went to the Wharton School of Leadership, Pennsylvania and Harvard Business School and worked at McKinsey and throughout my time in college was very active in the Christian fellowship and the gospel choir. And, you know, when I look back at working at McKinsey and actually starting a prayer group at the Chicago office of McKinsey, I can’t believe that I did that at 20 years old because, you know, America is not a country where people profess their faith very openly.

Henry Kaestner: Do they more so in Nigeria? Talk about that a little bit.

Ndidi Nwuneli: Well, the interesting thing about Nigeria is we’re 50 percent Muslim, 50 percent Christian. And most people, profess a faith, in fact, in our country on Fridays, people close early. They go home early because they’re Muslims. They have to pray. They have to go to mosque. In most meetings, you start off with a Christian and a Muslim prayer because you recognize that both faiths that coexisting and Christians go to church at least three times a week. And that’s why I gave that pep talk to me, because I felt that, you know, for a continent that professes such a strong faith in either Islam or Christianity, we should see that faith reflected in the way that we live. And so, anyway, we are very religious people and it’s a very big part of our lives. So it was quite unusual to grow up in a family that wasn’t religious. And that gave me a boldness and the courage for Christ, which I took into my workplace. And I can tell you that that faith has carried me through and allowed me and enabled me to make very, very bold steps in my life and to live with no regrets. And knowing that with every step being guided by God and that the Holy Spirit is my anchor and that God is my source. And I think that courage and boldness allows people of faith to dare to be different and to speak out with courage and to also take risks that many people view as unusual, knowing that you take this risk. But I always say I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. And that courage that with every path God has sent me and because he sent me, you equipped me and see me through allows me to do the things I do.

Henry Kaestner: So that’s encouraging. So you come over from Nigeria, it sounds like you’re slightly astounded by the fact that people aren’t more courageous or more open about their faith. We think as we live the United States, it’s a Christian nation. And so, of course, we’d be talking about our Christian faith. The fact that you are surprised coming in that you didn’t see more of that is challenging. One other thing. I want to introduce you to William here in a second, who’s my partner in all of these things. But one thing before I hand off to William, because I know he’s got some questions he wants to ask, is that there’s a part of you’re talking about your faith that also is interesting, a different dynamic in that you talk about hearing God’s voice through anger, which is also a different take. Tell us about that. To our listeners, that might seem counterintuitive. What was a part of your faith journey that allowed you to hear God’s voice through anger?

Ndidi Nwuneli: So I think humans are motivated by different things fear, love and anger. And even in the secular world, we recognize the power of emotions to propel action. And in my own life, it’s actually always been anger. I actually have. Ted talk called rage for change. So I was quite an angry child, meaning when I get angry about something, I do something about it. And what my faith has allowed me to do is to channel that anger into positive action for positive change. And actually there’s a place for righteous anger. Jesus was angry at the temple. So, you know, there’s definitely a place for righteous anger. And I think that’s what I have is really seeing inequity. I’m seeing, you know, injustice and being compelled to do something about it. In the agricultural landscape, Africa is naturally endowed for agricultural excellence. We have 60 percent of the world’s arable land. And yet when that’s important food, one out of every three children is stunted. I recognize that there’s a fundamental problem and it’s actually a management problem where you have fragmented ecosystems, you have. So what can we do about it? You know, seeing the face of Africa, the hungry child makes me angry. And I believe we can change that narrative as Christians and as people of faith. And so that propels me. I started LEAP Africa because I was angry about the concept of leadership and the conviction that everybody could be a leader. And leadership is an act, not a position, and that a lot of people in positions of authority were rulers and not leaders and that we had to change that message was something that propelled me to start an organization called LEAP that is now 18 years old and works in six African countries. So I think that anger stimulates an emotion that propels me to want to do something about it. And I think a lot of us are angry, but we just complain. We point fingers, but we feel powerless about actually effecting change.

William Norvell: Oh, I love that. I love that. This is William here. What an amazing encouragement, you know, that we got on here to talk about investing. But I just think you’re blessing people with your lived experience of the Holy Spirit and where God has taken you. And just thank you for doing that. I would love to hear about some of your investing experience you just talked about LEAP a little bit. Could you push into that a little bit for us? Tell us a little bit more about what LEAP is and then maybe Segway into its foods and what you’ve been able to do with that organization.

Thank you so much. So, for LEAP Africa, LEAP is actually a nonprofit organization that was created in 2002 to inspire, empower and equip a new generation of African leaders. And when we started, we worked one on one with young people between the ages of 18 and 30, equipping them with life and leadership skills to start change projects in their communities. Today, we work in six African countries and we actually teach teachers to do the right curriculum. And the focus now is 14 to 16 year olds because we believe we can reach that much younger and we equip them with leadership skills, ethics, entrepreneurship skills, employability skills. But we also help them become change agents. So we give them a little funding to start a change project in their community to improve the lives of others. And that’s how they build their leadership muscle. And I’m really proud of the team. I stepped out of VCT management in 2007. I sit on the board and the team continues to thrive and young people are just driving the growth and they are also people of faith, which makes me really proud. Now, in 2008, I started working in the food and agriculture landscape and really felt a leading by God to create a catalytic business that would prove that we could source locally process for the local market, address malnutrition and also displace imports. So my husband and I started ASW Foods, which is an agro processing company. We produce about 16 products that are currently sold in Nigeria and also exported and we sourced from about 10000 farmers. And what we’ve proven through switch is that we can produce high quality food that meets the needs of people. We also have retail products, but most of our business is sold to institutional buyers, companies like Unilever, flour mills, multinationals as well, that sourced products that use them as inputs for their own processing. And then we have products on the shelves and we supply to a lot of fast moving consumer goods companies the prevalence of dominos and all the fast food companies in our region. Many of the brands you will not be familiar with. So as Foods has been such a blessing and I’m really proud of the team and it’s also driven by a young Faith Driven Entrepreneurs who actively seek God’s face. In fact, they actually have a fast at the end of every year to hear what God is telling them. And I’m just so proud of that team. And then my day job is to help consulting where we’re building ecosystem solutions in the dairy sector, cassava seed systems, yam seed systems and creating businesses, commercializing research in the agricultural landscape and creating value. And I’m really proud of all the dynamic teams that I work with across these companies, it’s amazing.

William Norvell: Thank you for sharing that and I’m going to ask you to go a layer deeper on how to think about an investment in the ag and food space. I don’t think we’ve had too many people there. I, for one, am not very experienced there. I’ve seen some of those investments and I don’t really know how to think through them. What’s a proper return? You know, especially from the spiritual side, I assume you can employ a bunch of people and that’s amazing. Good work. But just maybe do you have a framework or, you know, how would our listeners of an agricultural deal comes across their plate to potentially invest in, whether it’s in the US or Africa or anywhere else? How would you think about that from the experience you’ve had?

Ndidi Nwuneli: So I think agriculture is such an amazing sector because it’s very diverse and also has quite a few intervention areas in our context. We talk about from farm to fork and everything in between from primary production to logistics and storage and processing, financial services, technology support all the way down to restaurants and chefs until it gets to your tummy. And so this food ecosystem is vibrant and it requires not only catalytic financing, but also patient capital. And in our context, catalytic financing is critical because you want to bet on innovation Henry talked about in Pessah and how it has transformed the East African landscape. And the same applies to so many technologies in the agriculture and food landscape that do enable leapfrogging. In particular, I would say if you’re coming into this sector, you first of all have to figure out what entry point you want to engage in and what value chain most excites you. There are so many opportunities in Africa, in Niger in particular. If you’re focused on an export led growth, then you’d be looking at cashew and sesame and cocoa and rubber as primary production. If you’re focused on food self-sufficiency, you’d be looking at poultry and dairy, yam and cassava and rice where you’re displacing imports. And then across each of those value chains, from seed production to fertilizer to mechanization, you see companies like John Deere playing in the African continent, Caterpillar, Dupont, Monsanto. I mean, they’re all in the inputs landscape. And we have the local equivalents on the African continent that are homegrown organizations. You also have technology providers like Hello Traktor, which was started to basically be the Uber of tractor and started in Nigeria. And so I think there are exciting opportunities across the board. As an investor, you have to figure out what excites you on what component of the value chain you think can be most catalytic. The second is that you have to pick the right partners. Operating on the African continent is like anywhere else. Who are your partners? Who can add the most value? Who understands the local market and what are the growth prospects? And I can tell you are returns anywhere from 10 percent to one hundred percent returns depending on the value chain. But you have to be patient. You don’t expect to have tremendous profits from day one. The Sahel Capital Team, which is our sister company, looks at about a 25% IRR as that investment returns.

But I would say that some have been more profitable, others have been less. And the beauty of African agriculture landscape is that you have an opportunity to have a triple bottom line impact. Agriculture can employ millions of people ensuring food security, contributing to development. And if you are an investor who wants to change lives while also making money, this is the best factor for you. You can do well and do good. And that’s why the sector excites me and why it’s so compelling to local and international investors.

Henry Kaestner: Tell us if you can maybe a story or two of some specific investments that you’ve seen made to have done well. And then maybe also while you’re at it, maybe some investments that you’ve seen that have not done well. The average listener to this is going to be saying, OK, so I think I hear a little bit of the case for investing in Africa. I understand the demographic play. I understand that there’s increased ability and there’s fair trade. I understand that there’s some leapfrogging with technology. I understand that there’s 60, 70 percent of the world’s arable land is in Africa. I’m getting this now. But, gosh, know, how do I get my arms around this and maybe tell it through stories. So maybe acknowledge the fact that, yes, as with any type of region, there are deals that don’t go well. And maybe you can give some counsel to people who listen to this about here’s some mistakes that I commonly see foreign investors make. You know, they do X, Y and Z. So don’t do these. But then here’s a story or two where investors are able to come in, make a real impact on the ground. And also get a good return on their money while they really impacted the social and the spiritual fabric of a community.

OK, so first I’ll say that I’ve spent the last year working on a book called Food Entrepeneurs in Africa, Scaling Resilience, Agriculture Businesses, and through that created a new business called NourishingAfrica.com, which currently has about six hundred and forty agribusinesses on our platform. And this NourishingAfrica.com Is a wealth of information for any prospective investor in the African landscape, because we have lots of data you can search by value chain. You can also have a list of funders. We have a list of entrepreneurs who are doing amazing things. So I will just suggest that you check out that platform NourishingAfrica.com. To get into some examples. Let me just start off by saying there’s such a range of organizations on the continent. While writing my book, I profiled a few. One is called Trigger and Speak actually operates in Kenya. The interesting thing about the trigger model is that when they started, they wanted to export bananas to the Middle East. That was their interest. But as they progressed, they really realized we have to create a local market to increase the standards of the bananas available. And guess what? They had enough people in Kenya who actually want high quality fruit. So they created a business that basically links farmers to small fruit retailers in the city of Nairobi. And Swagga has grown from 2014. When it started, until today it has raised fifty five million dollars and it’s grown exponentially and it’s already in its third round of financing, but is proving the power of technology to enable leapfrogging, but also efficient and effective delivery where the retailers are benefiting, but also the farmers are benefiting. With your cell phone, you can order produce and within 14 hours the producers deliver fresh from the farm to your shop. That’s what very exciting business that I interfaced with. Another one is called COBOL 360, which has done extremely well. What COBOL 360 does is leverage logistics providers and using technology to track trucks and provide basically a huge burden, which we face is transporting produce across the continent and across countries. And so they carry fertilizer and seeds the farms and carry produce back to the cities. And they’ve done extremely well. Goldman Sachs just invested in them. The IFC has invested in them. They have generated so much interest because of the value that they’ve created in the ecosystem. Cooper 360 operates in Nigeria. Another example in terms of successful exits, they have quite a few from South Africa. In twenty seventeen there was one hundred million dollar fund called Agri VI and they exited from February, which was one of South Africa’s most respected dairy companies. I mean, they had almost three times return on the investment, and that’s just one example. And that’s in South Africa. But there are many, many examples across the continent. So when I think about this sector, I think, you know, the potential to generate wealth, but also to address hunger, poverty and also create value for yourself and for your investors is tremendous. And this book is going to be released in the first quarter of 2021, actually, as you can, preordered on Amazon. But I had hoped that it would be released this year because if covid-19 has shown us anything, not just in Africa but across the world, it’s the importance of the food ecosystem and that food is medicine. You can’t address a health ecosystem without addressing the food ecosystem. And food is so vibrant and important to our livelihoods as human and innovation in the food ecosystem is critical. So I’m just excited about the future of African agriculture, but also the future of cross-sector collaboration and cross country collaboration. And I see a lot more promise when companies in the US get interested in Africa and vice versa. Africa has so much to also teach the rest of the world.

William Norvell: Well, it’s amazing. It’s amazing stories. Thank you for sharing that because it’s so good to pull the layers back on a place that some people are scared, for lack of a better word, to invest in. So I thank you for sharing some of the stories. And and actually, as I hear you talk, I mean, this is the way my mind works. You know, those are very understandable businesses, too. So if a foreign investor was going to come in, it sounds like you can pretty clearly understand the business model, understand what the needs are to be done as opposed to a lot of the other kind of tech or things like that that you run across here, that, you know, you’re really betting on a technology that you really don’t understand at some level. A lot of the early stage investors don’t anyway. So it’s really. Helpful as you look out, I mean, you’ve had an amazing journey, I would love to ask, you know, obviously you’re writing this book. Is there anything else that you have coming up on the horizon that you would love to share with our audience so that we could be paying attention to?

Ndidi Nwuneli: Well, I always want to share when I do have the opportunity that I’d challenge all our listeners to actually check out the food culture section of nourishing Africa. I think a lot of Americans have not enjoyed and truly benefited from the amazing food in Africa. And I think we want to rival Japan when it comes to being on the world’s top speed, when it comes to food. And so it’s not just enough to say I eat chocolates, but what about your rooiboos tea? Your South African wine for those of you who like wine. And what about all the great spices from the African continent? Half, which is Ethiopian is amazing and it’s gluten free. I mean, I would love to see African food on the world stage. And I think it’s up to all of us to start looking for African food as well. That way on a daily basis, you’re also touching the lives of farmers, but you’re also investing in your own nutrition because we have some of the best food in the world.

Henry Kaestner: Well, the Japanese food lobby wants to thank you for their shout out that you just had right there. I hadn’t been thinking about as being some rival for Africa.

Ndidi Nwuneli: No, I think that Japan is not rivaling Africa or Japan or rival Ethiopia.

Henry Kaestner: Well, I think that maybe that will be a subject for another FDE podcast about how Faith Driven investors can get involved in the agriculture and the food industry in Japan. I think Africa runs circles around Japan.

Ndidi Nwuneli: But know why I was saying this, Henry? I just I wrote an article last year. Japanese food is ranked number one in the world, really healthy. Yes. And I was shocked to learn that they’ve actually done it in a very creative way. They position their food as healthy. They draw a link between having the highest life expectancy and the healthiness of their food. And they have launched, a whole marketing campaign around their food, which has driven investment in their food. They also have a certification program for their restaurants all over the world to say it’s authentic Japanese food. So we have learned a lot from the movement to increase awareness. And the growth in Japanese restaurants across the world has been the fastest. It has rivaled Italian cuisine. So I’m just telling you this from an investor perspective, they have been very strategic and that’s what we have learned from them.

Henry Kaestner: But fascinating. I don’t think they fry their food enough. Just I’m just kidding.

And I love the fact that you’ve provided us with a website that gives a primer and an overview for somebody who’s listening to this might want to say, how do I get started? I’m interested in agriculture. I’m interested in investing in the food industry. Where do I get started to be able to chronicle on inventories? Six hundred and forty food entrepreneurs, along with some data and some analysis that gives us kind of a sense about the bigger picture and how to weighed in. So that’s a great resource. Thank you.

William Norvell: Absolutely. And if you can see in Henry’s video, if you can find the best African ice cream, you will get Henry on board. So just throwing that out there, right?

Henry Kaestner: If you’re listening is your thing in fried food and ice cream. Probably don’t need to be taking my diet advice from Henry. And you’d be right.

William Norvell: This is not a diet podcast. That is not why you come here. So not the place to be. Ndidi, thank you so much for spending time with us. We do, unfortunately, have to come to a close. And when we do that, what we love to do is invite exactly the question that you mentioned earlier is what is God doing in your life today? And specifically through his word, through his scripture? We love to see somewhere. Maybe he has you in the season. Could be a verse you read this morning or a story. Just how is he speaking to you through his living word today?

Ndidi Nwuneli: Yeah. So when I think about what God is doing, my favorite Bible verse, which I hold onto, is very popular. It’s Jeremiah 29:11 I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. You know, 2020 has been a rough year for so many and people have experienced, loss and all sorts of ways. But the encouragement I have is that when we put our faith and our trust in God, he’s the master strategist and he always, always there a path. And so my encouragement to you listeners is to continue to trust and believe that God, who has started a great work and you will be faithful to complete it. That’s how I have stayed rooted and anchored in every assignment that he’s given me. And every time he gets too difficult, I basically say, you are the one, this is your business. God, come and show yourself faithful. At the end of the day, you will get the glory and that he always comes through time and time again and realizing that I am not on this walk alone, that God is my source of strength, of wisdom and of courage, and that at the end of it all he will get the glory, and that keeps me grounded and focused. And discipline, so I hope I encourage you a little today, and I wish you all the best.

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Ray Barreth is a serial entrepreneur and dynamic visionary. He has spent over thirty years creating, directing, and leading new ventures in the U.S. and the U.K. Ray has broad experience in bringing companies from product inception to funding and launch. 

Today, Ray is going to join Reuben Coulter, Director of Ecosystems for Faith Driven Investor, to share a bit about his passion of coaching extraordinary entrepreneurs to create legacies that go far beyond themselves. 

