INNOVATION WORKS 2020 End of Year Report

Building Sustainable Neighborhood Economies

MISSION & VALUES

By 2029:

Reduce Baltimore’s neighborhood and racial wealth divide, by supporting members of disinvested communities to build and own successful social enterprises that create sustainable neighborhood economies and result in better family living, more resilient neighborhoods, and a safer, more vibrant city.

HEROIC VISION Innovators are on every corner across Baltimore. Each person, no matter their circumstance, has untapped leadership potential. Unlocking the entrepreneurial human capital potential of Baltimore’s marginalized majority population is an opportunity Innovation Works values.

EXCELLENCE Baltimoreans are capable of becoming the social innovation thought leaders for our nation.

Innovation Works seeks to support bold but actionable visions that create sustainable social enterprises and prosperous neighborhood economies. We believe these entrepreneurs can create grassroots, national models of quality, livable, urban community solutions.

DIGNITY

250

5000

$100M

launched

employed

tracked

enterprises

people

capital

INCLUSION Innovation Works meets community members where they are, lifting up Innovators on every corner. We respect, value, support, and collaborate with trusted community anchors. We walk with social entrepreneurs and students as they discern, create, and build social innovations to improve their community and create opportunity beyond their community.

FOR THE GREATER GOOD We encourage Innovators on every corner to identify and create viable and transformative business ideas that address the most pressing problems in our community and beyond. We encourage social entrepreneurs to see opportunity as about more than income. If ideas fulfill one's deepest desires and calling, they become mission-driven enterprises that solve problems, make profits for partners, and create sustainable economic prosperity.

Work is fundamental to the dignity of the person. Every person is created in God’s own image.

Innovation Works believes that every person, through their lived-experience, can create work that produces Goods that are Good for society and Services that Serve society. Work is God’s invitation to be co-creators, co-laborers in the unfinished work of creation.

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3

2016

the CREATION of a program supporting

BALTIMORE

residents in underinvested communities to OLD

CREATE GROW SCALE

TOWN MALL

SOCIAL ENTERPRISES

TIMELINE

History & Quick Stats 2016 & 2017 - THE INITIAL DUE DILIGENCE Since 2016, leaders of Baltimore's Jesuit

2018 - BUILDING A NETWORK

Frank Knott guided an exploratory team that concluded such a solution would fulfill three needs: (1) provide a path to economic sustainability for African Americans and Latinx people disengaged from the Baltimore workforce; (2) create opportunities for communities presently underserved by the existing innovation ecosystem in Baltimore; and (3) offer Jesuit institutions a means to live out their mission by responding to a pressing faith-justice issue in the city.

$

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

IW becomes a Miller Center strategic partner

NOV 2019 - IW PILOTED THE BNIA COMMUNITY GUIDEPOST

to adapt its 20+ year global practice for

IW's first six-month accelerator offers

IW partners with BNIA to create Community

an extended, personalized experience

Guidepost to aid local understanding of their

to 10 SEs who are paired with individual

neighborhoods and assess where a positive

mentors to walk through essential

impact can be made.

Baltimore. IW conducts over 150 Baltimore and national stakheolder interviews to gain insights into how the Miller Center model could best adapt to Baltimore. IW raises initial $1M to underwrite operations.

JAN 2019 - IW LAUNCHES & BUILDS OPERATION Innovation Works launched with Frank Knott as CEO and Board Chair, Jay Nwachu as Cheif Innovation Officer, Nicholas Mitchel as Neighborhood Engagement Manager, and Sally

business lessons and apply them to their enterprise.

SEPT 2019 - THE TEAM EXPANDS IW welcomes Baltimore Corps Fellow, Hannah Correlli; Public Ally, Marina Butler; and a UB Social Work Fellow, Julie Cronan to the team.

Ratrie as Operations and Project Manager.

FEB 2019 - IW LAUNCHES IGNITE HUB & MENTOR NETWORK

FEB 2020 - IW LAUNCHES THE IGNITE CAPITAL FUND Ignite Capital is IW's unique solution to Baltimore's critical access gap to capital necessary to lead and grow sustainable enterprises.

JUNE 2019 - IW'S 1ST GSBI BOOST PROGRAM

JUNE 2020 - SEPT 2020 - IW HOSTS INVESTOR SHOWCASE & MAKES FIRST IGNITE CAPITAL INVESTMENTS

IW's first 3-day Boost Program walks 28

IW hosts its first investor showcase for entrepreneurs

SEs through 7 mission-driven business

IW launches 4 Neighborhood Ignite Hubs

lessons that are key for all social

and recruits 20 executive mentors, key

enterprises' leaders to understand.

elements of IW's social enterprise strategy.

