Rise Seminar – Social Enterprise: Advancing Sustainable Community Development 8.22.2014

On August 22, 2014 Rise held an informative seminar on social enterprise as it relates to advancing sustainable community development at the Thomas Dunn Learning Center. We had great attendance for the event, in fact we had full house. We posted on the announcement of the seminar on 7/23/2014. To view, click here.

The following is information on the presenters and their presentation:

Brian Hurd (Rise-Technical Assistance Program Manager), Jeffrey Holtz and Thomas Maxwell (Jubilee Christian Development Corporation) gave a presentation Exploring the Relationship Between Social Enterprise & Sustainable Community Development.

Jeffrey MacIntyre Holtz is SR. VP of Corporate Finance at Bowcurve Capital, a majority-minority owned private-equity firm, headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada. Mr. Holtz is also President of the Scottish St. Andrew Society of Greater St. Louis, the largest Scottish-American cultural and educational organization in Missouri. Mr. Holtz has over 35-years experience in finance as a CPA for national firms: KPMG Peat Marwick and Deloitte & Co. Also, he spent over 20-years with Wall Street investment banking firms including: Oppenheimer & Co. and EF Hutton. Mr. Holtz has a BS in Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Christianity and Contemporary Culture from Covenant Theological Seminary, the national seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America.

Rise Social Enterprise Advancing Sustainable Community Development Presentation

Watch a short video featuring Brian Hurd at the seminar here.

Watch a short video featuring Jeffrey Holtz at the seminar here.

Watch a short video clip featuring Thomas Maxwell at the seminar here.

Phil Minden is Senior Vice President at Sterling Bank, a Missouri state-chartered bank with locations in Poplar Bluff, Van Buren, Clayton and Chesterfield.  Phil was on a project team that won the 2012 YouthBridge/SEIC competition at Washington University for Sweet Sensation, a social enterprise that teaches entrepreneurship and small business development skills to youth in the Greater Ville neighborhood of St. Louis through the operation of a bee keeping business.  Phil serves on the board of Northside Community Housing, Inc. and the St. Louis Mental Health Board of Trustees.  Phil has BA and MSW degrees from St. Louis University, and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.

Sweet Sensations Inc.Presentation

Watch a short video clip featuring Phil Minden at the seminar here.

Dana M. Malkus is a lawyer and assistant clinical professor at Saint Louis University School of Law where she supervises students in the Community & Economic Development Clinic and teaches a transactional drafting course.  In the Clinic, Dana and her students represent both nonprofit organizations and small business entrepreneurs on a range of transactional matters including structuring and formation, operational issues, contract drafting and review, loan document review, regulatory compliance issues, and real estate matters.  Prior to her current position, she worked as an associate at Lewis, Rice & Fingersh and as a law clerk for the Honorable E. Richard Webber in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Employment Legal Issues Presentation

Watch a short video clip featuring Dana Malkus at the seminar here.

Father Gary Meier (North Grand Neighborhood Services)

Father Meier presented on using Angel Baked Cookies  as a way for North Grand Neighborhood Services to engage the youth in the neighborhood, empowering them to design their own business and make it work.

North Grand Neighborhood Services

Sylvester Brown Jr. (North Area Community Development Corporation)

For the past three years, I have served as the director of the Sweet Potato Project (SPP). The 60 or so youth we’ve recruited since 2012, have been told that they are “urban pioneers” who will show the region that we can save communities through a food-based movement. We recruit teens (ages 16-to-20) from some of the city’s poorest zip codes. They are paid during the summer to plant sweet potatoes on vacant lots. After nine weeks of training in marketing, product development, social media and more, they’re charged with turning their yield into products.

Sweet Potato Project Presentation

Matt Nordmann (IFF Director of Community Development-Missouri)

As Director of Community Development for Missouri, Matt is responsible for planning, organizing and implementing IFF’s proactive real estate development business, including business development, relationship development, executive over site of projects and financial management across the IFF business platform including Charter Schools, Healthy Food Access, Affordable Housing and Human Services.

Financing Social Enterprises Presentation

Jake Barnett Jake Barnett grew up primarily in the Chicagoland area, spending the three years of middle school in England and Ireland. Jake’s professional focus has consistently been on the intersection of social/environmental causes and the realm of economics. He went to college at Ohio Wesleyan University where he triple majored in International Studies, Economics and Political Science. After graduation he spent time working with a microfinance group in Chicago and fundraising for a local orphanage in Ghana. He came to St. Louis as a FOCUS St. Louis Coro Fellow where he worked with Maplewood’s sustainability commission and Enterprise’s Corporate Sustainability department. He is a proud St. Louis transplant and is excited to come speak with you about sustainable investing.

Daniel Conner The analytical side of the Barnett-Conner equation, Dan has been an environmentally conscious investor for over a decade.  Dan is also an international citizen of sorts, having lived in Australia, Brunei, Singapore, India, the US, Brazil, and Argentina, and having traveled to countless countries in between.  His professional years have been spent working abroad in investment management and clean energy, from quantitative responsible investment strategy development to installing offshore windmills in the North Sea.  Dan has called St. Louis home since he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with an MBA and a Master’s Degree in Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering.

Socially Responsible Investment Causes

 Thank you to all who presented and attended the seminar. Look for up coming seminars and training coming soon!