And together, they’re going to walk us through what it means to create networks of trust through the use of light touch due diligence—all the way from New York to Nairobi.

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Ray Barreth: Western investors need to bring the savvy that God has given them through gift and experience to the table. We need to understand culture. I did not understand African culture at that time. I much more fully understand it now. And I think Western investors sometimes approach founders from these frontier and emerging markets, not understanding the complexities of their culture, not understanding the family dynamic. The Swahili word Lubutu means I am because we are. And whenever you make an investment into a company, you aren’t just making an investment into a company. You are making an investment into an extended family.

Henry Kaester: So welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast is the special edition. Any time you get to talk with great, great friends and coworkers and you get to talk about something that you’ve been working on, it’s pretty cool. And so today with us, we’ve got Reuben Coulter all the way from Bristol, England. Reuben, good morning. Good evening.

Reuben Coulter: Yeah, it’s late in the evening. Great to be with you.

Henry Kaester: I bet it is. I mean, if it’s mid-morning here on the Pacific, so it’s going to be well on you. And thank you for staying up. And now we’ve got Ray Beareth all the way from Kansas City, Missouri. Probably one of the last interviews we’ll do with you, Ray, before you head over to Africa. But you’re still in Kansas City, correct?

Ray Barreth: I most certainly am. And it’s great to be with you this afternoon, Henry.

Henry Kaester: So one of the things we’ve gotten a sense for during covid is this the backdrops that everybody has. And for a long time, Rubin didn’t have much of a backdrop is amended that and get some really nice paintings behind him now. But the most epic, non virtual backdrop has always been Ray Barreth’s where he’s got this ultimate just beautiful library behind him of all of these books. And it’s just really, really cool. It’s the best one out there. You probably have the best Christian book collection, although I was on a podcast recently with Tim Keller and his backdrop was also really, really impressive. But I think that you may even have more titles as I look behind you, more titles with Jesus in the name of the book than anybody else’s book collection I’ve ever seen. Don’t you have any books on, like sports or something else?

Ray Barreth: No, but I have a lot of books on startups and I have a lot of books on sailing. OK, so yeah, that’s kind of my stuff. I love sailing. Being a sailor for 40 years

Henry Kaester: in Kansas City, Missouri is going to be a difficult place to be a sailor.

Ray Barreth: It is, but I lived in the UK for almost 16, 17 years and sailed around Britain three or four times, then a couple across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Reuben, Did you know that?

Reuben Coulter: I did. I did. I have to say, I’d love to go sailing with Ray, but I’m a fair weather sailor, so take me to the Mediterranean and sunshine.

Henry Kaester: Yeah, I didn’t know that. I’m embarrassed of that. No, no, that’s extreme. I knew the Ray Barreth was really, really cool. I didn’t know you sailed transatlantic.

Ray Barreth: Yes. Yes. And in my little catamaran. Yeah, we’ve done it a couple of times.

Henry Kaester: A couple of times I said, what are you doing for summer break? Wow, that’s pretty awesome. OK, so I’m going to set up the topic that we’re going to talk about today. But then I do want to circle back to who each of you are, and I want to let our listeners know some of your background and why you’re on the team and the roles that you play. But this is an episode that you found yourselves on in which we try to answer some of the questions. Like I’ve heard, that investing in Africa is important, but I have no idea how to go about doing it. It’s got to be insurmountable to think about discovery and diligence and ongoing management of an investment portfolio there. Erm I just better off just investing in an international index fund. Isn’t there some other way for me to be able to gain international exposure or should I just be giving money to clean water missions overseas and is that just really the best way for me to impact Africa? And of course because you’re on this podcast, you’ll understand that we think that it is very feasible, although it can be daunting, but it’s very important for Christ-followers to store their investment assets in a way that participates in the work that God is doing the world. And I would submit that of all the continents, that God is absolutely at work in Africa if for no other reason, for the fact that he has seen to it that there’s a very young population where there can be more people entering into the workplace over the course of the next 20 years than the populations of India and China are actually all of those that are coming into the job market in China. It’s a huge opportunity in Africa. How do you make sense of it as a Faith Driven Investor? During our time together today with Ray and Reuben, we’re going to wade into that and see if indeed it is feasible. Ray and Reuben, thanks for being with us on the program. Reuben, who are you and where do you come from and what’s the role that you have on the team?

Reuben Coulter: Yes, so as you might be able to tell from my accent, I’m from Ireland originally. My wife is Polish, our first child was born in Switzerland and our second child in Kenya. So we’re a real international family. My background is I’m a public health specialist by training, spent the first part of my career in Africa in refugee camps, building public health programs, but over time became, I guess, frustrated by the limitations of aid and development in addressing the big problems of health care, education, poverty on the continent, and became increasingly interested in the role the private sector has to play. And how does business creates a difference in these communities. But that’s taken me on a journey to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where I ran their Africa portfolio and to most recently living and working in Kenya, supporting entrepreneurs and helping them grow and scale their businesses. And now I find myself at Faith Driven Investor, and I have the joy, the privilege to work with our partners all around the world and really understand how do we build out the entrepreneurial ecosystem, what does it take to nurture, to support, to build the capacity of entrepreneurs so that they succeed and we’re allocating our energy, our resources, our capital to make sure that that happens.

Ray Barreth: Thank you. Thank you. Do the same, please. So you work in a part time capacity, but a very important one as a key part of our overall strategic team and then with a particular emphasis on Africa. But you do some other things, too. So bring us up to speed about what God has done in your life.

Ray Barreth: Thanks, Henry, for that. I think my story is a little like me. It’s getting somewhat longer in the tooth and my story is more about God and his faithfulness and his long suffering towards a young boy of nine years of age whom he introduced himself to in the spring of nineteen sixty three. And that started me on a unique life trajectory developed within me, my worldview and the Lord’s journey with me. We’ve had some awesome adventures together. I was privileged to be able to start a few small businesses, very, very much traditional brick and mortar companies. I had a chain of three automobile dealerships, a small chain of twenty two convenience stores. We did about 80 million a year in revenue. That was in the early eighties. In the spring of nineteen eighty five. I really felt the Lord tell me to sell my businesses and move to the UK where I had strong relationships with a church planting group and I had planted a church here in the States as I was building up my businesses. And so I did that and sold the whole kit and caboodle up, packed up my family. And we moved to the UK in May of nineteen eighty five and we had committed to go for two years. We ended up spending 16 years there and we launched eight or nine churches. We led a Christian publishing house. I launched a Christian film studio called Delts Television. And then I had an opportunity to get into the dairy business for my own company. And we grew that to the fifth largest dairy company in the UK that was based in Cardiff in South Wales. And that’s when I was really introduced to sub-Saharan Africa during that eighty five year, nineteen eighty five to the year two thousand. And it was exciting stuff. I had the privilege of working with several pastors. We launched vocational training centers. We built community health clinics, we dug wells, we built schools. We train pastors and leaders. And of course, I lost my shirt and terrible investments that I made in sub-Saharan Africa, where so-called Christian businesses led by so-called Christian entrepreneurs. And that was a life changing experience. I learned a lot as to how not to do impact investing, and that’s when I learned how to sail and competed in cross country Hunter trials with my trusty steed named Matt Dillon, who I named from the marshal at Gunsmoke. That puts an age on me right there. Most of your listeners won’t even know what Gunsmoke is and

Henry Kaester: we know what Matt Dillon is here. I think you need the horse after the actor, but knows the character.

Ray Barreth: And Gunsmoke is a character in Gunsmoke, Matt, that Matt Dillon came around twenty five years later. But yeah, Matt Dillon from Gunsmoke. And then I came back to the States, launched a very small nowhere middle market M&A firm. Our sweet spot was around fifteen to twenty five million that was based out of Miami and I learned a lot in that business. Henry, we were sector agnostic and we represented both buy and sell side. So I got to work with a lot of different VC firms and reach out of Europe. And I just got a huge cross industry experience. And so you fast forward to the day. I feel like everything that I’ve done in my life, God has prepared me for what I’m doing now. I work at. This outfit called Igor Enterprises, we have an accelerator program of faith driven accelerator program called Venture Village, and we work as capacity builders and disciples of entrepreneurs in Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya. And we help them to build out their business models and to learn how to be the hands, feet and voice of Jesus through their business. And of course, what are the greatest opportunities that I have is to represent the FDI/FDE movement in being your guy’s eyes and ears on the ground in Nairobi. And Lord willing, we’ll be moving there in Nairobi. So life is exciting.

Henry Kaester: So that’s super encouraging. There’s so many different places that we could go. I love this. On the next episode, we’ll talk about the British Kids TV channel. That’s also fascinating. But you mentioned something along the way there that I think is really important. And I think that we need to acknowledge that there are real headwinds for investors as they start to think about investing in Africa. Most people understand that there’s great opportunity. Most people also understand that there have been some real challenges with foreign aid. Question is, can you invest in Africa? Can you do it well? Can you do it in a God-honoring way? Can you trust people on the ground and you hit head on some of the challenges that people see. People have heard of people losing money in Africa, and you have done that. And you’ve done that not only with entrepreneurs, but you’ve done that with entrepreneurs who purported to be driven by their faith. So share with us a bit about that and some of your lessons learned. And then together with Reuben, I want to get into some of the initiatives that you guys have put into place with the playbook to address some of those things. But first, let’s air out some of the dirty laundry. What has it look like as you’ve learned some lessons along the way?

Ray Barreth: Well, you’re absolutely right, I did lose money in my investments in Africa with Christian entrepreneurs, I did that and I did it very well.

Henry Kaester: I mean, you lost a lot of money.

Ray Barreth: Well, I mean, you know, if you’re going to lose money, you know, lose it. And at the end of the day, I did. And I made some incredible errors. And I think I was fairly young at the time and far too trusting and believing what people said. And that was a big mistake. So I think there were many mistakes that I made. One was not journeying with the entrepreneurs enough, not getting to know them, not following up with their community to really understand what community they are walking with, who is journeying with them, who is their pastor, what church do they go to? What community groups are they involved then? How do they serve in their community? So I did not do a very good job at that. And of course, you know, looking at trying to understand their business model, I did not pursue that sufficiently. I think I was so excited about the idea of investing and having this fairytale image of helping these entrepreneurs. I was too quick to move. And the money that I lost over these few deals wasn’t huge amounts. It probably amounted to, I don’t know, 80 to one hundred thousand dollars. It probably stung my pride more than anything. And it clearly showed how incredibly incompetent I was at this. And it caused me to stop and say, oh, look, I have to back up and look at this through an entirely different lens. I would not have made these mistakes in the West. What prompted me to do that here? And I think a lot of that was my desire to just bless people and to disregard some of the red flags. When you do not want to do that, a red flag is a red flag, whether it’s in the United States or whether it’s in sub-Saharan Africa. And you need to recognize that. And so I think Western investors need to bring the savvy that God has given them through gift and experience to the table. We need to understand culture. I did not understand African culture at that time. I much more fully understand it now. And I think Western investors sometimes approach founders from these frontier and emerging markets, not understanding the complexities of their culture, not understanding the family dynamic. The Swahili word Ubuntu means I am because we are. And whenever you make an investment into a company, you aren’t just making an investment into a company. You are making an investment into an extended family. And so there is no private money. It’s all family money. And if one family member needs an operation, well, you as the leading member, as the head of the clan, you need to reach out and help pay for that or maybe some other relative needs, school fees paid or university fees paid. You know, there are all these things. So an African investor receives a fifty thousand dollar investment from the West. Twenty twenty five thousand dollars go out the door to family money. They don’t consider that corruption. That’s their life. What do you mean? This is community money. We are a family, Ubuntu, and we move as one. So to understand that culture and to learn how to address that, those are the things I just did not understand.

Henry Kaester: So you talked about this time from nineteen eighty five to two thousand where you were running some business in the UK. You start investing in Africa, you’re starting to learn some of these lessons and you went in and in the midst of this you said there’s got to be a better way. I’m not going to abandon my love and my desire to be a blessing to people in Africa, but I clearly got to do a better. Yes. What was your first step toward that? Doing it differently than you had been?

Ray Barreth: Right. My very first step was to seek God and to seek out the community as to who I could partner with. I think I was displaying a bit of arrogance to think that I could go into these markets and do this on my own. I mean, that was just stupidity on my part. Once I found a good partner, a local partner, I’m talking about a solid Christian brother or sister, an organization that I could depend on and that would walk with me on the journey that really, really was helpful. And for me, my relationship with the navigators in Africa, particularly in Kenya, really proved beneficial to this day. They are one of the primary recruiters for our venture village accelerator. And I’ll tell you this, when you partner with a strong local partner, the founders you get may not. Super great guys, when it comes to business modeling or the business opportunity they’re bringing to the table, but they are men and women of true faith and true integrity. They will sell their right arm before they default on your loan. And they are men and women who love God, who love you and embrace you. And that totally changes the experience. So I would encourage any investor from the West. If you want to be a part of generosity in these frontier and emerging markets, you know, let us or let someone help you find a good partner in these markets. That’s essential.

Henry Kaester: I think what you’re getting at here and I’d love for Reuben to comment on this as well, is this kind of social community dynamic that lends to good, healthy business. If you’re on the outside of the community dynamic, as you just talked about, there are different types of ethics and a cultural emphasis then would find in America generally, if we’re in Western Europe and America and somebody goes ahead and signs and affirms that they’re going to do one thing or another with the money you give them, generally they do that in the emerging market. That doesn’t happen as much. And we might be appalled at the fact that they don’t honor their word, and yet it’s completely consistent with their culture. And yet the culture that has an emphasis on community can also be a really great positive dynamic as well. And I think that we’re seeing some of that and have seen some of that with microfinance. Right. So Muhammad Yunus and the people that have followed afterwards have understood that the concept of social collateral and social standing within the local community is a very powerful force. And so rather than having this kind of external, we’re coming in with an investment dollars from the West and we’re coming into the frontier markets on our own, thinking that that dynamic will work like it might be for an investor from New York investing in California. What we’re doing is you’re suggesting that you go into the community, find a community partner that has been there long enough to be in to the local community as well and then partnering with them. So what I mean by that, well, it’s microfinance is famous for providing loans to the poor, right, Reuben? So one of the things that seems to characterize lending to the poor is high repayment rates, and yet you’d expect them to be very low. So explain to us a little bit more about what does this community investment in this social collateral concept look like in emerging markets?

Reuben Coulter: Yes, you gave a great example. Microfinance repayment rates are phenomenal, typically. Ninety five percent repayment rates. And the reason is that the loan is not made to the individual. The loan is made to the group, and therefore the group is responsible. Their social reputation is at risk if the loan defaults at a larger scale. There’s a really interesting example, which is the Indian community in Africa. And so Indians moved over here during the period of colonialism, building the railways. But they’ve become some of the most dynamic entrepreneurs on the continent. And the reason is their close family ties. It allows them to borrow money from relatives in India to trades exports and imports back and forth, all based on relationships of trust, and that allows them to grow. Their businesses are incredibly dynamic pace. And if someone breaches that trust, well, they’re excluded from the community. And I think the question is, how do we create that as Christians, as Christian investors and Christian entrepreneurs? How do we develop those networks of trust?

Henry Kaester: So in your instance specifically, Ray, you started working with the navigator’s because you had seen where they had had a long standing relationship in some of these major cities in east and southern Africa, is that right?

Ray Barreth: Yes. And the navigators are all locally run. So these are African navigators. And they really helped me in understanding the cultural buying in. And they also provided me with kudos within the community as standing within the community that I did not have on my own. It was a great relationship.

Henry Kaester: You guys, together with Russell Bjorkman, who also is here at Faith Driven Investor, have written a playbook for investors who want to engage in frontier and emerging markets. Give us a brief overview. Maybe we’ll start with you, Reuben. Tell us a bit about what it’s about and how is it different from regular investing and due diligence?

Reuben Coulter: Yes. So a regular investment process and the due diligence that goes with it is typically lengthy and can be expensive. And if you’re making investments of 50 to 100 thousands in a frontier emerging markets, you don’t want to spend five or ten thousands on due diligence fees. So our question is, how do we reduce those costs? How do we make this an efficient process which is tailored for the local markets, where some things which we would expect to find in the US or in Europe may not exist? And how do we create a common language? So both the entrepreneur. Or the investor understands if the business is investment ready, what stage the business is that so we’ve built out this playbook, which essentially has four steps to us. Step one is engaging the entrepreneur. So how do you do that assessment of the entrepreneur’s chemistry, their character, their competence and, of course, the culture? Step two is how do you assess if the business is actually investments ready, if this business is able to take on the capital, absorbents and grow at the rate that you expect. Step three is essentially a light touch due diligence process. Looking at the legal, looking at the financials, looking at that social collateral we talked about. And step four is kind of saying, actually, once the investment happens, you need to build in post investment, capacity building and monitoring and supports if you really want to see this business succeed and flourish. So we’ve created a playbook which walks you through this and a toolkit which goes along with us, which allows you to do this in an easy and efficient manner. So we see this is something that investors can use for themselves, or indeed they can partner with a local partner and accelerator, an incubator, an advisory firm, to go through this process with them to help them on the journey.

Henry Kaester: OK, so you’re getting an important point here. And for those of us who are used to doing diligence in the states and used to working with companies that might even have data rooms. So things are just completely set for us. We’re used to spending five or ten or 15 thousand dollars and doing a quality of earnings and doing rigorous diligence. And one would think that, gosh, you need to step it up and do it even more. Exhaustive diligence if you’re going to place money in Africa. But to your point, some of these companies that are really leaders in their communities are only looking for twenty five or fifty grand. So nobody is going to be sending 10 or 15 thousand dollars to put twenty five or 50 grand to work. And yet because you work with Faith Driven Investor, of course you believe that that’s something we need to be looking at. So that only works when you are able to be much more efficient with your diligence spent. What are the pieces that make that happen? How does that happen? How can you do, say, 80 percent of the diligence with only 20 percent of the spend? What are the things that allowed for that to happen in a place like Africa that are different than the United States? Because most people say, I’m doing the math, that’s impossible. But yet you’ve come up with some thoughts on that with working with local partners. Tell us more about it.