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to achieve

OCT 2019 - IW'S 1ST GSBI 6-MONTH ACCELORATOR

institutions explored the creation of a social enterprise solution like Innovation Works (IW).

2 0 2 0

graduating from IW's 6-month accelerator to pitch to investors. IW announces the first four Ignite Capital investment enterprises.

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STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK The Innovation Works model revolves around three core strategic focus areas (Neighborhood, Enterprise Pipeline, and Strategic Initiatives) designed to accelerate its bold goals while building from Baltimore's core strengths. IW's Neighborhood Strategy uses a hyper-local place-based approach to concentrate its efforts on Baltimore communities that have experienced the severity of chronic disinvestments' generational adverse effects. The Enterprise Pipeline focus area is IW's 5-stage idea-to-scale social enterprise development model, primarily modeled after Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship's framework. IW's Strategic Initiatives seek to explore opportunities to address the critical challenges related to social determinants of health and community economic development. IW will use its industry economic development framework to pursue specific industries' opportunities with substantial local assets to collectively support social enterprises' growth.

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE (SE) DEVELOPMENT IDENTIFY, ASSIST, & CREATE strong, innovative, and empowered social entrepreneurs with successful social enterprises.

Neighborhood Strategy

Social Enterprise Development

Sustainable Neighborhood Economies

NEIGHBORHOOD STRATEGY IDENTIFY, ASSIST, & CREATE strong neighborhood networks with viable strategic plans and initiatives for the future.

Strategic Initiatives

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES IDENTIFY, ASSIST, & CREATE opportunities to accelerate innovation and social impact beyond any one neighborhood or social entrepreneur.

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SE PIPELINE STRATEGY Given the many barriers that prevent individuals

Supporting minority entrepreneurs, especially

living in economically distressed communities from

social enterprises, is vital to the economic progress

upward economic mobility, entrepreneurship has

of neighborhoods and the overall well-being of

been proven to be an alternate route that can close

Baltimore. Innovation Works (IW) sees a unique

the wealth gap. Entrepreneurship often drives small

opportunity to tackle the racial and neighborhood

business creation, especially businesses that provide

wealth divide by accelerating the rate of economic

basic amenities which make a community a thriving

mobility and healthy communities for Baltimore’s

and attractive place to live.

most vulnerable.

NEIGHBORHOOD STRATEGY While IW's overall vision works to build sustainable neighborhood economies, we recognize this is impossible without meaningful relationships and engagements within these neighborhoods to increase community capacity and trust. IW's Neighborhood Strategy is rooted in understanding the context and racist systems that have led to and sustained Baltimore's neighborhood, racial, and wealth divides. We believe the community members should play a key role in creating entrepreneurial solutions and decision making processes to create positive change in their neighborhoods. It is important to note that entrepreneurs present in many different ways—corner stores, in-home businesses, etc. If we focus on the neighborhood leaders, we can find the people.

IGNITE HUB NETWORK IW's Neighborhood strategy relies heavily on our Ignite Hub model. The Ignite Hub in each neighborhood is an identified IW partner through which IW engages community residents, other partners, and delivers entrepreneurship support services. Partners are selected through a set of criteria and after due diligence to ensure mission alignment and capacity to engage with IW's model.

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS IN BALTIMORE NEIGHBORHOODS Innovation Works has launched four Ignite Hubs in the PenroseFayette, Sandtown-Winchester, Harlem Park, McElderry Park, Hilton St. Corridor, and Greenmount West neighborhoods. IW will continue to expand its Ignite Hub network by expanding existing hubs to serve larger areas as well as adding new hubs to bring support to neighborhoods in other parts of the City.

Five-Stages of Social Entrepreneur Development IGNITE Ignite sets the tone for the social entrepreneurship journey by building an Impact Model through the

GROW

Theory of Change framework that serves as the

Grow provides the social enterprise discipline

foundation of the social enterprise.

needed to implement, market validate, adjust and grow the social enterprise into a place-based or

IDEATE

scalable business and job creator.

Scale identifies social enterprises that can grow scalable capital investment and accelerated

Create equips newly-operating social entrepreneurs

growth.

with mission-driven business fundamentals so they

FOUNDER DION BOWEN

S

TR

8

EE

Epic Art Universe is a design agency that teaches design courses to people of all ages. Founded by Dion Bowen, Epic Art Universe now exists and invests in Dion's home community of PenroseFayette.

