Business Plan Competition, Ukraine: Report from Ivan Papish, Director of RCE-Ukraine

Dear friends:

As you all know during the year 2008 we had 3 seminars of Biblical Entrepreneurship (Principles of BE, Practices of BE and Planning Biblical Based Business). After the end of the third seminar we asked people to write there own business plans; it could be eitherer for a new business or for the growth of an existing business. At the end of the year of work, our Center had a celebration and invited all of the people that worked with the Center in one way or another, whether through La Red training, Biblical Entrepreneurship training, or the business symposium last year. At the celebration we gave certificates to everyone who finished all 3 seminars.

We had 51 participants in each of the 3 Biblical Entrepreneurship courses this year (and two of the students came to Christ in BE 2). Thirty-one individuals made it all the way through the third level of BE (Business Plan Development), and we had 14 BE Students present Business Plans at the competition last week. The next day we held the business plan competition.

Friends from America came to be with us and served as judges for the competition. We also had judges from the local Ukrainian business community: Tkachuk Grigory (Director of Car Dealership), Dutka Igor (a successful businessmen in several businesses), and Cherniy Evgenia (restaurant business); and Kucher Galina participated as a representative from Operation Blessing, Kiyv. From the US were Jason Benedict (RCE Strategist), Tim Judy (IMB Kingdom Business Missionary), and Mark Boyce (Kingdom Business Investor), and Tom Stansbury (RCE Entrepreneur-In-Residence). They were able to see some of the business of the BE Students.

The Business Plan competition was held in the office of the Center

People were presenting their business plans from 9 am to 6 pm. Judges had opportunity to see business plans and give their feedback and advice (all of the business plans were translated into English). We had 14 business plans, such as: a print shop, celebration planning (2 people), a kindergarten for children with intellectual and physical developmental challenges, concrete fencing, plastic window development, a fitness club, curtain rod production, Ukrainian traditional shorts, building cottages, furniture production, a tourist company, and English training (study in America).

Seven participants received the highest scores form the judges! All of those seven received souvenirs from Regent University

Top Business Plans:

Atamanyuk Dmitriy and Yulia # 1 (concrete fence production--pictured at right)
Karpik Oleg # 2 (Celebration planning)
Mamus Yuriy # 3 (Furniture production)
Kharkovsky Volodumer # 4 (Fitness club)
Tsibulsky Olexander # 5 (Cottage building)

Drevnitsky Oleg # 6 (curtain rod production)
Gumenyuk Mukola # 7 (Plastic windows)

We would like to thank all of who prayed for us and supported us. We pray that God will provide for all of your needs and bless you many times more.

Sincerely,

Ivan Papish
Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship “Success”, Ternopol, Ukraine

Business Plan Competition, RCE Ukraine: from Tom Stansbury

Greetings my friends,

For the past 10 days, I have been back in Ukraine on a mission. As you know, this past year the Regent Center for Entrepreneurship - Dr. John Mulford and I - have forged the development of a business development center with my good friend, Ivan Papish – whom I met 12 years ago while here with YWAM. Jason Benedict and I arrived on Monday, December the 8th. You have probably realized how passionate I am about Kingdom Business. I believe with all my heart that the primary reason we are in business is to change lives.

~~ ~~ ~~

I first came to Ukraine back in 1996 - over 200 people made decisions to follow Christ with their lives but I realized that while many had come to know the Lord in a personal relationship – their lives were in dire need of help in generating incomes to support their families and creating businesses that could provide employment in this region of Ternopil.

Today, this is summarized in discussing the difference between the Gospel of Salvation and the Gospel of the Kingdom. It is not enough to only encourage those God brings into our lives to come to Him – to be saved. I believe we are called to go beyond and serve in a more holistic way – to be salt and light in the marketplace and to replicate our entrepreneurial spirit in the lives of those we have made deposits into – teaching them how to fish, so to speak, so they can provide for their families and the families who will eventually work for the companies and businesses they will launch.

~~ ~~ ~~

This past week, this dream of ours at RCE to see Kingdom Business transforming lives and nations took one more step to fulfillment. On Thursday and Friday, December 11th and 12th, RCE held its first Business Plan Competition in Ternopil, Ukraine!

RCE and its 'Founders' have invested over $30K this year to bring Biblical Entrepreneurship – 3 entire courses that teach believers in a developing nation how to launch a Kingdom business – to Ukraine. The final component of the year program is a Business Plan Competition which we held in the 'Center for Entrepreneurial Success' which John Mulford and I helped my good friend Ivan Papish launch last year here in Ukraine.

The Christian Center for Entrepreneurial Success has served over 300 emerging business leaders here in the Ternopil region of western Ukraine. CBN Kiev helped produce a short video on what the Center has accomplished (which will be up on RCE's website shortly). We had 51 Ukrainians participate in each of the 3 Biblical Entrepreneurship courses this year (2 leaders came to Christ in BE 2). While 31 made it all the way through BE 3 (Business Plan Development) – we had 14 BE Students present B-Plans at the competition last week. Several have already launched their own small businesses (SME's) and many are in process. We had the pleasure of having Galina from Operation Blessing in Kiev serve as one of the judges in the competition – OB is looking to provide initial start-up funds for Ukrainians to launch their own small businesses.