Reuben Coulter: Well, I think firstly, if you’re able to find local investors who have skin in the game, that’s a huge value because they understand the context, the markets, they can do the social diligence far better than you ever can. And of course, they’re able to help on that post investment follow up. One of the myths is that local capital isn’t available. That’s not true. There are local investors who are making investments, equity and debt in the local markets and being able to find those partner with them and work alongside them is incredibly powerful. I think the second thing that we found is there’s some really talented consulting professionals with some of the top big four firms. So EY, KPMG, etc., and many of whom are believers and really want to see the investments in their ecosystem succeed. And so they’re willing to use their talents and expertize at a reduced cost to see investment flow into these businesses. And putting together this playbook hopefully gives them a very simple way to apply the tools that we’ve developed and do that diligence for under a thousand dollars

Henry Kaester: Ray, you spend a lot of time on the ground. And it was largely your leadership and vision, together with some very capable systems from Russell and Reuben of course, that kind of led us here. Help us to understand some of the work that you did over the spring and summer amidst the covid situation we found ourselves in that helped lead you to birthing this. And maybe you could just walk us through an example, maybe core, maybe somebody else. Why don’t you walk us through how something like this actually came to bear and how it actually works.

Ray Barreth: Yes. Well, I’d be happy to, Henry. As you’re aware, covid hit us very hard and hit our frontier and emerging markets very hard. Our founders, we had some wonderful businesses who were flourishing. You mentioned Educare, wonderful faith driven educator in Kenya who operates multiple schools and had just taken on some investment money from one of our funding partners. And she was hit very dramatically because suddenly her school was shut down and she had no revenue. And of course, there was no government support. So we championed her and thought that along with her and there were four or five other companies that were really suffering that were in a similar boat as she was, and that how could we help to raise covid relief money to just help her get through this interim period? And of course, due diligence has always been a challenge. And I remember when Educare went through their main due diligence, it took a long, long time, well over a year. And it was very costly. And it was frustrating not only to our founder, Priska Milty, but also to the investor. And I thought we must simplify this. And so we gathered together and we thought, how can we come up with a due diligence process that does henot carry a fiduciary guarantee. It does not have any type of assurance guarantee, but it is sufficiently robust to give real comfort to the investor. And it is at a price point that will be attractive to an investor that it provides sufficient independent. And I think that’s the crucial element. It’s an independent review and it is sufficiently done, sufficiently robust to make these small loans more attractive to investors. So we looked at that. We developed a system. We have a due diligence discovery list that’s quite comprehensive. We have an independent review by either a former partner or former director of KPMG or Deloitte. And these are wonderful Christian guys and they have agreed to go on for an insight, independent review. They actually do a three sixty among the executive team. They interview the employees, they call up their customers. They actually do a physical spot check and a review of the financials, and they put that into a report form. And so it is not a complete comprehensive due diligence process, but it is very good. And for the amount of money, we think it’s absolutely excellent. And we invite investors to come and peruse our work and to take a look at what we do. So the whole playbook consists of an assessment on the entrepreneur and his business, and it clearly states where we see him on the investment ready grid

Henry Kaester: Or her of course, so

Ray Barreth: Absolutely.

Henry Kaester: Most of them are female led.

Ray Barreth: 40 percent of our founders are women. Yes.

Henry Kaester: And also you mentioned some interrupted you twice in thirty seconds. But you talk about independent. And I think that that’s something that’s really important, one of the things and that’s where some of these professionals come in from KPMG and others, there are some really wonderful partners on the ground in frontier markets that have loved on these entrepreneurs and have really just done a great job with spiritual formation and discipleship, providing some of the basics on customer acquisition and retention and intellectual property and distribution channels, et cetera. They are not always the best people, though, to do independent diligence because they have been a cheerleader for the business. They’ve been an encourager and sometimes aren’t able to have the same type of a skeptical eye that maybe you need when you’re doing discovery and diligence. So these are people that are coming on board who are given a playbook but don’t have any type of institutional allegiance to the partner organization in the field that has nurtured the company up until that point. Is that correct?

Ray Barreth: Yes, that’s exactly correct. They are completely independent assessors in most cases. They have never met the founder and they have never been introduced to the business.

Henry Kaester: Good. OK, Reuben, I want to come back to you. I want to talk about some of the observations that you’ve seen over the course of the last four or five months about developments in emerging markets and your hopes, your fears. Somebody is listening to this and they’re saying, OK, so I’m thinking I’m getting it. They’re making the case for making investments in frontier markets. You can make a lot of mistakes if you don’t do it in local partnership with people that are on the ground that already have this social standing. And who can lend you that social standing. I can see that there’s independent discovery and diligence. There’s this light touch diligence, this light touch playbook, if you will. But what are we missing here? And what I’m getting at here is a little bit of a leading question is that I want you to have kind of a multifaceted answer for a Christ-follower who’s compelled to invest in emerging markets, who might look in one hand on individual deals. But are there professionals that can help them do this, too?

Reuben Coulter: Yes. So I would say it’s a really exciting time in emerging and frontier markets. There is lots of entrepreneurial energy, lots of new ventures springing up all the time. To separate the wheat from the weeds is the biggest challenge that any investor faces. And when you are thousands of miles away from a completely different cultural backgrounds, that is going to be incredibly difficult. And the good news is there are great partners on the ground. We have a network of over 30 incubators, accelerators and advisory firms in almost every corner of the world. And they’ve been operating they’re working to support and build the capacity of entrepreneurs. So I would say the starting point is find that local guides who can help you navigate the culture. I think secondly is see if they can help you access the local investor network in that community and build those relationships with others who can co-invest alongside you because they’ll be able to act as your eyes and ears on the ground. And I think, thirdly, there are people who are very experienced in helping build and scale these businesses and don’t just take a passive investment approach, but see if you can actively bring in the additional talent that needs to disciple, to mentor and to scale these businesses. And so if you’re able to bring more than capital to the table, you’re providing huge added value and ultimately creating impacts in those communities through jobs, through spiritual transformation, through social impact.

Henry Kaester: And I’d also add to that, of course, that there are an increasing number of professional fund managers that have active spiritual integration, what they do with really neat track records. And over the last three or four months, I think we’ve collectively been really encouraged by the funds that are out there. And when I look at the extent of the professional management and these are funds like Talanton, and when I think about emerging markets, I think about IBEX people that have been in the developing world for many decades, really working with the local community and then allocating the investment capital where they see real opportunities. Recently, really, within the last six months or so, we’ve seen an emergence of African fund managers, including folks that are coming out of Bridgewater Capital. Richard, Okello and Sango Capital out of Johannesburg, serious about his faith with a great investment track record. And future Africa and Sod and Tree of Life and others out of Africa. And so there’s an increased number in the industry that I would say is really starting to flourish of professional managers who have great track records, great inroads into the local community and are really serious about their faith. What does it look like to love on their CEOs in their portfolio in a way that points to God, helps them to have their identity rooted in Christ, and then this alternate imagination about how. They might lead their businesses, create products and services that really help society flourish in a way that points to God. One of the things we do at the end of every one of these podcasts, of course, is to ask our guests what they’re hearing from God in his word. And so, of course, I want to make sure that we do the same with each of you, Ray and Reuben and Ray. Let’s start with you. What are you hearing from God? In his word, that might be an encouragement to our listeners.

Ray Barreth: What the Lord has been speaking to me about recently, Henry, is what the kingdom looks like from a justice point of view. Particularly, how can we as leaders, as business leaders, help set the pace for God’s restorative justice for the world? The Bible says that righteousness and justice are the foundation of the Lord’s throne. In Matthew Chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, Blessed are the seeker doers of righteousness, for they shall be filled and micas six eight. The Prophet says he has told you or more to what is good. What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. And then Mike is contemporary. Isaiah talks about is this not the farce that I have chosen for you to lose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house and when you see the naked to cover him and do not hide yourself from your can. And if you do this, then your light shall break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up quickly. Your Vindicator shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. You shall cry for help. And He will say, Here I am. And as I’ve been focusing on the Scriptures the last three or four days, the thought of how God has created us to be justice bringers we as leaders, we as influencers are to take the lead in demonstrating liberating justice, leading people to freedom and flourishing. I mean, if we can’t do it with the resources that God has given us, who can? And I think for me in my life, I’ve been challenged in living in and through our business as Jesus lived, Jesus said, as my father has sent me. So I send you. And as Jesus was to Israel, I think we are to be to the world. And that’s a big challenge. And thank you for this. Yeah.

Henry Kaester: I love the way that you respond to that challenge by saying that we’re going to go ahead. We’re relocating to Nairobi. We’re rolling up our sleeves. We’re getting involved. Reuben, how do you respond?

Reuben Coulter: Yeah, well, this year for many people has been incredibly challenging. And the Psalm that I keep returning to is Psalm 34 an inverse four and five. It says, I sought the Lord and he answered me. He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant and their faces are never covered with shame. And if you ever get an opportunity in New York, the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church has a choir which has put the to music. And this is just incredible. The next best thing is YouTube. But if you get to see it live in person and hear them sing this, it’s just really encouraging. That’s when we look to God, our faces, our radiance. He doesn’t let us down. He doesn’t let us be put to shame. And I just encourage many of our entrepreneurs or investors who maybe have found this year difficult to turn to God in these challenging times.

Henry Kaester: That’s a great word from you both. Thank you very much for helping us to get an overview of what investing in emerging markets looks like. And may the Lord bless you and our audience and help us to figure out how to do this and how to learn from some of the lessons that we’ve all learned the hard way. But how do we love people in community, in fellowship in a way that promotes relationship and helps both the investor and the investors come to know God more fully through the development of some really, really cool businesses that are in a really vibrant and dynamic market.

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These are the 3 beliefs that drive Kwami’s passion. (1) poverty is an injustice, (2) we have a responsibility and a joy to solve this man-made problem, and (3) every problem presents an opportunity for business. 

If that doesn’t get you excited to hear about what Kwami has to share, then we don’t know what will. 
Listen in to hear how Kwami Williams is discovering entrepreneurial solutions that tackle the challenges faced by the poor and marginalized in our world today, especially on the African continent.

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Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Kwami Williams: So much of my question of life has been a God, can you give me this gift to open this door for my company? You bless my wife and I to let our pregnancy be successful. And these are amazing, good things that a good father wants to give. But I realize that God wasn’t enough for me. And this season has got me to a place where God has become enough for me, where adversity has adversely. I can pause and I can just say, God, I love you. I believe and I know that you are good even without this good gift.

Henry Kaestner: Here with my co-host, partners in crime, Rusty and William, greetings, brothers.

Rusty Rueff: Hey, hey, hey, hey. Good to see you guys.

William Norvell: Good to be here.

Henry Kaestner: And today, our travels take us to Accra, Ghana. One of the unique things about our podcasts, of course, is that over the last hundred and twenty one hundred twenty five episodes, maybe we didn’t do it for the first 10. But William has asked the same question at the end of every podcast. And this will be a heads up for Kwami. We always ask our guests, what is it that you’re hearing from Guy through his word? What most of our listeners don’t know, because we actually don’t usually ask it after we started recording, is that we also ask each one of our guests what they think is the best global sport and what city in the world plays that sport the best. And so I want to ask our guest from Accra, Ghana. Kwami, please tell us what your answers to both of those would be.

Kwami Williams: Henry, this question is super easy.

It is lacrosse and it definitely plays sport. Baltimore, Maryland, we have hands down all the way from Accra, Ghana.

Henry Kaestner: You heard it here first on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. What a treat it was for us to be on that call with […] together. And […], for those of you who don’t know, is maybe a look at it through the lens of like it’s a Y Combinator for the very best entrepreneurs. They’re coming out of the African continent. And it was so cool to be on this call with these brilliant entrepreneurs from over that continent and find out that Kwami and I had that passion in common. And so for us to get back on this call together, a super special for me. Great to see you again.

Kwami Williams: Great to see you again, Henry.

Henry Kaestner: So thanks for being with us. And we want to hear about your entrepreneurial journey is a great one. Your life starts off in Baltimore. Maybe we’ll start there. Give us a little bit of an autobiographical sketch. Who are you? Where do you come from? And then we want to hear all about True Moringa, what Moringa is, what God has taught you about your entrepreneurial journey.

Kwami Williams: Absolutely. And it’s a pleasure to get to meet you. Will, and Rusty really excited about this time together, and I’ll dive right in. My story starts in Accra, Ghana. As you mentioned, Henry, I was born into a home that loves Jesus, my parents at a very early age.

I was involved in church learning the books of the Bible, all of that. And probably in my formative years as well, I was super excited and passionate about aviation. Anything that got me like I would run outside when planes fly overhead and when butterflies and birds flew. And that curiosity got me really into the spirit of tinkering, more like destroying everyone’s toys, trying to figure out how to work. But we’re going to call it tinkering for all intents and purposes.

And I just sort of grew up just passionate about engineering ultimately, and was blessed with the opportunity to emigrate to the US when I was in the fourth grade. It’s two thousand, my parents believe, gone on April Fools Day two thousand. We landed in JFK Airport. My first meal is a Happy Meal at McDonald’s and I’m thinking it’s just amazing.

I get to play house not knowing that the future as an immigrant in the US would actually be extremely challenging.

And we settled in Baltimore, Maryland, and that’s the connection to La Crosse in high school, got into two things lacrosse and robotics. So I’m sort of this job by day and robotics, married all other our and I got the chance to learn the sport, got excited about sports in general.

And by the end of my time in high school, I realized that I could use this passion for building robots and this passion for aviation and a discipline called aerospace engineering. And I realized that my team was one of the best places to learn that. So I set my sights there and God opened up the door for me to get into MIT and pursue my dream, which was to become a rocket scientist.

Henry Kaestner: Did you play lacrosse at MIT? Does MIT even have a lacrosse team? Does have a lacrosse team?

Kwami Williams: I played one semester really actually just fall ball. Unfortunately, I realized that I just couldn’t keep up with school, which I’m drinking from a fire hose and then my team setting. Right. Science, I bet.

So I stuck with intramural sports as my sports outlet.

So everything ultimate Frisbee, soccer, football, dodgeball, whatever, got me moving.

And my time in my team was just this beautiful experience because I thought I was going MIT to learn about aerospace engineering. And it actually became this formative experience in my spiritual journey for so much of my life. Because I grew up in the church, they had just become second nature and I spent the first two years at MIT actually wrestling with that God exists. And if he does, fate has it right.

I join a fraternity to explore, like, OK, I’m away from home. I just want to experience what freedom looks like without immigrant parents who are watching your every move.

And God really. Just use my time at MIT to help me make my faith real, for me to get to a point where I was old enough with clarity to say that I love Jesus and that I want to live my life in a way that shares his love with others.

And in that same way, MIT was transformative and moving me ultimately from aerospace engineering to a lot of what I do now, which is agriculture. And I love to kind of talk about that journey with you as we talk about the Moringa tree.

Kwami Williams: Good. We’ll talk about that. And I think that much of the switch there, the transition came from meeting your co-founder. Meeting somebody else was a formative relationship and he saw a different opportunity to walk us through that transition. Walk us from meeting your partner, Emily, and then, yes, tell us what in the world Moringa is. I don’t think I’ve heard the word Moringa before, maybe nine months ago. And now it feels like every week somebody is saying something about Moringa, feels like it was ringing the kale of today or something like that.

Kwami Williams: Precisely. It’s, yeah. More nutritious than kale with even more antiinflammatory benefits than tumeric. It’s kind of the buzz words right now around Moringa. But yeah, let me take you back in time. So in 2010, as blessed with the opportunity to join the Campus Crusade for Christ now crew movement to visit, not on a mission trip.

And that trip took me to the northern part of Ghana. And that was really my first introduction to rural poverty. I’ve realized that it’s so easy for us to be desensitized by development statistics. But once those numbers become names and faces of people you do life with, you share life with, it changes everything.

And for me, it moved me from this place of saying, I want to go back and intern at NASA to how can I leverage what I’ve been blessed with to actually start making a difference in the lives of the rural poor in Ghana and what are the resources and opportunity around them that we can start capitalizing on to transform their lives? So it’s not just sort of a poverty lens, but really an opportunity lens. And I was stuck with this question until my final year identity when I took a course called Lab Development. And this is the course in which I met Emily, my co-founder and business partner, and as well, Daisy, my wife and my partner.

And so this course takes everything. And it started through a trip back to Ghana.

And this time we are working alongside real farmers and they’re telling us about this tree called Moringa. They’ve seen Moringa is this miracle tree locally.

And I’m saying, OK, hold up, slow down. Let’s talk about some numbers and some science here. And they’re like, OK, so the more we researched, the more we raise.

The farmers were right. The release of the tree contain more iron and more calcium in milk, protein, yogurt, more vitamin C than oranges. And so we those this nutrient powerhouse in the release of the tree and then we looked at the size of the tumor around it. It also contained is deeply moisturizing oil that outperforms, again, coconut and shale oils, which we know of in the cosmetics sphere. And when we took a layer back and we looked at the marketplace where there was a five billion dollar market opportunity. And so it became very clear to us as students in 2012 in Ghana that there was more to Moringa than getting an A on a class project that we really need to think about, connecting the dots, helping farmers as we like to joke, prove that money grows on trees. The money that they need to transform and improve their livelihoods is right there in their backyards. And so my co-founder, Emily and I, from that point on to start to research Moringa personally and we were fortunate enough to win some grant capital out of team that helped us launch through Moringa, our consumer facing and vertically integrated brand metering and Moringa products powered for our health and wellness today.

