In 2018, Co-Founders Bernard Worthy and Justin Straight joined the Praxis Business Accelerator with their fintech company, LoanWell. Their mission is to create wealth generation opportunities through better access to cheaper capital. In early February, after learning they were trying to close a $600K convertible note round, we introduced Bernard and Justin to Andy Muhich.

We had witnessed Andy’s spirit-led and patient approach to partnership in his support of Oye Waddell, a 2019 Nonprofit Fellow leading Hustle PHX. Andy had reached out to Praxis in June 2019 with a desire to shape his family around redemptive principles. They recently decided to support small businesses led by entrepreneurial people of color.

Soon Andy and the LoanWell team began mutually discerning the possibility of financial partnership. The three met several times, praying and seeking counsel from others in the Praxis community. In April, Andy and his team committed to an investment in LoanWell. He shared, “I was surprised at how deep we went in such a short time together. My respect for them grew enormously because of how vulnerable they were with me. It spoke a lot to their trust(worthiness) and that they want real partnership.”

With this support, Bernard and Justin have continued using technology to provide access to capital for those who have been left out. In their largest program, the North Carolina Rapid Recovery program, 65% of loans have been made to Historically Underutilized Businesses to date. Andy also recently became a Charlotte Guild Co-Founder, and the Praxis partnerships are helping him uncover the redemptive opportunity around access-limited communities hyper-local to the Charlotte Guild.

This summer, Blanca Burch went through Academy Venture after learning about the program from Leah Hernandez, a long-time Praxis Academy champion and Host Team member. Through the program, Blanca learned from established practitioners in the Praxis community and grew her imagination of how to build her venture in a redemptive way. Culturally Kreative publishes children’s books that better represent people of color, beginning with their recent release of Who Has Hair Like Mine?

During one Academy session, Blanca recognized Hadiyah Mujhid, Founder of HBCUvc, on the list of mentors because she had been following HBCUvc’s programs for some time. HBCUvc selects college-aged Fellows enrolled in Historically Black Colleges and Universities based on their high potential for leadership and a demonstrated commitment to shifting the narrative of entrepreneurship and venture capital.

After a productive roundtable discussion, Blanca emailed Hadiyah to thank her and  share her intention of applying to the HBCUvc fellowship program. Hadiyah warmly encouraged her to do so and to keep in touch.

Earlier this fall, HBCUvc welcomed their fourth class of Fellows into the program, including Blanca! During the virtual welcoming and onboarding retreat, Blanca and Hadiyah had a chance to catch up during a one-on-one session. Blanca was so surprised that Hadiyah remembered her from their exchange during Academy and was thankful for the warm way Hadiyah welcomed her into HBCUvc.

With the Redemptive Frame in mind, Blanca is looking forward to the HBCUvc Fellowship, where she’ll learn how to help less-connected communities get access to capital in the future. In both her own venture and future ventures she hopes to support, she’s excited to go beyond the exploitative and ethical in pursuit of the redemptive edge. She’s especially passionate about supporting ventures in education technology to help bridge the education gap in the country.

Earlier this year, as they were each contemplating a sabbatical policy for their organizations, Johnmark Oudersluys of CityLink Center was introduced to Hudson Baird of PelotonU by Jena Lee Nardella of Praxis. Through that conversation, the two learned more about each other’s work. Johnmark was intrigued by PelotonU’s innovative model that made college degrees accessible to non-traditional students. As CityLink’s model uses partnerships to create a hub of social services for neighbors in need, Johnmark expressed interest in exploring a local implementation of PelotonU programs in Cincinnati. Hudson introduced Johnmark to his Co-Founder Sarah Saxton-Frump, who outlined their typical path for a replication site.

Then the pandemic hit. PelotonU quickly pivoted to provide remote coaching and were seeing strong results. Johnmark reached out to Sarah and asked if PelotonU would consider delivering the program remotely to CityLink clients. Sarah was on board and the two teams got to work right away to design a brand new partnership model for their organizations.

In just six months, CityLink and PelotonU were able to launch the program and are currently serving their first class of ten clients in Cincinnati. Through this partnership, CityLink was able to offer existing clients a next step towards increased prosperity, and bring in new clients interested in this unique opportunity during a time of tremendous uncertainty.

As leaders of organizations who went through the Praxis Accelerator program in different years, Johnmark, Hudson, and Sarah benefitted through shared language as outlined in the Redemptive Frame, the Rule of Life, and the Redemptive Nonprofit, which allowed them to quickly operate under an umbrella of trust. They have yet to meet in person, but this common foundation and mutuality of intent allowed them to launch this new partnership in pursuit of more individuals having opportunities to thrive.

Rob Peabody and Donna Harris met in 2018 as Fellow and Mentor on the scenic porch of Minnewaska Lodge in upstate New York. They immediately connected over their desire to foster deeper engagement in local communities.

Fast forward 18 months—Donna had joined the board at VOMO after Builders + Backers made an investment in the organization—when the pandemic took hold of the country. Rob and Donna jumped on an evening call in March to contemplate what they could offer local communities in crisis. They turned to a campaign that VOMO led just a few months earlier. The “Be a Neighbor” campaign was a one-day service event in partnership with the movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

For two weeks straight, the VOMO team and the Builders + Backers team worked around the clock to redesign and launch the platform to connect those in need with volunteers. Rob chose to provide VOMO for free “for such a time as this because it was the right thing to do.” At the same time, Donna and her team “rolled up their sleeves with Christ-like yieldedness and exemplified sacrificial leadership” to support VOMO every step of the way, even stopping all other projects to give full attention to the campaign during March and April.

As a result, they received 20 million “Be A Neighbor” views, which translated to 300,000 volunteer hours on 250,000 volunteer projects in 30 countries, creating an economic impact of $9.8M! Rob and Donna hope VOMO can continue to mobilize even more people to become neighbors who serve and make a meaningful impact in their communities.

Pam sat with rapt attention as Praxis Partner Andy Crouch shared his “Authority vs. Vulnerability” framework (also known inside Praxis as simply “The 2x2”) during a Nonprofit Accelerator event last September. She began to imagine how mentoring families could identify their own hopes and fears through this lens of authority and vulnerability as they served youth aging out of foster care in her organization. What she couldn’t figure out was how to apply this idea directly to the youth, simply because they had so little authority to begin with, only vulnerability.

Determined to find a solution, Pam spent an hour with Andy with a pen and sheet of paper, sketching what would become the Redemptive Connections Framework. They determined that there are two primary value drivers that determine a vulnerable youth’s ability to thrive – Belonging and Self-Efficacy. A Redemptive Connection is formed when mentoring families step into the life of a vulnerable youth, offering unconditional Belonging while giving them the space to develop Self-Efficacy.

Pam knew this insight was a gamechanger for her organization. At her annual staff retreat in November, she introduced her team to the Rule of Life and the Redemptive Frame before diving into the newly developed framework. Over the course of a few days, Pam’s team completely rewrote their training manual for mentoring families.

Since then, the Redemptive Connections Framework has become a critical tool for Connections Homes. Today, you’ll often see Pam and her team scribbling the framework on a napkin in the middle of sessions with their mentoring families. Ultimately, Pam hopes to bring flourishing to the lives of more youth as the organization invites families to intentionally step into brokenness and connect with a sacrificial spirit so that another can experience restoration.