INNOVATION WORKS 2020 End of Year Report

Building Sustainable Neighborhood Economies

MISSION & VALUES

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

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.

By 2029:

enterprises launched people employed capital tracked 250 5000 $100M

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.

2016 the CREATION of a program supporting

residents in underinvested communities to to achieve FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY $

TIMELINE

History & Quick Stats

2016 & 2017 - THE INITIAL DUE DILIGENCE

Since 2016, leaders of Baltimore's Jesuit institutions explored the creation of a social enterprise solution like Innovation Works (IW). 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.

2018 - BUILDING A NETWORK

IW becomes a Miller Center strategic partner to adapt its 20+ year global practice for 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 Ratrie as Operations and Project Manager.

FEB 2019 - IW LAUNCHES IGNITE HUB & MENTOR NETWORK

IW launches 4 Neighborhood Ignite Hubs and recruits 20 executive mentors, key elements of IW's social enterprise strategy.

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

IW's first six-month accelerator offers an extended, personalized experience to 10 SEs who are paired with individual mentors to walk through essential 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.

JUNE 2019 - IW'S 1ST GSBI BOOST PROGRAM

IW's first 3-day Boost Program walks 28 SEs through 7 mission-driven business lessons that are key for all social enterprises' leaders to understand.

NOV 2019 - IW PILOTED THE BNIA COMMUNITY GUIDEPOST

IW partners with BNIA to create Community Guidepost to aid local understanding of their neighborhoods and assess where a positive impact can be made.

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 2020 - SEPT 2020 - IW HOSTS INVESTOR SHOWC ASE & MAKES FIRST IGNITE CAPITAL INVESTMENTS

IW hosts its first investor showcase for entrepreneurs graduating from IW's 6-month accelerator to pitch to investors. IW announces the first four Ignite Capital investment enterprises.

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.

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

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE (SE) DEVELOPMENT

IDENTIFY, ASSIST, & CREATE strong, innovative, and empowered social entrepreneurs with successful social enterprises.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

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

SE PIPELINE STRATEGY

Given the many barriers that prevent individuals living in economically distressed communities from upward economic mobility, entrepreneurship has been proven to be an alternate route that can close the wealth gap. Entrepreneurship often drives small business creation, especially businesses that provide basic amenities which make a community a thriving and attractive place to live.

Supporting minority entrepreneurs, especially social enterprises, is vital to the economic progress of neighborhoods and the overall well-being of Baltimore. Innovation Works (IW) sees a unique opportunity to tackle the racial and neighborhood wealth divide by accelerating the rate of economic mobility and healthy communities for Baltimore’s most vulnerable.

Five-Stages of Social Entrepreneur Development

IGNITE

Ignite sets the tone for the social entrepreneurship journey by building an Impact Model through the Theory of Change framework that serves as the foundation of the social enterprise.

IDEATE

Ideate supports emerging social entrepreneurs by focussing on creating a sustainable lean business model around their intended social impact.

CREATE

Create equips newly-operating social entrepreneurs with mission-driven business fundamentals so they can effectively guide their operations and growth.

GROW

Grow provides the social enterprise discipline needed to implement, market validate, adjust and grow the social enterprise into a place-based or scalable business and job creator.

SCALE

Scale identifies social enterprises that can grow beyond a local market and prepares them for scalable capital investment and accelerated growth.

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.

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.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES MILESTONES

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 social enterprise businesses across the “raw material to consumer” supply 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 businesses in these markets, IW intends for Baltimore to become the national market leader in development of the emerging RUWP and the NDTF markets.

2. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Production

(as of September 2020)

IW Pipeline

IW SUPPORTED ENTERPRISES ARE...

55

professionals joined our mentor network to support SEs in Baltimore city

4.8

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

56% WOMEN-LED

71% POC-LED

IW HAS SERVED...

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

100K face shields & masks produced

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 and innovative solutions.

35+ jobs retained or created

660 items of PPE donated

3 businesses supported through a recession 400+

Makers Unite! volunteers

5

1 Community Development

2 Youth Development

3 Food Access

4 Product

5 Real Estate

200+

IW has engaged over 200 emerging and established social entrepreneurs since we launched

80 ACTIVE

57

20

out of 57

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

IW has 80 current social entrepreneurs actively receiving support

IW's GSBI 3-day Boost programs have engaged 57 social enterprise leaders

IGNITE CAPITAL IGNITE CAPITAL TO DATE

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

$127K invested by Ignite Capital

$260K invested by Co-investor Network

$6.5K in micro-grants for pre-revenue SEs

4 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.

IW's Mentor Network

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.

25+ areas of expertise

55 mentors in network

80 SEs mentored

2000+ mentor hours contributed in FY20

"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."

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

FINANCES

INNOVATION WORKS

FY20 BUDGET

$837K

IGNITE CAPITAL

FY20 BUDGET

$140K

IW STAFF

MARINA BUTLER

Manager - Strategic Initiatives

HANNAH CORRELLI

Manager - Enterprise

Development & Resident

Process Design Lead

MADI DUFFY

Program Coordinator & Marketing Associate

JASMINE GODBOLT

Executive Assistant & Fundraising Associate

GREGORY HUNTER

Funding Coordinator, Ignite Capital

NICHOLAS MITCHEL

Manager - Community Engagement & Enterprise

Development

JAY NWACHU

President & CEO, IW

President, Ignite Capital

SALLY RATRIE

Manager - Enterprise

Development & Operations

IGNITE CAPITAL BOARD

PATTI CHANDLER

VP of Finance & Admin

Baltimore Community Foundation

MURRAY DALZIEL

Dean- School of Business

University of Baltimore

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

FAGAN HARRIS

President and CEO

Baltimore Corps

BILL HEISER, PHD

President

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School

FRANK KNOTT

Founder & Board Chair

Innovation Works

Founder & CEO

ViTAL Economy

JAMIE MCDONALD

Founder Generosity

Co-Founder The Courage.Us

NICK NAPOLITANO

Provincial Assistant

Social Ministries

The Jesuits USA East Province

JIM PETERSON, JR.

VP, Business Banking

Relationship Manager

M&T Bank

DAN RIZZO

Founding Chief Innovation Officer Inovalon

PAMELA ROUSSOS

Chief Community Officer

Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship

FR. BILL WATTERS, SJ

President

Loyola Early Learning Center

NKENGE YASIN

CEO & Child Development

Specialist Learning How, Inc.

JAY NWACHU

President & CEO

Innovation Works

President Ignite Capital

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