Rusty Rueff: And as I understand it, the Moringa tree is also good for farming. Right? It’s not one of those trees where like the palm oil trees where they go in and it messes everything up, it actually helps.

Kwami Williams: You’ve got it perfectly right, Rusty. So Moringa one, it grows and in arid climates. So it’s a really climate smart, sustainable tree too.

It helps the crops around it grow better. Three, it can be in a crop. And so you don’t put farmers in a position where it’s an all or nothing like grow Moringa and cut everything else down. And then for it grows extremely fast compared to other fruit trees. So Moranda fruits and about 12 to 14 months. And that compares, for example, to Shey, which takes fifteen years to give you its first fruit or even mango trees, fruit trees that are three to five years before they give you the first fruit. So in Moringa you have this climate resilience opportunity for real farmers. You also have a. Dual income opportunity from the seeds in the leaves, and then you have the opportunity to support and integrate into what farmers are already cultivating rather than replace that.

Rusty Rueff: That’s very cool. I feel like we’re just this far away from Moringa smoothies right down here at Jamba Juice.

Kwami Williams: You know, it’s it’s like it really is coming. It really is. It’s I mean, in different parts of the US, it’s already there.

Rusty Rueff: It’s very cool. So tell us about your vision and mission of True Moringa. I mean, what’s the problem? You’re talking to both Faith Driven Investor and Faith Driven Entrepreneurs here. So what’s the problem that you’re trying to solve?

And how does planting these trees actually do that?

Kwami Williams: Yeah, so True Moringa today serves five thousand women and farming families all across Ghana, and we’ve planned it two million trees across the country of forest and communities and combating malnutrition.

And we are adding value to the seeds of the tree and have created a line of natural personal care products. And as well, we’re taking the lease of the tree and have created a line of health and wellness products. And we built this vertically integrated supply chain really because we have a bold vision. And that vision is that there are a plethora of underutilized high value crops here on the African continent. And what’s missing are really the rails to connect these underutilized crops to a global marketplace where they can be enjoyed and appreciated and to build those rails in a way that improves the lives of farmers that cares for the planet as well as ultimately is sustainable by generating a profit. And so we like to say that our mission is to improve the lives of our farmers and to improve the wellness of our customers, all powered by this Moringa tree.

Rusty Rueff: That’s very cool. If I can paraphrase somebody that we all not only admire but follow, you’re not only teaching them to use a tree, you’re teaching them how to plant a tree. Right? You know.

Kwami Williams: Precisely, precisely. That’s good.

Rusty Rueff: So there must have been some disconnect in the market, though, because Moringa trees have been around for a long time and somebody didn’t see the market opportunity. But yet you have. So how did you see it and what’s your fix for that disconnect?

Kwami Williams: Yeah, so we realized that a big part of the disconnect revolved around the initial positioning of Moringa. It was largely being championed by non-profits and aid organizations working on the African continent, focused on rural malnutrition prevention.

So they would go into communities and they’ll say, hey, farmers here, soem Moringa Seeds, plant them, eat the leaves, your life will be better. Goodbye. And of course, farmers will receive seeds, plant them, and ultimately became jaded because they’re saying, OK, we’ve plant this amazing tree. We can’t eat all the leaves from hundreds of trees. And we know from everything you’ve taught us that there’s a market value to both the leaves and the seeds of my tree.

And so we realized what was missing was a for profit social impact focus to the supply chain. So we now have come in and said, right, we’re not just going to educate you on how to plant Moringa and how to consume it to combat malnutrition at home. We’re going to help you scale your five 10 trees to five hundred on an acre with your other crops. We’re going to now add value here in Ghana, transforming Moringa into ingredients like the seed oil and the leaf powder. And then we’re going to take these two key ingredients and create everyday products that people can enjoy. So there’s an economic engine behind the social impact work and environmental impact work that Moringa presents naturally. And so that’s been the differentiator that we brought into the marketplace. And so even now, when you go to our truemoringa.com Website and you make a purchase, we built the […] ability to allow you to know there’s where my products came from, the community in Ghana they came from. And as you buy one, you plant one. And so we’ve really connected the dots all the way from sort of the souls of Ghana to the shelves of Whole Foods and as well to the smartphones that we have as we shop online in the US.

Rusty Rueff: That’s cool. And we know you’re not only sowing Moringa tree seeds, we also know you’re sowing seeds of your faith. And so take us through, you know, the spiritual integration of your work, your project, your mission. And then while you’re there, talk to us about why Ghana and what harvests are you hoping to see spiritually through your work in Ghana?

Kwami Williams: Yes, such good questions, Rusty, I sort of go in order, so as I think about sowing seeds beyond Moringa seeds, it really comes down to how do I as the co-founder and CEO, I connect, share my fate and display and walk my faith out in a hopefully winsome way in our organization. And what’s been so special is that from the very beginning, God has been the foundation of everything we’ve done, actually. I remember when I first moved back to Ghana, we launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to kick start the business and we had a twenty five thousand dollar goal and we had raised something like four thousand dollars.

And it’s Christmas Eve. Nineteen thousand more to go. And I get an email from a couple in Sweden saying, hey, we don’t know you, but God told us to fill in the entire round. So you meet your goal.

Rusty Rueff: Sweden, you said Sweden and Sweden. So how to connect those dots for me to Sweden?

Kwami Williams: And I share this story because when I open up that email, this is Christmas. And I just started crying. And as I was crying, you there’s no voice in heaven. But I just felt in that moment God saying this is to show you and remind you that I am building this business with you and that I am the foundation of this. So your highs and lows are all going to have to be rooted in me in building this together. And really, there is no direct link between us and this incredible couple that are now still investors in our company. Seven years later, they saw our work online. They followed it and they were obedient to God in their giving. And I share this because it set the tone for the rest of our journey as a company. Today we start every meeting and every meeting and prayer. We create the space in our hiring process to say Colossians three twenty three is going to be our guiding sort of light and framework. And it challenges us to say, let’s work as something done for God, not for our human paycheck and not for any accolades. We create the space as well personally to fast weekly. And I do that because fasting has been a powerful physical expression of saying, God, I need you, but I want to work with you in building this organization. And we haven’t been perfect in modeling our, you know, our faith in God. And not everyone in the organization is a believer, but we’ve created the space that really invites God’s presence into our day to day decision making.

Rusty Rueff: That’s really great. When are we going to dove more into that? But I just have one more question for you. So I’m looking at your product lines here. And you have one product called the Tranquility Face. Now, you can see all of us here. Nobody else can.

Do you think that product could actually work on us? I mean, could it make us better?

William Norvell: And who have all of us needs it the most.

Kwami Williams: So let me just put myself in this and say that I use our oils and the tranquility. Oil is one of our scented oils every day, so I need it. And so I think all of us should use it.

And I personally use it as a beard oil to reduce irritation before and after shave. My wife is using as a lovely facial oil. My mom is using it as a hair oil. So it’s just as powerful. All-Purpose Moisturizing oil for your hair, face and body. I’m going to say we all need it and that’s why you should try it out.

Rusty Rueff: I just want someone to look at me and go, Hey, look at the tranquility in your face. I mean, that would just be a beautiful thing, especially right now at twenty twenty. All right. So William is all yours.

William Norvell: Has the as the only member of the team with a full beard, I take that as a backhanded way of saying William needs it the most.

Kwami Williams: But, you know, that’s it.

William Norvell: That’s all right. That’s all right.

Kwami, I want to dig a little deeper. And one thing we probably haven’t done on here in a while, I want to reread our mission statement, a Faith Driven Entrepreneur, because I think you are going to help us in this. And on the front page of our site, you read our mission to help entrepreneurs who are hard at work on the trail, who are often tired, exhausted, under-resourced and confused. They need rest, support, guidance and provisions as they get ready to head back on the trail to fight dragons. And in no time or is during this pandemic that we are all dealing with in different ways. And God is orchestrating his ways in different ways across the world. But I do know twenty, twenty years been a tough year in some ways for you and the company. And you’ve been so gracious to tell us that you wanted to share that with our audience. And I just think it’s going to be something they need to hear. And so if you could just share what challenges do you guys have faced and how God has walked with you through those.

Kwami Williams: Thank you so much, William. And. I just love the foundation that this mission statement sets, because we are living that to paint the picture for our audience today, starting January 20 19, we start to basically experience our own version of Job’s story. And for color, we’ve been growing at sort of seventy five percent CAGR as a business since inception. Twenty nineteen was supposed to be this big year. We had multimillion dollar contracts to supply companies and Whole Foods and Costco that retail Moringa products. And so there was just this year filled with so much hope and anticipation. And from the first day I come home from of in Ghana, you pray all throughout the night into the new year.

Come on. Supercharges during the first twenty nineteen and I get a call when I wake up on New Year’s Day that fifteen thousand trees were literally burning, that a wildfire had gone to our largest farm here in Ghana four months later in April twenty nineteen.

I also get another message saying that our factory was burning down to the ground and with it went over a million dollars worth of lost revenue assets and as well the livelihoods of job creation opportunity for over one hundred and eighty of our people on our team. And then fast forward a couple more months. A colleague passed away due to health complications and the very next month, the dam that’s upstream from our nuclease farm had an uncontrolled release and ultimately flooded parts of our farm. And to kind of end the year, a burglar broke into our office on Boxing Day the day after Christmas and stole a bunch of stuff. So twenty, nineteen, even before we get to twenty twenty years challenges, global challenges. Twenty nineteen was literally just like hell for us. And twenty twenty as we’ve all experienced. Covid pandemic hit everyone from the rural farmer to the biggest corporates. And for us during the lockdown months they passed about 90 percent of how we make money. It also touched me personally. In July of twenty twenty I got sick with covid. My wife and I both got sick with covid and we actually ended up having a miscarriage as well in that same month and then in September thinking that, OK, that hopefully that’s that’s it. That’s the last thing. In September of twenty twenty in one of our rural communities, three armed gunmen robbed three of my colleagues. They shot into our pickup truck and two were ultimately hit by the heavy ammunition. But by God’s grace, miraculously, they survived the shotgun heads and the AK 47 heads and are recovering post surgery.

And this specific attack is just it’s not Ghana. Ghana is extremely safe and it’s not even in this community. So it’s just a series of events where we have to pause and say, oh, God, what is happening?

Why is that happening? How do we even talk about this?

And so I think God has put not just myself, but our entire company on this sort of crash course of resilience and also of a reclarification and redefinition of our faith and so our love to maybe share some of the lessons that we’ve learned through these back to back adversities.

William Norvell: Thank you so much for sharing. And yeah, definitely. And I ask you to do that. And just that is a wilderness season and they’re littered through the scripture. I don’t know if this is from the Lord or not, but somebody once told me when I was going through a long one that, you know, God uses those mightly that he has taken to the wilderness first. And I don’t know if that hits where you are not. So take it from the Lord if it is and not if it’s not. But all of our heroes from the Bible have experienced things like this. And then I just am grateful for you sharing these stories with our listeners. And yeah, if you would, what has God taught you from these challenges and just. Yeah. Thank you for sharing.

Kwami Williams: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me and the happiness of all of this. And for that word, I do think that there’s truth in that because so much of this season has been challenging me with a couple big questions. So I know the first one is what’s more important to me? Is it God or is it his gifts? And one of my colleagues, Peter Neila, always knows just the right things to said to me at the right time. He and my mom have that gift and he sent a video to me, I feel this year from 2010. And he shared C.S. Lewis, quote, says he has God and everything else has no more than he who has God alone.

And the day I first heard that, it just changed everything for me because I was so, so much of my Christian life has been a God. Can you give me this gift? He open this door for my company.

You bless my wife and I to that pregnancy will be successful. And these are amazing, good things that a good father wants to give, but I realize that God wasn’t enough for me and this season has got me to a place where God has become enough for me, where I adversity after adversity I can pause and I can just say, God, I love you. I believe and I know that you are good even without this good gift. And I think a related question that I’ve had to wrestle with in this season has been, you know, is God good in my life or in our lives as believers because he protects us from bad things or because his presence with us and I think is right.

So if he protects us from our pain or present with us in our pain and I think honestly, for most of my life, I just chose I want the keep the bad thing away.

And God has used this season to challenge me to get to a place where every day I get to say that your presence is what I want is what I desire.

And that has impacted where I find my identity. So is my identity. And walking in this calling to use botanicals to improve the lives of people or as my identity and just being loved by God.

And I think the last kind of high level question that has helped bring out some lessons for me is around this idea of am I working as as a slave or as a son of God? And I share that the point to the fact that most of the past seven years I’ve drank the Kool-Aid of grind and hustle as a founder, you know, days off and my phone is with me when I’m having dinner with my wife.

And there were seasons I remember when we first won the Forbes 30 under 30, I’ll sleep in with my laptop every day because I’m like, I have to do even more. And when the factory burned and when we that we had to completely restructure our business God said, I need to start resting.

I need you to start taking a sabbatical and you just start setting better boundaries for work. And, you know, it’s been twenty four months almost of back to back adversity, but and I have not perfected it.

But I can say that by God’s grace, I’m progressing in this and setting better boundaries and my wife will call me out if I stray too far. And so just to kind of some that up, I think the big lessons are around really loving God and pursuing God for him, not his gifts. Secondly, being excited and acknowledging that God is good because of his presence and our pain, not simply the times when he protects us from pain. And then I think a big lesson has been how do I work alongside God as a son who rests rather than a slave who is constantly striving and grinding and hustling without his loving father guiding him.

So I think those are the big things that have come out of this season for me as I think about my faith journey in the face of so much adversity.

Henry Kaestner: Wow. You know, I had thought that we’d hear about Ghana in an entrepreneurial story and learn about Moringa, but it’s really powerful just to hear that we all got something much, much more than we expected and grateful for your faithfulness and sharing your story and a lot of transparency and vulnerability and just really seeing faith at work. And I know that that’s an inspiration, encouragement to all of us.

William Norvell: I’m in and I love what you said. I would love to have this pastor. I’d like to have read a book, a new book by a guy named John Mark called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. And so I don’t know if it’s one to send you. I’ll happily buy it for you. It’s an incredible book, but he does a section on the word hustle and how it’s been co-opted. And, you know, the word actually, the definition means to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a direction that’s not something to aspire to. The words the words been co-opted a little bit and like it’s definitely not biblical. And I love how you reframed that. And John, Mark does an incredible job. I’d love to hear him talk to entrepreneurs, but it’s all about trust. It comes from a quote from Dallas, Willard, that he asked one time and said, you know, what’s the biggest thing we should do to pursue Jesus?

And he said ruthlessly eliminate her. He said he said there he’s like, OK, what else? He’s like, that’s it. I’m done. So I thank you for that. And but you so you also have an interesting view there. I mean, so that’s your personal journey and what God’s taking you through. You’re also the leader of a company that has gone through these stresses. Not and I’m sure it sounds like just from getting to know you, that they probably walked alongside you through the personal struggles as well as the business struggles and the business is going through issues. How has that affected your organization and how is God equipped you to lead through this?

Kwami Williams: So first, my brother in Christ and colleague Peter Bieler, who I mentioned, always knows just the right thing to say, just yesterday was talking about the ruthless elimination of poverty. So he’s there with you. And I checked out the devotional in the Bible. So I got to taste a little bit of the book. But I think it’s worth diving in and actually reading it.

And to talk to your question about professionally how we’ve sort of navigated adversity and build resilience. I think the first thing is that the senior leadership team, we realized that we needed to self care because we were burning out or will burn out. And so for that, some of the biggest things that we did practically is create space. My co-founder Emily Create Space for a mindfulness meditation for me was a lot around writing down things I’m grateful for every day because I just changed my lens beyond sort of the caring for a mind. All of us have gone into wellness and fitness and so caring for our bodies just so we can actually endure the emotional, physical, mental, intellectual toll of what’s happening. And then in the organization itself. And we really double down on two simple frameworks. So one is start, stop, continue says what can I start today? That is going great. What do I need to stop? That’s not working. And what should we continue? And then a second framework, the growth framework. What’s our goal? What are the options that we have? And then what is the reality on the ground and what’s the way forward? And we took these frameworks as a way to just sit down and dissect our business. It meant we had to lay off our staff who were connected to the factory. That’s the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do as a leader. But then in that pain, we also created opportunities for those who knew how to sew, started making masks to support covid. And we raised our own capital. We really donated our savings to create an unemployment fund to serve those who don’t have a safety net. On the product side, we launched a couple of new skills and these skills actually became the trigger to get into Whole Foods in New England. So in our grocery at the worst possible time, the expansion of our product line doubling down or triggering a brand, companies getting to Whole Foods at the end of twenty nineteen and at the end of twenty twenty, that’s helped us get into Costco. And I think that basically taking these frameworks ultimately has helped us run lean experiments that have unlocked opportunity. And as we end twenty twenty, we’ve grown revenue by almost three times that of twenty nineteen. So we’re really excited that God has blessed these small efforts to really say, what can I start, what can I stop, what can I continue. And as well, how do I grow even in the face of adversity?

William Norvell: Amen, amen. And as we come near to our close, I would love to know as someone who’s on the ground working with entrepreneurs, I know you’re involved with so many. I think it’s a group of us, I think speak for the three of us. We’ve just collectively been inspired by the continent of Africa and what is going on there and just, you know, shame on us for missing it and not seeing the amazing opportunity and growth and looking past it. And so I would love for you maybe to give a pitch as well while you’re on this podcast. What’s your vision for the future of Ghana specifically? And maybe if you have one for Africa, what could entrepreneurship do for the country of Ghana and the continent of Africa?