We had 3 local Ukrainian businesspeople serve as judges in addition to Galina, along with Jason Benedict (RCE Strategist), Tim Judy (IMB Kingdom Business Missionary), and Mark Boyce (Kingdom Business Investor), and myself.

This Center in Ternopil has impacted so many lives and we have won the respect of the local community – a feat in and of itself because it takes a lot to earn trust in this society where Communism ruled for over 70 years.

~~ ~~ ~~

The first evening I arrived in Ukraine, I had the opportunity to visit a dear friend in Kiev that I had gotten to know this past summer while working with one of the largest banks here in Ukraine on a consulting project--I'll call him Victor.

Victor and I became friends while launching a national company here in Kiev with Tony & April Creed. He is a leader in the business community and has worked as the CFO of several national companies here in Ukraine – currently developing his own investment capital firm ARPA Investments. We spent many hours together last summer – even a few 'all-nighters' while preparing for several Board Meetings to present our business plan to the shareholders of Eurostandard. During that time, I was able to share my faith with Victor and we talked at length about the Kingdom of God and how Christ came to the Earth.

I am excited to say that Victor dedicated his life to Jesus Christ a week ago Monday, my first night back in Kiev! The seeds that were sown through this Kingdom business opportunity brought my good friend to Christ! He contemplated this decision for months and I know his seed of faith has been deposited on fertile soil.

~~ ~~ ~~

I wanted to share the news with all of you, and ask you to be praying for me. I return to the states Dec 22nd.

Hoping this holiday season brings you much joy and peace - even in the midst of trying times. Remember that our hope is in Him, not in the things of the world.

In Him,
Tom Stansbury

The Role of Partnership in Poverty Eradication: A Myth or Reality?

by Dr. Jeremiah Koshal
Research Fellow, Regent Center for Entrepreneurship

Studies have attempted to identify the correlates linked to poverty mobility. People move out of poverty because they have significantly better endowments in terms of land and livestock, more educated heads of household, and have better roads and better rainfall. In other words, those moving out of poverty tend to be able to rely on good endowments in terms of assets such as land and livestock, human capital, and infrastructure. While factors such as these allow people to move out of poverty, shocks and risk make and keep them poor (Narayan & Petesch, 2007).

Most poor countries do not attract a larger capital inflow because of perceived high risk of investment. One useful indicator of investor perceptions of risk is a survey done by the magazine Institutional Investor that scores the perceived risk for each country on a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being the maximum safety appropriate for investment while 1 is the least safety appropriate. Risk ratings such as this show up as significant in statistical explanations of private investment. Unsurprisingly, high risk discourages investment (Collier, 2007).

Social Venture Capital (SVC) is being used today to combat poverty because it does not operate like a typical ‘profit-minting machine’, where the risks have to be methodically calculated. Social enterprises are either for profit or non-profit social venture fund investing in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. They pursue financial, social, spiritual and environmental returns. Social enterprises do not require the same rate of financial return since they also look for social, spiritual and environmental returns, even though they also have to be profitable in order to remain sustainable.

A number of these social enterprises are faith-based and the experience is that faith-based investors are more likely to accept a lower financial return in exchange for higher social returns. They are more able to align their financial interest with their social responsibilities. A growing number of successful entrepreneurs with a philanthropic attitude are also allocating a small percentage of their total portfolio to this form of investment.

Case studies, where partnerships between social venture capitalists and local communities are bearing fruits are evident. In Kuzuko Game Reserve (http://www.tbnetwork.org/; http://www.kuzuko.com/), neighboring Kruger National Park in South Africa, the community has entered into a partnership with South Africa National Parks, Legacy Hotels, the Disability Employment Concern Trust, South African Development Bank and the World Bank in order to develop a 39,000 acre game reserve on community land. The game reserve will offer a safari experience to tourists in a 5-star lodge managed by Legacy Hotels, a leading hotel group in Southern Africa. When it opens, the game reserve will employ 100 people directly. This project combines conservation, job creation, social and spiritual transformation in a region of 70% adult unemployment. With partner support, new commercially-viable business opportunities are currently being assessed with the aim of creating further jobs in the area.

Brains Group (http://www.brainsdirect.com/), a software outsourcing business in Moldova, but with a marketing office in the UK, is employing 100 technical people. These 100 people learning new skills and how businesses are run. They are also taught issues of integrity.

Spot Taxis in Bangalore, India, is the largest taxi franchise in Bangalore with 230 taxis. Each driver is able to own their own vehicles with a structured loan over a 3-4 year period. They all have in-car radios and are directed by a control room using a computer system which tracks their location. Some enterprising drivers now own more than one vehicle.

Thus, the role of partnership between social enterprises and local communities should be encouraged, as remarkable things can happen at both the micro and macro levels. This is more critical since most social enterprises encourage a strong work ethic, a spirit of others-centered, where the needs of local communities are pursued a long side profit. In this case, profit becomes a by-product of the process instead of an end by itself.

References
Collier, P. (2007). The bottom billion: Why the poorest countries are falling and what can be done about it. New York: Oxford.
Narayan, D., and Petesch, P. (Editors) (2007). Moving out of poverty: Cross-disciplinary perspectives on mobility. Washington, D.C.: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.
Tan, K. (2003, October). Enterprise against poverty: The case for social venture capital.