ENTERPRISE EPIC ART UNIVERSE

TE

can effectively guide their operations and growth.

FAY E T

CREATE

t

beyond a local market and prepares them for

N ei

model around their intended social impact.

gh

SCALE

b

t li

focussing on creating a sustainable lean business

gh

Ideate supports emerging social entrepreneurs by

ood Sp h r o o

T OUTREACH

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STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

MILESTONES (as of September 2020) IW Pipeline

IW's Strategic Initiatives seeks to explore opportunities to address the critical challenges related to social determinants of health and community economic development, including topic areas such as the digital divide, food access, education and literacy, public health, and affordable housing. IW pursues initiatives that address these topics through collaborative efforts to work across silos to accelerate innovation and growth in these areas.

1. Reclaimed Urban Wood Products and Natural Dye Textile Fabrication

Baltimore’s location and climate create a unique indigenous resource center for both the Reclaimed Ubran Wood Products (RUWP) and Natural Dye Textile Fabrication (NDTF) markets.

IW is working on an initiative to leverage this market advantage to reduce Baltimore’s neighborhood racial and wealth divide by developing multiple RUWP social enterprise businesses across the “raw material to consumer” supply PARTNERS chain of each niche market. Applying our proven social enterprise development pipeline solution to development of the RUWP & NDTF markets will help reduce persistent poverty in Baltimore’s economically distressed neighborhoods. By utilizing our pipeline to support NDTF businesses in these markets, IW intends for Baltimore to PARTNERS become the national market leader in development of the emerging RUWP and the NDTF markets.

2. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Production

IW is supporting an initiative known as "Maker's Unite!" which launched in the spring of 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this initiative, IW helped facilitate production shifts in Baltimore businesses to meet the high demand for PPE in our region.

The project's lead manufacturers consisted of Open Works, the makerspace IW

operates out of, and two IW social enterprises – SewLab USA and Dent

Education. As a result of successfully serving the critical PPE needs of

over 140 customers in the Mid-Atlantic region, CareFirst has

provided Innovation Works with a grant to explore

development of domestic PPE supply chain

solutions that would provide more responsive face shields & and innovative masks produced solutions.

100K

660 items of PPE donated

35+

jobs retained or created

400+ Makers Unite! volunteers

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3

businesses supported through a recession

55

professionals joined our mentor network to support SEs in Baltimore city

IW SUPPORTED ENTERPRISES ARE...

56% 71% WOMEN-LED

4.8

POC-LED

out Our mentors rated their GSBI of 5 Boost experience 4.8 out of 5

IW HAS SERVED...

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IW has launched 4 Ignite Hub partnerships covering 6 neighborhoods across Baltimore

CATEGORIES OF ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

200+ TOTAL

80

ACTIVE

Community Development Youth Development

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IW has engaged over 200 emerging and established social entrepreneurs since we launched IW has 80 current social entrepreneurs actively receiving support IW's GSBI 3-day Boost programs have engaged 57 social enterprise leaders

Food Access Product Real Estate

20

out of 57

20 Boost program participants have gone on to IW's 6-month GSBI Online Accelerator 11

IGNITE CAPITAL In furtherance of its mission, in February of 2020, IW founded Ignite Capital, a fund designed to empower Baltimore residents in economically distressed communities. Ignite Capital identifies social enterprises committed to creating a better future for lower-income communities and communities of color. These enterprises lack access to capital due to traditional lenders' unwillingness to take risks on nontraditional borrowers, venture capitalists' lack of interest in funding community-oriented startups, and philanthropists' reluctance to capitalize on such entrepreneurs. Ignite Capital's place-based focus helps distressed communities prepare for

economic activity and develop a viable market, expanding broader impact opportunities.

IW supports Ignite Capital by providing resources and education to the entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs receive an impact assessment that will help them develop social impact goals for their business and measure the business's performance in achieving its goals throughout the term of the Ignite Capital loan. All efforts intend to reduce Baltimore's neighborhood and racial wealth divide by enabling entrepreneurs to build and own social enterprises that create sustainable neighborhood economies.

INVESTMENT PROCESS

IGNITE CAPITAL TO DATE

$127K

$260K

$6.5K

invested by Ignite Capital

invested by Co-investor Network

in micro-grants for pre-revenue SEs

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enterprises invested in

Ignite Capital wants to see me and my company win and offers us resources, not just money, to realize our potential.