William Norvell: That’s a great question. I think it’s been said that, you know, talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t that thing. That’s really the case. When you think about Ghana on the African continent, my sort of vision is to unleash the entrepreneurial capacity of people on the African continent.

I believe that Africans should be the one in the driver’s seat to solve the injustice of poverty, to create opportunities that improve the livelihoods of their communities, their cities, their countries. And we need allies from around the world in that partnership. But I think that it’s basically saying if the right acting come alongside African entrepreneurs, if they’re the coaching the capital, the community, the connections can create a conducive ecosystem, that we can transform this continent and take it from the economist, call it a hopeless continent to one that’s actually a beacon of excellence across every industry that we can imagine. And for me, the poorest demographic in our world today, our real farmers. And so, so much of how I think we can do this is creating opportunities that increase the income and improve the livelihoods of women and farming families all across the African continent.

William Norvell: Oh, that’s amazing. Thank you. And that’s Henry alluded to in the beginning. We are going to come to a close and we’re going to ask our favorite question. And we’ve recently been led by the spirit to ask a second question. So if you haven’t listened to the recent podcast, this may be new, but we’d love to invite you to share with our listeners. Where God has you in his word right now, where he has you in his scripture and what he may be teaching you, it could be something that you’ve been studying this season, could be something that he told you this morning through your mom or your business partner. And then secondarily, how can we be praying for you and how can we be praying and our listeners be praying for True Moringa?

Kwami Williams: A funny story is that my mom did send this verse to me this morning. It was her verse of the day, but it has been the verse that I have found so much comforting in the season.

And it’s Isaiah. Forty three, one to two. And I love to just sort of read it. And when I do, I insert my name just to make it as powerful as possible. And it’s the same. But now, Kwami, listen to the Lord who created you, Kwami, the one who formed you cells. Do not be afraid for I have sinned. You I have called you by name. You are mine when you go through the deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through the rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up. The flames will not consume you. And it resonates because we’ve literally gone through the flood, the fire, the oppression in a physical sense, and God has been faithful to it all. And so I hope this speaks to anyone who is going through any difficulty, especially with what twenty, twenty and covid-19 has brought to the world and just know that God is real. He loves you and he is presence in the most painful things.

William Norvell: Amen. And how can we be praying for you and your company?

Kwami Williams: True Moringa is at an inflection point. We’re grateful to God for the ability to be growing over one hundred and fifty four percent year over year. And so the keeper now is for like minded investors to partner with us to support our growth beyond this year. And I think that’s going to be the biggest sort of catalyst to our future as we work to improve the lives of farmers here in Ghana.

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We’re just as happy as you are that 2020 has finally come to an end. There’s been turmoil, turnover, and uncertainty around every corner. Yet, here at FDI, one thing has remained constant—this podcast.

Week in and week out, we’ve recorded these conversations as we always do, and we couldn’t be more grateful for all the guests that joined us as well as the grounding consistency that this routine has provided.

For those who have listened along all year, this will be a time to reflect on what we’ve heard. And for those who are just joining us, this will be a great place to find the episodes you need to listen to next. As always, thanks for joining us on the journey.

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome to a special edition of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, I’m here, as always, with Rusty and William, and this is a special edition in that it gives us a chance to reflect on the work that God has done through the ministry in our lives over the course of the last year. And it’s been an incredible year. I don’t need to tell you that unless you’re listening to this 25 years in the future and trying to figure out what we’re talking about. But this is 20, 20, of course, in a world in which the life of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur has looked different than it ever has before. And we’ve had just as I reflect back on the different folks we’ve had on the program and some of the things that have happened in the ministry, in the conference, and I reflect and I look at this as a really special year and a year in which God was really at work. And gosh, that sounds so pithy and cliche. You’d expect someone to say that that’s driven by their faith on a kind of a ministry podcast like this. And yet when I look back through the guests that we’ve had on and the feedback we’ve gotten back from the audience, I feel thankful and blessed. And I don’t know if you guys see the same. Am I missing? It might seem Pollyanna.

Rusty Rueff: No, you’re right on. I mean, it’s been such a challenging year, but so many of our guests have been able to give us words of wisdom, experience. I mean, clearly, we’ve just been navigating from one been to the river to the next. Right. You know, I mean, it doesn’t go much further than that. But, you know, the encouragement that I’ve gotten and the uplifting from recording these and listening, you know, has been just fantastic. So I hope our listeners have to. It’s really helped me.

William Norvell: I agree, Henry, I think it’s good to feel thankful and blessed, and I do, and I think it’s also good to hold, in the other hand, that many people may not feel that way and that it’s still a very trying time. And this season is still a very difficult season where maybe they haven’t felt God’s presence or maybe don’t see his provision yet, but are still holding on to hope that he will show up. And so I think there’s both, you know, and I think we’ve heard that from our guest people in the midst of crisis clinging to Jesus and people who’ve seen Jesus come through as he always does, in his own unique way.

Henry Kaestner: I want to go back through this past year and a bunch of things I want to do. I want to reflect on some of the things we’ve seen in the ministry and reflect on some of the lessons in the themes and what we feel that God has spoken to us through things like the conference and some of the other things we’ve done that God sent through us. I think most especially about the Right Now media video series that’s been particularly fulfilling for me. But so much of our ministry to our broader audience is this weekly podcast. And if I were to think about one thing that really symbolizes our work together, it’s it’s indeed this podcast, because Faith Driven Entrepreneur worship is all about storytelling. It’s about the story about God working through entrepeneurs. You know, one of the things I was reflecting on was just yesterday was that when we first started thinking about doing a podcast, I thought, we’ll get out there and we’ll do 10 or 15 or 20 of these and we’ll go through kind of the who’s who of the faith driven entrepreneurs. And then, you know, maybe we’ll just shut it down after six months or so. We’ll just get some great we’ll chronicle some great stories and maybe six or seven into this. I thought that that might be what we would do. And yeah, it’s been amazing that, you know, one hundred and forty or so podcast episodes into this. The list of people that I want to tell their story to is just exponentially increased. I mean, I can see that doing this for this isn’t a contract negotiation, but I can see this doing this for the next five years. We just has so many more stories that are out there. Reflect, though, with me, if you can, just over the course of last year, what are some of the guests whose stories have impacted you the most that have left you with just a different vision of what God is doing through business owners and entrepreneurs, three particular for me and the FDE offerings.

Rusty Rueff: And one of them was so helpful. In fact, I’ve used his content from the podcast, I would say hundreds of times, and that was Jeff Henderson. So with Jeff came on and talked to us about, you know, what you’re for. In the midst of that, he dropped out five questions to help us get through the pandemic.

And those five questions were to be asked at any moment inside of a crisis or you don’t quite know where you’re going to go or what you’re going to do with your business. And they’ve been so helpful to others, I think they’re worth restating. The first question is, what should we stop doing? Like what wasn’t really working before? But now we’re in a new situation. But we were hanging on to them. They were it was legacy work or are somebody liked it or it was just part of what we always used to do, but it never really yielded fruit. So why don’t we just stop doing it? The second one was what is working that we should double down on, right? What should we double down on right now? Because if we put our efforts there, it will yield. The third question was where can we gain new ground that we wouldn’t have thought that we could do before? The fourth one was what do we have to address that is essential in the moment? In this moment, you have to stop and think about what the moment is and what’s essential that we have to do, and we have to do it at high quality. And then the last one, which is the one that just opens up and I think we’ve seen it through the pandemic with so many businesses, is what’s made possible in this moment that wouldn’t have been made possible before. And, you know, clearly the connection that people are having all around the world where, you know, we basically flattened the world through Zoome or through any other video conference where people are working remotely, you know, a lot of things have been made possible, a lot of things still to be made possible. But those five questions that Jeff threw out there were really, really helpful for me and have been helpful for me when I’ve been able to advise others. And it’s been nice to be able to reference him looking back. So that was one highlight for me. The second one really quickly was Glen Jackson around the episode of Achieving Preeminence, and he did a one liner that God’s favorite color is transparency. And I have held on to that in this year because in a year where, you know, for a lot of reasons we’ve wanted transparency, you know, God’s favorite color is transparency. And then the last episode, which I just am so proud that we did in a good way, the episode with Rob Thomas and Jeff Parker about how they came through a real crisis and came to reconciliation. And what stuck with me with that was two business partners. You know, one had betrayed another. They came apart. They came back together never as business partners again, but as friends. And the statement was, forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation. Reconciliation takes extra work. And I think that will always stick with me.

That, you know, just because I forgive somebody doesn’t mean that we’re automatically going to have reconciliation. If I want reconciliation, I’ve got to work at it and somebody else has got to work at it with me. So if that was all we did this year with those three, I would have been I would have been happy.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, no, there’s really, really good. And I get to tell you, I should come up with my own list. Right. But there’s something remarkably powerful about Robin’s story. And I mean, I felt like we were part of, you know, what it was. It was a special thing is a lot of times we have entrepreneurs on the program that just reflect on their life and they’re able to tell their story in a way that brings us in. And gosh, I love all of our guests. But there was this part that I think you get in at Rusty, which is this difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.

We were a part of the reconciliation.

Rusty Rueff: It was happening like right then Mastro’s first time had really done this. Yeah.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. To be clear, there had been some amount of reconciliation that happened before, but it almost felt like we were just kind of like invited into this process with them and that it was a special I felt privileged to be a part of that conversation. And I found myself during the course of the conversation going back to like, OK, so here’s the antagonist and here’s the protagonist in this story. And I went back and forth and it was like watching three seasons of a reality TV show and you’re like a character in it. At the end of it, I just really felt that I was super powerful. And another one, when people ask me about podcast episodes that really make an impact on me, I’ve got to always come back to Phil Fisher, Phil Fischer’s podcast, where he talks about the identity of an entrepreneur. And it’s minute 16 a minute. Twenty to four minutes in his articulation of the identity of an entrepreneur or I think the richest four minutes we’ve ever done and just gets it what we’re about so much. But what makes it so special podcast really good. And it was great on its own is when it’s juxtaposed against Casey Crawford. And it’s us getting on the podcast with Casey and just talking about Phil Fisher. And then Casey said, actually, you know, I know that Phil tells me that I need to be able to have an anxiety free life or if I have too much anxiety, that’s a problem in my entrepreneurial life, which to be clear, it is.

But he says, you know, some part of me doesn’t really resonate with that either, because I see David going off to war and I see Jesus sweat, blood.

And just to be able to kind of further explore what it looks like to be getting out there and just relying on God and being in the crucible and depending on God. And what’s a healthy amount of anxiety and stress and what does that look like? And to see Casey wrestle with that I thought was super special, just telling us now that it’s at minute 26, I was 16 to 20. But listen, the whole episode, it’s all great, Phil, that you’re 16 to 20 is amazing to 15, 20 also amazing. But that whole episode, you can never go wrong with Phil Bishop. But those are some of the impacts that I really reflect on over the course of last year. Yeah.

William Norvell: You know, this is the first time we’ve done a year in review. So some part of me just mentally goes back to, you know, what you said. I mean, we’ve been doing this for three years. That’s kind of crazy. And for our earliest listeners, they know that they were saved from the early incarnation of this, which was me, Rusty and Henry taking questions and just giving you all our thoughts, like you’re going to get here on the year in review. And you said, no, we really like your guest. And it turns out you guys should ask more questions. And so we shifted. And here we are, though, you know, the times have changed.

Henry Kaestner: We wanted this a great time. I’m sorry to interrupt you, William, or maybe I’m not sorry, but I think. Ah, no, I am. I am. But I’ll tell you, one of the things that’s super important is the engagement from our audience. When you come in and say, gosh, I got a guest, somebody that you really needed to take a look at their story, or I really would wish that you would help me to understand the theme of mental illness. And gosh, the Max Anderson podcast episode was so formative for me. And just can you go deeper into that about what I’m struggling with? That’s awesome. But let us know about the format. Let us know about the things that you think are a great and part of that maybe never, ever, ever do another year in review episode again. That’s Fair Game.

William Norvell: And that’s how we get a lot of our guests, you know, it’s people and friends and listen, that’s how we started our spin off podcast, Faith Driven Investor. The we’ll talk about here in a little bit. And that’s been a lot of fun, too. And as I thought back on some of the entrepreneurial guests, I’m going to do some one-Line quotes and maybe I’ll start a conversation between the three of us and maybe what what you heard in that.

But, yeah, we’re talk about the crisis. I thought back to Michael Hyatt. He said two things. He said, you need to decide how you want to come out of the crisis. And he said secondarily, no one ever drifted to a destination. They would have decided. And so the idea is, you know, you can walk through life. You can.

End up where you’re going to end up, you can get through this crisis, but if you have a time, maybe during this holiday season to take a breather and decide what you think the Lord is pushing you towards and decide to go there with a community, with people, with the Holy Spirit, it can be really powerful to make that decision and move towards something as opposed to letting the world sort of take you where it’s going to take you.

Rusty Rueff: That’s good. You know, to that point in your question that you ask always at the end of every podcast, and if you’re not there, we ask it for you. You know, so many times we heard what God is speaking to them is about direction and you know, what they should do next and trying to make decisions. And I think that is a good word from you, William, taking what Michael said, that, you know, we need to ground ourselves there as we think about where we’re going to go, because I love that, you know, we’re never you know, you don’t ever drift in a direction you would have liked to have gone. But we have to ground ourselves in Christ.

Henry Kaestner: No, I want to go. This may be out of order in the podcast, but while you’re on the topic of asking guests about what they’re hearing from God and his word, I’d like to throw that at you, William. You ask that now hundreds of times. What do you feel that God is speaking to you right now from his word?

William Norvell: Well, usually I ask that after we’ve given the guests time to reflect and figure it out. But I first. No, I’m good. I’m good. I’m just kidding. I would say the biggest theme that I have been just meditating on for probably six months, you know, I always ask that is, you know, has been a season or is it today? The season of my life I’ve been in as humility. And there’s many verses that could show that Jesus talks about that a lot. But the one that just stuck with me is John three thirty. And that’s a he must increase and I must decrease. And that’s John the Baptist speaking. And I don’t know, I’ve written a small paper if anyone’s ever needed to read three pages. I think John the Baptist does not get enough airplay in the world. And Jesus said there’s never been a man born of woman that is more than John the Baptist in that statement. And I think what he just showed so much through his short life, we only know so little about John. Right. But we know that he I just imagine he must have had so much humility, one, to say that and to to be chosen as the person who can hold the baptism of Christ. How many people could have held the baptism of Christ and not gotten puffed up and arrogant? I mean, that list has to be pretty sharp. Who were able to be chosen to baptize our lord and savior? And to not let it go their head so that they drop it.

Rusty Rueff: I’d be looking for all sorts of opportunities to absolutely drop that, like, hey, what are you doing last week?

William Norvell: But just imagine in our world, right, if we were focused on he must increase I must decrease all our decisions, all of our attitudes, our families, the way we raise our children, that by the end of my life, people will speak more of Jesus than they will of William.

And that’s where God’s been chosen.

Henry Kaestner: Well, I think that’s probably a pretty safe bet that people will be talking more about Jesus. One hundred years more than normal.

William Norvell: Well, you know, we’ll see.

That’s a bold bet, the bold that I’m not sure that that’s the case for all of us and the gospel. We all hope that to be the case. Well, sorry. What I meant by that is like that when they see my life right, it’s. Well, you didn’t William did that. It’s when they look back at my life, they say, wow, the presence of the Holy Spirit was evident. Yeah. Wow.

Look what Christ did through this. Look what Christ did. You know, we can always tell that story of I did it or Jesus did it right. I did it through my power. And you here with our guest. Right. I feel like God takes us to that, all of them to that humility place of, you know, I mean, look at I have nothing. Kwami Williams just said it right. I realized that if you have God and everything else, you have the same thing as if you have God.

Mhm. Right. Right. Like that’s everything. That’s the third time in twenty four hours that somebody brought up this concept of radiating God’s glory, said that when somebody sees you they see God because you’re radiating his glory, you know. Is Oswald Chambers. That was a daily devotional dealing with kids. And we also there’s a nativity devotional that John Piper’s got out that we’re doing and then Kwami and then you just talking about that. What does it look like when people see me to your point? When people see me to they see Christ in me all too often? I’m afraid not. May that be better in twenty twenty one?

Rusty Rueff: Amen for all of us, for all of us, you know, for me, Henry, in the even years as the year that I read the Bible through all the way, I don’t do it every year, but I do it in the even years. So it was clearly a pandemic year because I finished on November 30th instead of December 31st, like I normally do, screaming like you’re just coming out of revelation.

Henry Kaestner: You could say anything right now.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, exactly. Well, and to that point, the way this reading plan, the navigators, that is who did it years ago, it ends up in that last month in Revelation, in the Book of John, and then with finishing up job and then the minor profits, you know, the profits at the end. So I’m always struck by that last sort of collection of those last 31 days. But this year I was struck even more and it helped with something that one of our guests, Ben Washer, said a few weeks ago with Lecrae about the importance of holiness. And that striving to be wholly. Which in my mind means striving to be obedient, just shows up there in these books at the end and especially at the end of the the Old Testament, because, you know, Jobe and all of the prophets and you know, what happened with the Israelites and all these other countries that, you know, would obey God and not obey God and obey God and not obey God.

And then when they didn’t obey God, you know, they became unholy.

And it’s really been on my heart that I should strive. For holiness, but I only get there if I strive for obedience and that what God is asking all of us and I’m feeling you ask me, is Rusty just be obedient? Just obey, you know what I want you to do, and I’ll take care of the rest of it, you know, but just follow along, will you? You know, just be obedient to me. And that’s I think, you know, maybe I can be filled with a little holiness. And to your point, maybe that can radiate.

Henry Kaestner: It’s really good. It kind of makes me think of Matthew talking about him first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and you get all these other things, too. So if you’re going to aim for holiness, starting with obedience is a good spot. And, you know, what does it look like for me to be obedient to what God is asking me to do? And part of me is, you know, there’s some of the things that you would see in scripture. But I think that the call for obedience for all of us has faith driven entrepreneurs is to ask God, what does it look like today? Right. We’ve been talking recently to build job. We probably won’t release this podcast before this one, but look for it. But just his ability to be in constant communication with God and God encourage him in one way or ask him to do something in a different direction. Sounds so sincere when he talked about it. And that gives you just that much more of a sense about what does it really look like to be obedient when you’re listening for God’s voice? And that’s something that I’d like to see myself do a better job for me when I think about the question that William asks about what God speaking to in his word. You talked about the minor profits. If you put a gun to my head right now and said, name that minor prostate. I don’t know, Amos, Obediah. I mean, maybe I get half of them and I don’t spend a lot of time in the minor profits. I also traditionally and I spent a lot of time in a second chronicles, but I do spend some time in that because now it’s the second time going through and reading the Bible with a bunch of friends. I’ve probably talked about this before on the program. I’ve got six other buddies and we go through a chapter a day and we’ve gone through the entire Bible once and are most away through a second time. When you do something like this with some friends, you start seeing some things in some of the books that we might not hear about a lot as a kid growing up or my case, I can if when I was twenty eight and it’s in second chronicles, the biggest lessons that God has taught me through his word over this past year come from a book of the Bible that I knew very little about. Second Chronicles and the Second Chronicles starts off with these genealogies. They’re very difficult to go through in a chapter and then in a group text to say what is something you know about guy that you didn’t know about before, after having just listened to a genealogy? I guess some of my friends, Ghanian Tom Peterson, it’s amazing what he can learn from these and extrapolate from these genealogies. I’ve got nothing there. But there are two things from Second Chronicles that I take away. One is in this year, twenty twenty. It’s Second Chronicles 714 and for much of twenty twenty I had my alarm set to 714 every night because the Second Chronicles 714, it says if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

This felt like it was a year where our land needed to be healed and so incredible wasn’t coming out of a book of the Bible that I hadn’t been as familiar with as I probably should have.

And then the other thing that comes out of the second chronicles is it makes a real impact on me are the lessons from the good kings of Judah. All right. You got bad kings. You got good kings.

And the lessons I had, obviously, there’s some bad kings. They did some really, really bad things. But it was the bad things the good kings did.

And they all did something where they did not listen to God. Every one of the good kings. Again, these are the good kings. But somewhere, whether it’s a business deal and a trade deal, whether it’s going off in a war, they ended up thinking that they had the wisdom they didn’t need to see God.

And in each case, it didn’t go well for them in that instance. And I think about the long obedience in the same direction and the faithfulness that we need to have and build jobs, admonition about listening to God, you can’t take a day off, a week off, a month off. And to say, I got this, I don’t need to ask God about this decision.

And I hesitate and I shudder when I think back about the many business decisions I’ve made in my career where I haven’t really sought God and God wants to be sought. And I’m hoping that this is something as a pattern in my life that for all decisions, I’m going to be asked in real time. But that’s the lesson from the good kings of Judah from second schools.

Rusty Rueff: Well, that’s good. The other piece of second chronicles that I’ve always loved is, you know, those kings had a bigger responsibility. Like, you know, they talk about Joseph FDE. He was a good king, right.

Says he was a good king, but he never fully got rid of all of the pagan idols. Therefore, the people, not just him, the people, were not able to be fully committed to the Lord. So if you step back and look at that, you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, man, that’s the responsibility of leadership. You know, those of us who have the privilege at any time in our careers to sit in a seat of leadership, you know, we are either allowing or denying those people who work for us to be totally fulfilled in our actions and, you know, in our obedience, you know, as Joseph, that he was good king, but not totally obedient.

William Norvell: Oh, so Rusty one of my favorite quotes of the year and I couldn’t find exact one, but Patriquin Cioni on exact that he said I’ve often thought how much better of a dad my dad would have been if he’d have had a better boss. All right.

Wow, and that just stuck with me and I have just thought about that so often about I don’t think my father’s boss is going to be offended, but I thought about that my dad and the stress he lived under and just the way his business worked. And he was an amazing father. But just like, how much more could he have done if he wasn’t under that anxiety and stress? And as we have people leading and thinking about the men and women who they are shepherding, to your point, Rusty creating that environment where they can go home and live in to their callings as part of the family and community.

Henry Kaestner: That’s a profound gosh, I just get my money’s worth from this episode, just from that one quote. That’s incredible. I can’t even imagine what how much better of a dad my dad would have been if he had a better boss. Wow. That puts a generational impact of what we as bosses do. That’s staggering. Yes.

It’s like take it seriously.

Rusty Rueff: You know, someone once said to me is that, you know, the people who work for you, who do you think they’re sitting around talking about at the dinner table tonight? They’re talking about you, right, and you’re either being a good boss or a bad boss, but, you know, that’s getting passed around to those kids. And yeah, I think there is a real generational thing there. It shapes how at 10 years old, you think about work and the fulfillment of work or the curse of work. You know, if that’s what you hear every night at the dinner table.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. If you meet some of these kids and say, oh, you’re the guy who’s always late for the meetings, aren’t you? Yeah.

Rusty Rueff: So, Henry, you’re you’re going to you’re going to dove into some of this and a and a book that’s going to come out soon. Right. Sometime next year. You want to talk about that?

Henry Kaestner: Well, yeah, I can, I can definitely.

That we over time, of course, through our collective history of being faith driven entrepreneurs and mine in particular with bandwidth and sovereigns and then hearing so many stories through what we’ve done here on the podcast, we’ve come to understand that there are eight marks on a Faith Driven Entrepreneur and it’s not like it’s the definitive be all end all conclusive list. But there are some marks of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur that really bind us together. It’s identity Christ. It’s being faithful rather than willful stewardship versus ownership excellence. All of these things are on the website. Of course they’ll be in the book, but we try to do is to have a short type of treasure principal book that’ll come out with Tindale next year that will get at the essence of what does it mean for me to be a Faith Driven Entrepreneur a great companion piece or maybe even just a better piece period is actually, as I look over your shoulder, I see the rule of life for Praxis just really, really, really good. I want to encourage our audience to go to the Praxis Labs ERG website and get that. But we’re coming up with a version of ours that gets into some of these things like excellence and ministry and word in ministry, indeed, and having a heart for missions. One of the other things that I think that we’re going to be leaning into next year, though, we got a little bit of a start this year, is the partnership we did with right now media and the video series that explores these marks. And it was just a really wonderful time to get together with a guy who’s going to be one of my coauthors. This is a book that Faith Driven Entrepreneur will be coauthored, is coauthored with JD Greer, president of Southern Baptist, and then Chip Ingram, two great friends of mine for a long, long time, and both of whom care deeply about Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Yep, we did this great video series. I think it’s great. Maybe I shouldn’t be so boastful, but I really enjoyed doing it. Eight part video series with teaching from JD set up by these really, really powerful videos from Seattle Pacific and their Faith and Company series. And one of the great joys of my life over the course of the last year has been going through a virtual study series with cohorts of entrepreneurs from around the world. We just did on a trial basis two different cohorts, entrepreneurs from nine or 10 different countries and just processing it together, watching the video story, hearing from JD and his teaching, which is 12 to 15 minutes each time, and then just processing it. And there’s something incredibly powerful and hearing different entrepreneurs across different countries, different industries, different stages, just sharing experience about how God is working with them. And I’ll tell you, at the end of it, it was almost tearful. It was like, what do we do next? You know, when are we going to get together again? And we had shared life together in a way that was super powerful. So we’re going to be doing a bunch of those next year. There’s sign ups on our website, and our hope is also to be able to get some scale to it, find some folks that have gotten some great experience and be in a Faith Driven Entrepreneur who feel called to help mentor and coach and to lead to be a virtual cohosts or virtual host and coach for a group of 12 to 15 international entrepreneurs, probably half from the states, half from overseas. And so that’s another initiative that really fired up about.

Rusty Rueff: And that’s exciting. I think it’s going to be great. You know, it also makes me think back for a moment to twenty twenty. You know, it wasn’t just about the pandemic this year. It was also a lot about social unrest as it relates to, you know, racial justice. And I was really pleased with the guests that we were able to bring on, you know, entrepreneurs or venture capitalists who are investing or working inside of, you know, some of the areas that typically would not get attention in the minority population, minority companies or disadvantaged areas. And I hope we lean more into that. I think that there was some real, really, really, really rich conversations that we had this year about people who are very, very committed and are making a difference. And some things that I know you really care about, Henry, around transfer of, you know, generational wealth and, you know, things that we can all do better as a society. But we did have some very rich guests this year that really, you know, meant something to me.

William Norvell: And it was your family was just a Joburg Solomon on the. Podcast just on, I think she is just an incredible her and her co-founders incredible concept around investing, right. That doesn’t fit within the normal construct of private equity venture capital. It is a private equity vehicle. But exactly along your lines, Rusty, they really went to the whiteboard and said, well, what a black entrepreneurs and business leaders need. They actually probably need more of a revenue share model because of the size of the businesses that they typically own. And I just thought it was a really innovative episode on the investing side to think through. How could you get at some of these problems in an innovative way with the life experience that God’s blessed you with?

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, and I will tell you that, you know, the guests that we have, I mean, the cool work that’s happening in Atlanta, you know, I mean, every time we turn around, we’re running into something that’s really exciting in Atlanta. And when we get past the pandemic and we can all get back out on the road again, that would be a place that I would love to see us go and record some podcasts and a video podcast in Atlanta.

William Norvell: If it wasn’t for the pandemic, I might still live there. That’s true. So that would have been easier.

Henry Kaestner: So I want to I want to close out our time together with a prayer. And I’d love for us to pray together. And I hope that as you’re listening to this on a run or a commute, that you’ll join us and you’ll pray with us. And I believe that God will hear this prayer. So please join with me. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the ministry that you’ve given us, each of us, each of the listeners to this podcast that you’ve placed us in the marketplace to lead, to create, to innovate, to know you more fully. And with that knowledge, return to our work out of gratitude, with a hopeful expectancy of you using us in a way that will allow us to know you and experience your joy more fully and in our own personal lives and those of our families. But as we love on our partners or vendors or customers, our employees help us to do that faithfully. And as Rusty was talking about obediently. Dear Lord, as we come to the end of the year, we reflect on the great many blessings that you have provided us in this misery, I thank you for just informing our executive director and the producer of this podcast. I thank you for Johnny Wills, who leads content Faith Driven Entrepreneur. I thank you for Richard Bahle, who’s our audio engineer. I thank you for Janelle and Dora and Nicole and Anna for their work in helping to organize the different podcasts we have in the show notes and in our outreach. Dear Lord, I ask that you would give each one of the listeners to this podcast a special blessing and a sense that they are loved, that their identity would be in you, and that they would have a life and a joy. That would radiate your glory, as William and Rusty were talking about before, that they would not see the entrepreneur, but they’d see Jesus, they see Christ in us. I pray for the protection of each one of the listeners to this podcast, pray for a successful twenty twenty one a favor and protection and joy and a feeling that we are experiencing your pleasure as we go about our work. Pray for all of these things in Jesus name. Amen.

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Last year’s conference was easily one of the highlights of our year. If you joined us, we’re so glad you did. If you didn’t, we’re glad you’ve tuned into this episode.

At the conference, Chip Ingram opened up with a talk about how Scripture can and should inform our investing strategy. It was so good, we couldn’t help but share it with you here. Go ahead and press play and enjoy all Chip has to say!

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Host: Welcome to the feature of an investor podcast, if you’re a fund manager, investor or financial advisor driven by your faith or want to be driven by your faith, then you’re in the right place. The best way to stay connected in the faith driven investor community is to sign up for our newsletter, Faith Driven Investor ERG. This podcast doesn’t exist without you, our community. One of the things we’ve heard the community asks for is help in finding great deals to invest in. And so we’ve launched Marketplace. It’s a new platform of funds and direct deals, everything from private equity and real estate funds. That’s from philanthropic to market rate deals made in the U.S. in emerging markets. Check it out at faith driven investor ERG Ford slash marketplace. While you’re there, please send us any thoughts you have about how this podcast might better serve you or any questions you have about being a faith driven investor.

All opinions expressed on this podcast, including your team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guest may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back everyone, to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. While Chip Ingram, CEO and teaching pastor, was Living on the Edge, Ministries has been a two time guest on the FDE podcast, this is the first time we’ve had him speak to faith driven investors. Today, you’ll get to hear his talk from the faith driven investor conference. In it, he shares what the Bible has to say about investing as he challenges the bifurcation between giving to Kingdome causes and investing in faith driven ventures. Hear him ask How might God use you to make a new paradigm so that you build businesses? You realize that this is an opportunity to also give generously and invest in Kingdome impact. Let’s listen in.

Chip Ingram: I’m not really an investor, been a pastor for the last 30 years. And, you know, I’ve written a few books and invested a little bit here and there. But I’m here, first of all, to welcome you and kind of kick this thing off. And second, to commend you. You know, there’s a lot of investors that invest well and then they take their profits and are very generous for Kingdome impact. But there’s not many investors who really get that. What you actually build in terms of the marketplace, what you invest in and how you develop that can have as much Kingdome impact as even your philanthropy or your generous giving. And so what I want to do is three things. I want to give you a little biblical precedent for what we’re going to do. I want to challenge that whole bifurcation that, you know, when we give money to Kingdome causes, to church and to projects, that’s the work of God. And over here, it’s you know, we do a marketplace ministry to make money. I’m going to really challenge you to rethink that. And then third, I have a story. I’m not much of an investor, but recently I got to make an investment and everything that you’re going to talk about. I think my story might be a parable for the entire conference. So biblical precedent, a very familiar passage. But I’m going to look at it a little bit differently. Follow along, Matthew. Chapter twenty five. This is the third parable about being ready for the Lord’s return. Verse 14. It says, Ford is just like the man about to go on a journey Jesus is speaking who called his own slaves and entrusted them with his possessions to one. He gave five talents to another two and another one each. According to his ability, the one who received the five talents, put his talents to work, traded them, worked in business and got five more talents in the same way. The one with two talents put his to work and gain two more talents. But the one who received the one talent dug a hole, put his money in the ground for his master’s money. Now, after a long time, the master came back to these slaves and he business term settled the accounts. When the one had come and received the talents, he said, I have five counts, master. I’ve invested them and I have five more. And notice, he says, the master says, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Very interesting. I want you to catch this. I will put you in charge of many things and enter the joy of your master. Most of you know the story. The two talents received the same commendation and the one with one talent is sharply criticized and his one talent is given to the other because he’s irresponsible with it. Now, I don’t want to teach this whole passage, but there’s a handful of observations in this passage that I think are of biblical precedent for Faith driven entrepreneurs. First of all, a talent here wasn’t coinage. It was a literally like a block of metal with value and. Probably the best way to get it is talentless, usually about 6000 denarii, and that would be are you ready? The one talent person basically got what it would a daily wage for 20 years. Sometimes I’ve heard this Totò and people think, oh, I only have one talent. Now think about not having to work for 20 years. That’s a lot of money. The two talent would be someone who said, how much do you make in 40 years. There you go. Here’s a block of money. I want you to invest it. And the five talent son was given literally enough money that if he worked every day, he wouldn’t have to work for one hundred years. Here’s my point. They all have very significant amount of money. Second, it’s each according to his ability. You know, it’s not egalitarian. God intrust different things to different people, according to their ability. And then he evaluates and rewards them. Not based on how much, but what did they do with what he gave them. Third, there’s a dual role in the ancient Near East. During this time, when Jesus is talking, a slave would almost become like a partner. Yes, he’s a slave. Yes, technically he was owned, but there would be a very familiar relationship. And so as he goes off, he has two roles. One, he’s a steward. This is your money master. But you’ve entrusted all this to me. Second, though, he’s an investor. And don’t think when he says he invested the five talents, don’t think like he he put it in a 401k or he put it in some financial institution because of the way this is written and the time and the group. In other words, he created a business. He had to invest in a business. So he had the dual role of steward and investor for the observation is notice the reward. His reward isn’t, wow, you had five talents. Here’s five more. Here’s more money. He says, I’ll put you in charge of many things. In other words, you know, when you’ve built a business, when you invest and when it grows, the reward is the impact, the platform, the extent. And what he’s saying to them is your trustworthiness has allowed me to give you an extended impact. And, you know, if you when you invest just like all of us and whatever we do, when you’re made for it, when you think you pray, you invest in this person, you help them along the way. You give insight here. When it grows, there’s great reward. But then notice, not only is there a horizontal thing that happens in terms of extent of impact, more responsibility, but there’s a vertical one now enter into the joy of your master. What I want you to get here is that investing, building a business, taking money that God has given to you and creating it in businesses with people that can really make a difference, that provide goods and services, that create jobs that make an impact on employees lives that are goods and services that that blessed the common good of other people. That’s very significant impact. By contrast, I’m a pastor, and so my only investments are, you know, most workers are like me and say you have A 403 B, right. And so I’ve put a little money out of my paycheck for 30 some years. And, you know, it’s a fidelity or a principle or this or that. And they send me a bunch of papers. And yes, by now I do have a financial planner. And I by the way, we need you to go into your website in Large-Cap SmallCap. I have no idea really what I’m doing. And I don’t know whether fidelity or principle or any of those groups, you know, I know that we’re not investing in immoral stuff, but I’ve seen investments in my life just as I need some money for later. I’ve never thought ever in my life, where are you putting that money? And could your money in investments have a kingdom impact rather than just I’ve taken my money and I’ve had a great chance to give an Kingdome causes. So I want you to really think this. How might God use you to change your whole new paradigm so that as you build businesses and as you coach people and as you develop people, you realize this is an opportunity not just to make money, not just make money even to give, but both in. Yes, make money so that you can give generously for Kingdome causes. But what if you invested in things that had Kingdome impact by the virtue of the actual investment? Now, here’s the story I want to tell you. And you know, many of you, obviously, you’ve invested lots of money and millions of dollars and and I’m a pastor. Right. But over the years, I’ve been debt free and and I’ve written a few books and I made some pree decisions about what to do with that money. And probably like many of you, when I was young, I learned to tithe and then I learned to do kind of proportional giving. And in the last maybe eight or 10 years, I’ve had a handful of times where God has allowed me to make a six figure gift and to the church building program missions living on the edge. And it’s been just an amazing joy to see God provide resources I never dreamed I would have and to see it invested in books in China or missions, things. And, you know, it’s been really exciting because I never saw myself ever as a major donor. And yet over the years, I’ve gotten to be a bit of that here and there. Well, about must have been, I don’t know, two, three years ago there was a young man who I really believed in. And it’s a long story, but it was an investment in a group. And my wife and I, as we prayed about it, had it prompting from God. Now, I’ve never invested in a company. I’ve never invested in a startup. And if you knew the whole story, you would know maybe why we were prompted. But I won’t go into that. And so I’ve kind of come to at this stage in my life where, yes, I want to put some money aside. But at the end of the day, it’s numbers on a piece of paper. I don’t want to die with a bunch of numbers on a sheet of paper. And this young investor that I really believed in, I took one hundred thousand dollars out of my savings and he couldn’t go full time on his startup. And that allowed him to go full time on a startup. Now, because he was related to Henry and got coached and mentored by Henry, he was going to be a faith driven right entrepreneur. And so built into his strategy was, we’re going to have ministry, we’re going to have a kingdom impact built into his concepts, for these are our values. Every time he does an off site, he tells the story. This is what God has done. These are what our values. He’s hired both Christians and non Christians. Another part of his story was it has to do with cars and repair and software and stuff that I don’t really understand. But part of it was we want to help people as a part of our you know, we have a dashboard of success and one of our dashboards is maintenance for moms. We want we want to help moms, single moms in desperate situations. And whether that’s repair, well, OK, so he got his first round of funding and that did really well. And and I was glad because there was a big part of me that thought, well, you know, I really believe in that guy. And if I never see that, it’s not like I have a lot of money laying around. But I thought God told me to do it, so I did it. Well, then he got a second round of funding. And it just what you know, like off the charts. Well, here’s what I want you to get. I got to be a part of his first emails. You know, when it’s family and friends, we would meet over coffee and he would talk about, these are my dreams. I got to do a little coaching just just now and then from a distance. Not the business side, but just the heart side. And then little by little by little, I watched him as he just championed his faith every month for, I don’t know, the last six, eight, nine months they have given a car, given a car to a single mom, but not just the car, but with discipleship, with meeting with her friends and family every time it’s actually in this building that I’m in right now. When they do the car, all the employees come out and they gather around and they give the car and then they pray for, well, now he’s got a group of people and one of the Eastern European countries and 15 or 20 or 30 people there. And it was a lady there. That’s a part of that company that had one of the only one or two outreaches of there’s all more abortions happening in that country than anywhere in all of Europe. And so now there’s ministry there. I’ve looked at first it was 30, then 50, then 70. All these people now have jobs. Here’s the virus. All these people, they have jobs, they have a ministry, and then he has these off sites and he keeps championing. This is why this is what God says. And you know what I realize I’m really glad when I’ve been able to give a six figure gift to ministry in China or ministry to help build a building at a church or ministry over in this place or that place.