This is invaluable.

Innovation Works and Ignite Capital are crucial to the social entrepreneurship ecosystem because they are working to shift systems and remove barriers that stifle Baltimore's high-impact social innovators.

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"I’ve been coaching entrepreneurs for 15 years. You typically see one of two things: people are either impervious to any criticism or advice, like talking to a brick wall, or people are unsure of themselves and just agree to everything. IW entrepreneurs are different. They've found a happy medium between questioning a mentor's advice and accepting their guidance. It is refreshing to witness and be a part of."

Administrative 12.1%

INNOVATION WORKS

FY20 BUDGET

$837K

80 SEs mentored

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55 mentors in network

2000+ mentor hours contributed in FY20

IGNITE CAPITAL FY20 BUDGET

$140K

Micro Grants 28.6%

n ow kd

areas of expertise

Programs 84.2%

IC Budget B re a

Jim Kucher, DPA, MBA Graduate Research Innovation District University of Maryland, Baltimore

25+

Br e

wn do ak

The IW Mentor Network represents IW’s essential accompaniment and support resource for entrepreneurs participating in IW programming. The Mentor Network is made up of a diverse group of accomplished leaders with the common goal of sharing their expertise with the next generation of Baltimore entrepreneurs. IW mentors support aspiring and established social enterprise leaders with anything from accounting and financial service to real estate and legal services. This next year, IW will devote tailored resources to existing and future mentors through the development of a mentor-driven Collaborative Leadership Council (CLC), additional mentor engagement opportunities, and increased recruitment efforts.

FINANCES

raising 3.7% Fund

IW's Mentor Network

IW Budget

Staffing Capacity 53.6% Administrative 17.9%

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IW STAFF MARINA BUTLER Manager - Strategic Initiatives HANNAH CORRELLI Manager - Enterprise Development & Resident Process Design Lead MADI DUFFY Program Coordinator & Marketing Associate

IGNITE CAPITAL BOARD

JASMINE GODBOLT Executive Assistant & Fundraising Associate

JAY NWACHU President & CEO, IW President, Ignite Capital

GREGORY HUNTER Funding Coordinator, Ignite Capital

SALLY RATRIE Manager - Enterprise Development & Operations

NICHOLAS MITCHEL Manager - Community Engagement & Enterprise Development

IW BOARD MEMBERS JACQUELINE CALDWELL President Whittier-Monroe Neighborhood Association JOHN CICCONE President St. Ignatius Loyola Academy BILL COLE Partner Margrave Strategies ANTHONY DAY President Loyola Blakefield SABRINA DEPESTRE Director of Marketing & Recruitment MICA

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FAGAN HARRIS President and CEO Baltimore Corps BILL HEISER, PHD President Cristo Rey Jesuit High School

JIM PETERSON, JR. VP, Business Banking Relationship Manager M&T Bank DAN RIZZO Founding Chief Innovation Officer Inovalon

FRANK KNOTT Founder & Board Chair Innovation Works Founder & CEO ViTAL Economy

PAMELA ROUSSOS Chief Community Officer Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship

JAMIE MCDONALD Founder Generosity Co-Founder The Courage.Us

FR. BILL WATTERS, SJ President Loyola Early Learning Center

NICK NAPOLITANO Provincial Assistant Social Ministries The Jesuits USA East Province

NKENGE YASIN CEO & Child Development Specialist Learning How, Inc.

PATTI CHANDLER VP of Finance & Admin Baltimore Community Foundation

JAY NWACHU President & CEO Innovation Works President Ignite Capital

MURRAY DALZIEL Dean- School of Business University of Baltimore

FR. RICHARD MCGOWAN Treasurer The Jesuits USA East Province

DAN RIZZO Founding Chief Innovation Officer Inovalon

IGNITE CAPITAL INVESTMENT COMMITTEE PATTI CHANDLER VP of Finance & Admin Baltimore Community Foundation CHRIS GRANT Investment Manager Blueprint Local

BREE JONES Founder & CEO Parity KEN MALONE Co-Founder Early Charm Ventures

JAY NWACHU President & CEO Innovation Works President Ignite Capital DAN RIZZO Founding Chief Innovation Officer Inovalon

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INNOVATION WORKS BALTIMORE iwbmore.org • @iwbmore 1400 Greenmount Ave • Baltimore, MD 21202

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