But when I look at the investment that I made, I’m looking at all these families being changed.

Now, one of his employees lives very near to me, and I’ve seen the evidence in his life. I’m seeing moms get minister, too. I’m seeing international ministry occur. I’m seeing a whole group of people with a testimony to all their clients all across the country. And by the way, when needed, did that second round. I just thought to myself it’d be kind of nice to at least get my money out of it. I’m not sure where it’s going to go. The return on my investment was unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

And what I want you to know is that as you all start this conference, I want you to really be thinking about not just here’s my investments, how do we make money? And to be generous with it, I’m going to challenge you and you’re going to have great speakers to know all about this. I want to challenge you to be that kind of servant who says I’m going to give generously out of my profits, of course, but I want to be a part of marketplace ministries with faith based entrepreneurs that have a kingdom mindset so that the impact in the marketplace is not just money, it’s not just a return on my money, but I mean its lives and it’s transformation. And you invest your money in people. You know, when I read this little parable, I thought to myself, you know, think of the Jewish culture. Do you think the slaves went out and cut a deal with Rome in a business or with some gentiles? What did they do? They met some other Jews, people they trusted. They built a relationship and they built a business. And pretty soon he had one hundred years worth. Right. Big, big money. Now he’s got two hundred years worth of in. All right. And he did that because he built relationship and ministry and investment in people and saw the kingdom impact not just in the profit, but in the actual process.

Host: Thank you so much for joining us on today’s show. We’re very, very grateful for the opportunity to serve the larger faith driven investor community. Hey, the best way for you to stay connected is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at faith driven investor Doug. And while you’re there, we, of course, want to hear from you. We derive great joy from interacting with many of you. And it’s been very rewarding to see people join the discussion now from all around the world. But it’s also very important to us that you feel like this is your show and that you’ll help make it something that best equipped you on your journey, one that you’re proud of and one that you’ll share with others. This podcast, it would be possible without the help from many of our friends. Executive producer Justin Forman, program director Johnny Will’s music by Carl Chigwell. You could see and hear more of his work at summer drag’s dotcom and audio and editing by Richard Burley of Cornerstone Church in San Francisco.

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Today’s guest is a friend of the podcast, someone we look up to and respect, but someone we’re also happy to call a friend. Daryl Heald is the Founder of Generosity Path. For more than twenty years, Daryl has traveled internationally sharing the message of biblical generosity. 

In his role with Generosity Path he focuses on mission-related activities: strengthening and developing relationships with champions, facilitating Journeys of Generosity (or JOGs) and trainings, as well as encouraging businesspeople to be generous. 

He’s here to share his personal story, to give us a primer on what it means to be generous, and explain why you never meet an unhappy generous person.

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

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Daryl Heald: The big idea here is for us to see it as opportunity, not obligation. Right, so we kind of think that when you say investing, giving generosity, the investing side implies opportunity, right? Because we all like, hey, here’s a great opportunity. It’s right. Everything every deck built on that. Right. Every pitch is built on what’s the opportunity. Right. What’s the potential? What’s the upside? How much am I going to make? What’s the game? Right. Well, if we really understand scripture, which is why I ask you the why question on your giving.

So it’s not about the tactics of giving. It’s about why and why is the answer and why is important because the answers to the why question our beliefs.

Henry Kaestner: Thanks, everybody, for joining us again this week on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our guest today is a friend of the podcast, someone we look up to and respect, but more importantly, someone we’re also happy to call a good friend. Darryl Heald is the founder of Generosity Path. For more than 20 years, Darryl has traveled internationally, sharing the message of biblical generosity in his role with generosity path. He focuses on mission related activities, strengthening and developing relationships with champions, facilitating journeys of generosity or jox and training, as well as encouraging business people to be generous. He’s here today to share his personal story, to give us a primer on what it means to be generous and explain why you never meet an unhappy, generous person. Let’s listen in.

Welcome back to the future of an investor podcast. I’m here with my great friend, business partner, confidante Luke Roush. Luke. Welcome back. Good to be here. Dude, we got a great guest. You know, a lot of times when we have guests on, I do some amount of prep. A lot of times I don’t. But most of the times I do. And I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t do any prep because I knew we had Darryl. And Darryl is one of our best friends in the world, is a guy that if you’ve listen to this podcast or at least a Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast long enough, you know that there are two major foundational faith moments in my life. At age twenty eight, I came to know Jesus through God, speaking to me through his word in a very patient associate pastor. And then at age 38, I got introduced to this guy named Darryl Heald. And Darryl came to know me and endeavored to understand some of my story. And then he stopped maybe two hours into it and said, hey, I think I’m following this. But why do you give? I talked a little bit about why I was talking a little bit about some of the different ministry things that Kimberly and I were involved in at the time. We were given probably 20 percent of why we thought there’s a special place in heaven for the double tither. You get box seats at Angel games or something like that. There’s something in it for me, undoubtedly. And that simple question from Darryl sent me, Raylan, and sent me back to Scripture and allowed me to just have a completely different and renewed relationship with God. And I’m forever grateful to Darryl for that. I wanted to get involved in the ministries that he was running. He’s a co-founder of Generous Giving, founder of Generosity Path, and he loves bringing the biblical message of generosity to people as they come to know God more fully. And it’s a great message. And I love our friendship and our partnership in ministry and so many other things. He formative in the starting of sovereigns, capital and his journey with us through every step of the way. And it is an embarrassment and an oversight that we have not had him on the program, any of our programs. So I’m really grateful. Thank you for join us. Maybe we’ll start off by talking about a ministry that is really important to you at this time of year that has nothing to do with generosity or actually it has everything to do with generosity, smoking for Jesus. What is it?

Daryl Heald: I don’t get some smoking for Jesus. All right. We’re diving right in. This is one of my favorite topics. Well, I’m a Texan and I think it’s just in our blood to smoke meat. And I tell you, it was I mean, just one of these amazing gifts twelve years ago that God gave me a friend here in town, man named Big Kenneth Johnson, who also loves to smoke, mate. He’s a Tennessee. And and, you know, through God’s providence, he brought us together. And we are at lunch one day. And I said, you know, Kenneth, what’s your dream? And he said, you know, there’s a lot of people hurting out there.

And, you know, I like to help him.

And his brother’s a great preacher and things like that because I’m not a preacher. He’s I just like smoked meat. And I said, I think we got something like we got something there. And so we started smoking for Jesus and we just started would take our smokers and we’d go into some of the housing projects and. We said our smokers just brought the aroma of Christ, and if you want to draw a crowd said, you know, you got three components that will always draw a crowd smoke, fire and meat, and you will draw a crowd. And sure enough, he did. And he was the oldest of 13 kids, no father. He grew up in these different housing projects back in the civil rights era and 10 years older, me, one of my mentors and best friends, he went to be with the Lord last year. A huge loss for me there. But we continue the ministry. We just smoke. Two hundred and forty turkeys for Thanksgiving takes us about forty two hours of continuous smoking. We’re hoping to do three hundred at Christmas and it was very interesting. We took Kenneth, we just had a notebook and his distribution system is he would call up different people he knew. That worked with refugees or worked with widows or worked with homeless people, teachers at school that knew kids that were in trouble and needed help, it was just a hand ledger. And so for 12 years, we have his notes from these hand ledgers, and that’s what we went off of this year. His wife, Connie, just worked off that ledger and called all the people and said how many turkeys you need? And they would say, well, I need five. I need eight, I need six. And we welcome and that’s our gift to the community and we feed. Well, covid has been a terrible year for us. Last year we had twenty seven events and fed well over ten thousand people a year. And yeah, just a simple history of loving people this way and being able to do it with our past and we just stay up all night smoking butts.

And what meat would you say most resembles the aroma of Christ?

Well, so we always have this, you know, people that know barbecue, which I just said, I’m a Texan. He’s a Tennessean. The big rivals here are brisket versus pork butt and pulled pork versus the brisket. So I’m a beef guy. And so, you know, we didn’t argue too often, but basically I did the beef and he did the pork and it was a good teamwork.

Luke Roush: That’s awesome. Body of Christ in action.

Henry Kaestner: That’s right. So we started talking at the outset about the impact you’ve had in my life and in others lives. And it comes down to this concept that I think is really important for the faith driven investor. And on one hand, somebody might say, what is investing have to do with generosity and at one glance kind of their distant cousins? Yes, they have to do with money. And yes, there’s faith in there somewhere. But I think that we’re coming to understand with time that it’s all kind of lumped up into the same concept. And I’m hoping that you might be able to help us unpack that a little bit and refine it a little bit, because my sense is that it’s a similar DNA and similar heart posture that allows for somebody to be a good faith driven investor as well as a generous person. And maybe you can help us sort through that. What’s a heart posture? What’s a mindset? Somebody is listening as podcast and saying, what does it mean to be a feature investor? Where do I start? How would you help them with that?

Daryl Heald: Yeah, well, I don’t think they’re distant cousins at all. I think they’re the same. But I think the big idea here is for us to see it as opportunity, not obligation. So we kind of think that when you say investing, giving generosity, the investing side implies opportunity, right? Because we all like, hey, here’s a great opportunity and. Right everything. Every decs built on that. Right. Every pitch is built on what’s the opportunity. Right. What’s the potential? What’s the upside? How much am I going to make? What’s the game? Right. Well, if we really understand scripture, which is why I ask you the why question on your giving.

So it’s not about the tactics of giving. It’s about why and why is it answering? Why is important?

Because the answers to the why question our belief. And so none of us act on unbelief. We only act on belief. But here’s where I want to make the connection is it is all about the investment because it’s all about our stewardship. One hundred percent. Right. So we have a hundred percent that whatever God has entrusted to us as a steward. But the big idea is not like, well, now you’re obligated as a steward to do well and you better do good. Otherwise, I’m going to you know, I’m going to get you know, it’s really about the opportunity I’m giving you to be the steward. And so it’s about allocation. Right. And so it’s all about to me, investment is the same. Meaning whether you’re investing in a for profit or you’re investing in a ministry in the kingdom, right. Because to me it’s all about queendom investment. And so then it’s allocation into different types of asset classes on this, and that’s where I think we hurt ourselves when we bifurcate it, because then we think differently. We allocate differently. If I’m saying, oh, this is a for profit investment and this is my type of return, and then I have this conversation, oh, this is now a different conversation. If it’s to a ministry and this is right pocket, left pocket, never the twain shall meet.

Henry Kaestner: And just the whole process is different when you’re suggesting that it’s not it’s the same type of fundamental process to endeavor to understand how do I steward and how do I lean into this opera? And I think you mentioned something really important there is that I think the two oftentimes people think, well, it’s an obligation. And I think that there is an element of us being held accountable. But that’s not the way God designed a guy designed us, gave us an opportunity to participate in the work that he is doing in his kingdom. And we can participate alongside. And you’re suggesting there’s that type of mindset that can guide both our giving and our investing?

Daryl Heald: That’s right. Well, I think we have one hundred dollars and how we choose to allocate that in a stewardship side. Because here’s the fun thing is a lot of the different entrepreneurs that we see here in the US that are faith driven, we see globally that are faith driven, the lines have begun to blur, actually, even between what is traditional ministry, what is a traditional investment, you know, from a philosophical side or learned a lot from a friend that works at the Omidyar Network, Randy Newcome, and he told me how the Amedi are set up their investment. They said, look, this is not, you know, so typically you go looking for money from the Omidyar’s and you say, well, if you’re a for profit, you go talk to these people. You’re not for profit. You go talk with these people. What beer are figured out is Nagas know, I want great people with great ideas and in the continuum of capital, I’ll figure out what type of capital I need to allocate to it. But I see it all the same. And I think that’s where we’ve kind of traditionally bifurcated this. I think this is all about Kingdome investment here, regardless of whether it’s a not for profit or for profit entity.

Luke Roush: So as as you think about some things that are maybe better capitalized with for profit dollars and other things that are better capitalized, and what’s your methodology? Darrel’s you think about kind of what goes into what bucket, because the concern might be that you got something that really should be for profit, but somebody just wants a better valuation. So they end up kind of cassin is kind of a non profit deal or vice versa. How do you think about that just in your own practice?

Daryl Heald: Well, I think there can be. This was the interesting thing that I actually learned again from the middle class is there’s this continuum of capital. So you can take a great person with a great idea that in some ways sometimes has started maybe as not for profit, maybe in the in some of the early, early stages. It might have done that. There are actually a number of what I’m beginning to see are actually either for profits or not for profits, attaching the complementary organizational structure to it. Like, for example, news story has started a venture capital fund, which is a not for profit, but they’ve created a for profit venture capital fund to fund innovation in the building space, because if their big idea on the nonprofit side is to solve the homeless issue, provide great housing to people globally, they realize that in some ways you almost can’t get to it in the traditional nonprofit way. And this is where my experience, too, is the difference between, like you have again, this bifurcation. You have two pocket books of what I have to give to a ministry and what I have to invest in a great deal. Well, what I’ve seen is it’s typically a huge multiple of what someone’s willing to invest in a great deal versus what they’re willing to give.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, well, you know, there’s something there that I think is really powerful and I want to make sure that we don’t pass over it too quickly because otherwise we might go onto a different subject. You’re suggesting that there’s a big difference between a bottom up approach, which is the way that most crossfires think about versus a top down approach. So here, what a bottom up approach means. OK, I have a certain amount of money that I’m going to give this year and have a certain amount of money I’m going to invest this year. OK, how am I going to invest it?

Where am I going to get the return? And then you’re saying, no, no, no, no. Top down. What are the causes? What are the things you care about? What are the problems you’re trying to solve? Start there, go to people, find out what’s the best way, what are the best ideas that are out there. And if you do that, you start based on where God is calling you, whether it’s justice related or whatever it is, maybe it’s housing related, whatever this space is, if you’re looking for the best ideas, if you get ten of them, you can come back and there are going to be. Investment ideas, and they’re going to be giving opportunities. That’s right. Let’s start off with the cause and the passion you have first, and that’s the top down approach.

Daryl Heald: I like that as well said. Yeah, it is.

Luke Roush: Whatever. So, Daryl, just to kind of ask a follow up to something that we let off with, in your experience, what’s kind of the number one thing that keeps people from being generous?

Well, I think it’s fear. I mean, there’s a number of different other issues, but I would say at the base, a lot of it, it’s fear and it’s almost like fear of the unknown.

Henry Kaestner: Maybe you could share some stories about some of the people that you’ve worked with that have given too much money away and are now living despondent and homeless. Paint the worst picture for us. How many times have you seen that happen where people say cash gave away too much money three years ago? I really regret that.

Daryl Heald: Yeah, well, I do remember actually being in Northern California, guys. I do remember being there in Silicon Valley in the late 90s. And for those, they’re all still old enough to remember that time. I mean, everything was just going crazy up, up and up. And I remember I met with a venture capitalist, a young venture capitalist, and, of course, everything he’d been given, which is multiplying like crazy. But I had been in this conversation with him about his giving. And so I said, well, OK, great. So you’re making all this money, has your giving. And he goes, have you not heard me? He goes, I chilliness, I’m killing. I’m making 70, 80, 90 percent on my money. Why would I give it right now? Why would I give it right now in an badami in these early days, I was like, well, OK, but I said, here’s the risk you run right, is what we think is one since the great temporal investment. Right. And he was making a good point. Hey, how much do I let this kind of run before I do give it? And I said. You know, that’s legitimate, right? So I get a bigger number to give later, and I said, yeah, the only risk I see in this is that we are at once competing against maybe what a kingdom return is, which we know from a biblical size thirty six to one hundred forty three thousand six thousand ten thousand percent. So when he was, I think, very confident about what he had, but I do remember a follow up conversation. And as you all remember what happened in two thousand. Right. The incredible intimately crash. And it was a very interesting, sobering conversation. But to his credit, he’s like, all right, I get it.

I get it. Now, he said, look, maybe I was riding this a little too strong. And he said, I do regret not giving.

Henry Kaestner: No, because is interesting, you said the thirty six hundred fold and that is that OK, so you are so confident in your ability to make money that, by the way, that’s probably the first sign that the wheels are about to fall off in the market or whatever you get going on, number one. But number two is that that presumes that the rate of return that you have in human or earthly terms is greater than the spiritual return of what that money or that investment might mean in something that’s more attributed to the kingdom of God. So if it’s at school that you’re investing, that you might otherwise give a donation to in Ghana. Were that a new class of high school seniors might come to know that there’s a God who loves them and transforms the trajectory of their life, they’re just different types of spiritual returns. And you miss out and it’s what you’re doing is you’re missing out. And it’s not the obedience, it’s the opportunity. Yeah. You think that the opportunity of making the money in the market is greater than the opportunity of participating in what God is doing the world? Now, let’s come into a related and very important topic, which is, does investing with a kingdom mindset necessarily mean that we need to get ready for just mediocre returns and we’re just cash? We need to just prepare ourselves for single digit returns, lots of losses. What does it look like to have a when you go ahead and you talk to the and they find the problem that they want to solve or they see the opportunity in a particular region in the world, how do they invest that with excellence? What does that look like? And can it include the spectrum from philanthropy all the way to market returns or market returns? There’s just no place for that, because if you’re doing market returns, that means you’re exploiting something and that necessarily is bad.

Daryl Heald: Now, I think it’s part of what we’ve been discussing here is I think we have to broaden our spectrum here and realize in one sense, what are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to solve and creatively figure out how that’s going to be done. And that’s that’s in all the different ways. Right? We’re looking for great people with great ideas. And then irregardless, however, they’re incorporated in what they’re doing and how we allocate those, whether it’s philanthropic capital or investment capital.

Henry Kaestner: Well, you’ve been involved in deals like Grab and CloudFactory and in others where you’ve seen where somebody comes out and says, I’ve got a mission. I want to be able to bring safety and transparency to a vulnerable population in Southeast Asia. Know, Anthony Tan starts off his business not as a business. It was a ministry. It’s going to be five Wannsee three. It just so happened that the easiest the best way for him to accomplish his mission after some counsel from some others ended up being a business. And it’s a business worth 14 billion dollars plus. Right. And so when you look to solve a problem with excellence, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not going to be able to deliver financial returns to. I think about Ashoka’s Kandarian wanted to be able to love on single moms that were trying to get their cars serviced and being able to provide software to auto shop owners. And he just took in a fifty million dollar investment from Bessemer. Right. Then maybe that’s a sign for us, too. So coming back to what you’re saying before, start off with the idea and then be open to work out what leads you. Then you talk to these entrepreneurs that say, here’s the problem I’m trying to solve, then you can come alongside them and in the marketplace you can actually get good financial returns.

Daryl Heald: Right? Absolutely.

Luke Roush: How do you think about so if what you’re really looking for, Daryl, is people who have passion, incompetency about tackling something, then you’ll figure out kind of how do you blend the right mix of at market capital and concessionary and or grant capital? But part of what we’ve seen make really good relationships is where when we as an investor fall in love with the entrepreneurs idea of where they want to go. Let’s make sure we don’t fall in love with our idea. Make sure we fall in love with their idea within the context of an investor really sensing a call from the Lord about where they might be called to engage or how they might begin the process of engaging in things that the Lords put on their heart. And they go out and kind of find the right people who are also called in that direction. Any tips maybe from when you talk to first time to Henry or others about kind of discovering their passion for why they give? I know there are some specific kind of missional focal points that came out of that discussion between you and Henry, you know, 20 years ago or whatever it was. Any kind of tips for how we might individually discover that with a Lord? You mean what a particular focus or passion would be? Yeah, because, you know, you can go everywhere, right? There’s a million different there going on in the world, the thousands of deals. How do you decide kind of how does someone individually discern where they might go?

Daryl Heald: Yeah, that’s good. Well, maybe one of the simple things that I’ve always used to help me discern. God, what are you asking me to do? And John Scott talks about discerning the will of God in a calling, has two components to it. One is a push and the other one’s a pull. And so he’s saying you need to be aware of contextually aware that if God is pulling you into particular conversations, you’re meeting these people and then all of a sudden some of the dots are connecting. Be aware of that. Right, because none of these things are by accident. Right.

It’s not randomness and it’s not by accident, but it’s is God’s sovereignty operating to either push you out of a place of comfort and pulling you into this new place and then obviously with prayer and then with the word of God and then the Council of Peers and some friends that can help you discern that, too. But I think to me, one of the things that’s been helpful has been those two components, like internally just being aware. Well, you know, I’m getting this pull and I’m seeing not by accident that this person’s about this this person is about that. It seems like we’re all having the same conversation. Then I should be really aware of that. That’s good. So, Henry, at the beginning of the program, you were saying that you have this transformational experience. When I ask you the question, can you elaborate on that a little more?

Henry Kaestner: So today came to faith and I knew that there’s a God who loved me and that changed everything, but when I started thing, when I thought about money, money from me was something that was a requirement of me. OK, so God has blessed my business should probably be more generous because there are other people who are not as successful in business and they need finances to run the orphanage or whatever the case is and so can win. I should give more money away and maybe the tide is the right level for us. And then we started getting more generous. We saw some more needs and we thought, gosh, you know, God bless us a lot. We probably should give more. It was a responsibility and an obligation and it was a way of us giving back. If you had asked me at the time what you did, why do you give? I may have even said I want to pay it forward or something like that. Would transform for me, and I think that it does have everything to do with the way that I think about things as the fate of an investor now is that my motivation for giving became one of a sense of gratitude. So when you ask me that question, it wasn’t like this all sudden, this light bulb and everything, just like, oh, my goodness, that changes everything. It was over the next six months, every passage in Scripture having something to do about money. It was amazing. It’s unbelievable. And listen to this podcast probably can identify with some of that and those passages like God taking five loaves in two fish and feeding five thousand. What does that have to do with money? Well, it had to do with the fact that up until that point in time, I thought that God actually needed me to underwrite the five loaves and two fish. Wait a second. He can take something out of nothing. He doesn’t need my lousy money. He just wants me. And then it would be messages just simply about just the gospel and the fact that I came to realize that, you know, why I might give is out of gratitude, not an obligation. And, you know, it took me from this life where faith was important, the real ramifications to just being alive and having a sense of joy. And I get a sense of gratitude. But, you know, with time and over the course, the last 10 or 15 years, especially as I’ve looked to invest more and more, it’s really motivated by the sense that you mentioned before, which is opportunity. And it’s it’s a special privilege. It’s a special, amazing thing to participate in the work that God is doing in the world, not because he needs my capital, but he invites me in. And it’s an opportunity to commune with the living guy doing some things that are really, really important. I love the stories of the entrepreneurs we get a chance to invest in, and I love the stories of the funds we get a chance to participate in. It gives me great joy. You know, I’m an investor. Luke and I are both investors. We invest in pattern recognition. OK, so there’s a good amount of selfless ambition that drives me now with how I think about generosity and more specifically, faith driven investments when I invest in something has some level of spiritual integration in it, and even better yet, a gospel proclamation element of it, particularly overseas. When I do that, I feel joy. You know what I’m all about getting more joy in my life. And I find that when I’m in line with God’s plan for my life and so I want more of it, I get more joy from participating in some of these funds, particularly some of the ones that are emerging now in frontier markets that have got spiritual migration and really making a difference overseas. I just get 20 times more joy than I do for my Vanguard index fund. And so, again, I invest in pattern recognition. I’m going to do more of that. And it’s just that’s the difference. It’s the first way is out of an obligation and now it’s an opportunity.

Daryl Heald: I love it. I love it. Yeah, it is is. I mean, joy. Yeah. We’ll keep moving into joy. Right. Everyone wants a little bit more of that. See, that’s some of the fruit.

You know what I think sometimes to how we kind of misunderstand giving because we think what we’ve given is gone and like there’s no inurement in actually the way God has his designed it is that there’s actually there is some future sense of however he’s doing the math of laying up treasure in heaven. Right. For Matthew six. But there’s actually a Daubert, you know, force here even presently to even described. This is part of, you know, this gratitude and this joy. Right. But so there are some other things that when you look at the grace of giving and we look at the and what’s doctrinally what that means, some of the other things that are new to us when we’re willing to invest in the things that are unseen, which are eternal, when we’re investing in the kingdom, then, you know, things like favor, things like rest, things like lack of fear, lack of anxiety, grace, you know, reward worship, all these things.

These are like true promises in scripture. And that’s why he said, you know, move into this. That’s why he says it is more blessed to give than receive. That was awesome, dude.

Luke Roush: That was very good. Very good. That was brilliant. That was really awesome. I want to ask a question, Dara. So one of the first times you and I really actually spent some time together was when you brought the journey of generosity to Indonesia. And I had a chance just to kind of see a number of people that I knew well really transformed through that experience. And then, of course, you know, the journey of generosity is really taken off since then in Indonesia and in the region. I’d love just for listeners to be able to hear and get a sense of the scale of how God has worked through those events to be able to just convict people on their hearts, what generosity means to them, and kind of a reframing as you’ve done with us. So, you know, how far is gone, how many people have been touched. So you’ve got to be an encouragement.

Daryl Heald: Yeah, thanks. I still remember that that was the first one we had done in that country. And as you know, because you lived there, the Indonesians are fun, man. They love to talk you. So when you’re facilitating this, I mean, sometimes you’re wondering, OK, or people are going to talk, are they going to share and so on. I mean, every time we threw a question out there, every. And around the table wanted to share, everyone wanted to talk, but the scope of the movement now, so we started generous giving in 2000, the global work started in 2012, and we’re in seventy four countries in thirty two languages now. So it’s just a testimony of God’s word. This is God’s message and his movement is how we’ve always seen it and what I’ve always stated and what he intends for his church. Right. Because here’s the other big idea of, you know, a lot of times, too, we have talked about bifurcation. Sometimes that investment and, you know, the difference between for profit, not for profit investing versus giving. And we also think between the West and the east and, you know, the developed countries and the developing countries. Right. And socioeconomic status and so on. But ultimately, we all have been created and designed to be givers and receivers. And one of the most exciting things that we’ve seen in this movement globally has been generosity, stories that I could share with you from Venezuela and Zimbabwe and Romania and India and Nepal and places that we would normally think, OK, wait a minute. Like I just got a letter the other day from a guy from Sudan and he’s been taking the journey of generosity to Syria and Yemen and in Iraq. And I was like, OK, those I never thought we would have, you know, the generosity movement, OK, might go, you know how many countries you like. I just unfortunately, I typically was thinking we go to the more Western wealthier countries. And I mean, my mind has just been blown the last several years, just seen how guys like my messages for everybody. And this particular the generosity message is not about, you know, socioeconomic status for everyone because we’re all givers and receivers. If we understand this, then we all, again, have the opportunity to not only be givers. And so we shouldn’t have these kind of hardening of the categories between people that are you know, they live in this country and they have this type of GDP or something like that. Certainly they receivers and I just been blown away with that. That’s the fun part. That’s the fun part. Again, it just kind of flips the whole deal on its head.

Luke Roush: Yeah, well, you know, something that clicked for me is that we might have something to learn actually from the marketers of the world. The marketers of the world aren’t focused on old rich people and younger people who are potential customers for the next 30 or 40 years. And maybe there’s something to be learned from that. As you think about let’s really invest in the next generation and said demographics are destiny. And there’s some truth in that. In a country, like you said, you know, if you can really see something with younger women in a country that’s as young as Indonesia is, is just one example. The legacy of that is multi multigenerational and it’s not counting down in terms of population, the way Western Europe or Japan or maybe even the US would be net of immigration.

Luke Roush: That’s awesome. Thank you for. Yeah. Yeah. Like 60 percent of India’s under the age of 35.

Henry Kaestner: Now they’re going to be more entrants into the job market in Africa over the next 20 years than India and China combined. So there’s something really promising about this next generation. I love the way that you’re investing in them. So tell us if you’re trying to figure some more of this out, what are some ways for people to get plugged in to this generous journey?

Daryl Heald: Yeah, thanks. Well, you know, we’ve had to pivot this year and develop all of our experiences online, so typically when we you know, I’ve mentioned the word journey of generosity that we commonly referred to as a jog. And we’ve also developed the giving plain retreat coming out of the journey, transformational experience to be able to apply it. So we’ve developed those online and we’ll be happy to to help guide through one.

Henry Kaestner: They’re really, really good. I did want the fact that you’re now doing them online aloud, Kimberly, I because we get kids at home. Otherwise, typically a journey of generosity happens at a really nice hotel. Somebody pays for it. This is always a very safe thing. Nobody ever asked for any money. And it’s really usually at a really nice hotel. But Kimberly’s never been able to go to one before. And so this actual format allowed us to do it as a couple. And it was really awesome. And I’d say it was every bit as powerful as the in-person version.

Daryl Heald: Great. Well, that’s exciting to hear. We are going again. Holy Spirit does the transformational work. But, you know, you can go to the Generosity Path ERG website and you can contact us and we can help you get into a journey, generosity, experience. So we love to do that for you.

Henry Kaestner: Excellent. We close every one of our episodes off, as you may know, by asking our guests something that they’re hearing from God through their time in his word. And it could be this morning, this week, this month. But what’s something that you feel that God is speaking to you about right now?

Daryl Heald: Well, I mean, one of the unique things is, you know, you and I do a reading group together. And so we’re in the New Testament.

We’re actually in second Timothy right now. Second Timothy, one second, Timothy to both. Paul speaks about sharing in the suffering for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of the ELAC. And he speaks in suffering a lot. But that’s just jumped out to me again, is to in a convecting way. I love buying into, again, all the things that seem good. Am I also willing to buy in and take a share of the suffering? You know, this is really convecting for me, you know, and as I’ve had opportunities to interface with a lot of our Christian family around the world, I mean, there’s there’s a lot of suffering and I see them sharing in that. Well, I’m just personally convicted in my own heart that I need to have more faith and be willing to share in that. The second thing is, is I’ve been convicted on my motives in whatever I’m doing. I guess back in Thessalonians talks about, you know, did you nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit. Mm hmm. And so I’ve found myself now using that as almost like a daily mantra. OK, what what is asking myself, why am I doing this? What’s my motive here now? Is their pride? Is there you know, is I after something that is just temporal? Right. I need to use that as a check and my spirit.

Henry Kaestner: Sorry, sister versus so obviously both of those are great. I will mention that people that might start off in second. Timothy, go back one chapter before the first Timothy six, which is probably my favorite chapter on giving in the Bible. Second Corinthians eight nine are awesome. But first Timothy six. But I’ll tell you, starting to go back through Proverbs with my boys. I’ve got three teenage boys and Proverbs 16, two and twenty one to speak to exactly what you talking about with this Linton’s. And it’s almost haunting to me. It’s all the man’s ways impure to him, but his motives are weighed by the Lord. So gosh, even if I’m conscious of vain conceit and try to steer clear of that and I think that my motives are pure, God really understands how sinful I am, deeper, and it just needs its convicting. And and yet, in a strange way, it’s also encouraging that there’s a God who knows me that well, who must also love me that much.

And that’s a great encouragement for. Thank you, guys.

Daryl Heald: Thanks for having me. I was a real pleasure.

Love, love, love all y’all. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on today’s show. We’re very, very grateful for the opportunity to serve the larger faith driven investor community. Hey, the best way for you to stay connected is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at faith driven investor Doug. And while you’re there, we, of course, want to hear from you. We derive great joy from interacting with many of you. And it’s been very rewarding to see people join the discussion now from all around the world. But it’s also very important to us that you feel like this is your show and that you’ll help make it something that best equips you on your journey, one that you’re proud of and one that you’ll share with others.

Host: This podcast, it wouldn’t be possible without the help from many of our friends. Executive producer Justin Forman, program director Johnny Will’s music by Carl Chigwell. You can see and hear more of his work at summer drag’s dotcom and audio and editing by Richard Bahle of Cornerstone Church in San Francisco.