63 - Helping People End Poverty in their Community | Thomas Carlson

While giving food or money to the poor provides relief, this form of helping tends to be temporary and generates dependency. If we genuinely care for others, we want to help them create lasting changes in their lives by creating jobs and increasing economic opportunities. There are ways to help that can create sustainable economic growth, foster self-sufficiency, and help people end poverty in their community in the long term. 

Thomas Carlson, the founder of ECatalyst, joins us in this episode to talk about entrepreneurial ecosystems and how this helps poor communities create sustainable economic growth as a way to end poverty. Frustrated with the traditional charity model, Thomas invests in entrepreneurial ecosystems to generate permanent changes in people’s lives and create a legacy of positive growth that lasts beyond their lifetime. He shares success stories as well as challenges to support their initiatives with their need for investment capital and skilled individuals to invest in Ethiopian entrepreneurs. Listen now and find out how we can help people see a pathway out of poverty and make a change.

Key Points From This Episode: 

• Thomas talks about a highlight from his week.
• Thomas shares life-transforming chapters from his life journey.
• Thomas discovers entrepreneurial ecosystems and commits to investing in them to create more impact in communities.
• Why is the entrepreneurial ecosystem a more effective model of helping people than the traditional mode of dole-out charity?
• How did ECatalyst come about and how does it work?
• Thomas shares stories of successful ventures that use the entrepreneurial ecosystem model.
• What are the future plans for ECatalysts?
• What is the greatest challenge that ECatalyst is facing right now?
• What is the greatest investment that Thomas has made? 
• How can people support or get involved with Thomas’s / ECatalysts’ ventures?
• What’s the number one thing that lifts people out of poverty?
• Thomas answers the mentor-minute questions.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

ECatalyst

When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett, et.al

Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton

The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution by Barry Asmus and Wayne Grudem 

The Kingdom Investor Podcast on LinkedIn

About Thomas Carlson

For nearly 22 years, Thomas was a serial entrepreneur. He founded or co-founded six businesses in both the US and overseas in fields as diverse as construction, graphic design, and water bottling. He has an extensive cross-cultural background which includes living 10 years in the Middle East, traveling with significant cultural exposure in over 50 countries, and operating at different times in four other languages. He is fluent in Arabic. Thomas has also served as a professional educator, teaching recently as a Professor of Philosophy at CSU-Pueblo and PPCC. He has given guest lectures in many academic and professional contexts over the last 25 years on topics like business, startup principles, philosophy, theology, world religions, and cultural intelligence.

Transcript

EPISODE 63

[INTRODUCTION]

ANNOUNCER: Imagine taking your generosity to the next level, impacting more lives, and leaving a godly legacy for generations to come. Get ideas and strategies to do just that when you listen to these personal stories from high-level Kingdom champions.

The Kingdom Investor Podcast showcases business leaders who have moved from success to significance, sharing how they use worldly wealth for kingdom impact. Discover how they grew in generosity, impacted more lives, and built godly legacies. You'll find motivation, inspiration, and practical steps to grow as a Kingdom Investor.

Daniel White (DW):  Hello, and welcome to The Kingdom Investor Podcast. This is your host, Daniel White.  Thanks for joining us today as we interview Thomas Carlson. Thomas is the CEO of Ecatalyst. Ecatalyst is transforming developing communities through their entrepreneurs by creating and fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems. 

If you enjoy the show, follow us on LinkedIn at The Kingdom Investor Podcast. You can help us reach more listeners by sharing with your friends and leaving us a review. And now without further ado, let's get right into the show. 

[INTERVIEW]

DW: Hello, Thomas, and welcome to The Kingdom Investor Podcast. How are you doing today?

Thomas Carlson (TC): I'm doing well, Daniel. Thanks for having me on. This is great.

DW:  Yeah, I'm excited about our conversation and learning more about Ecatalyst. And would you maybe share a little bit about what's going on just right now in day-to-day life? What's maybe a highlight from this week?

TC: Sure, yeah. This week, we've been really working on getting a for-profit started in Ethiopia. And Ahmed was hoping to join us but unfortunately, his internet connection is really slow right now. But yeah, we're so we're trying to get a for-profit incubator style model going on in Ethiopia. We're very excited about it. We're getting a bunch of cohorts started, helping a lot of entrepreneurs. And I just yeah, that's, that's been the highlight of my last couple of years in some ways. This is just I'm so excited to be doing this stuff.

DW:  Yeah, absolutely. And I'm excited to learn more about that. And also to hear your personal story about what really matters to you and how you live your life. So do you mind praying for just this time and our listeners?

TC:  Sure, let's do that. Lord Jesus, I just want to thank you for your grace and your mercy. I thank you for this time, with Daniel. And with all the listeners that are out there. I just pray Father, that you would bless our conversation and that you bless words that come out of Daniel’s mouth and out of my mouth. And while I just pray that in all things, or that you would be sovereign, and that you would rule, Lord, that, that this would be a process guided by you with thank you for for all that you do for us. And we just pray for this time in Jesus' name. Amen.

DW:  Would you share maybe a few highlights from your personal journey and then kind of lead into how Ecatalyst came about? 

TC: Sure. Yeah. I so I grew up in Georgia, a longtime Georgia Bulldogs fan long, long before they actually won a national championship. And I was my son's age when we won the first one. That was back in 1980. So it was a long time ago. But yeah, I grew up I think I grew up believing I was in the Episcopal Church and I really felt like I wanted to work with the poor whoever the poor were. I went to school upstate. I went to Cornell up in New York and actually just one story that came out of that, in the summer of my junior year, I went to Haiti. This was back in the snail mail days, so I'd sent one letter to a person in my church who sent one to a camp patient who sent to the guy out in the mountains and it sort of worked its way back and after two of those I showed up at an airport with a guitar and no real clue about what I was doing. 

And for the next three months, I was up in the mountains of Haiti. I was the only white boy in a two-hour drive in any direction. And it was a crazy time. It was fantastic I mean, life-transforming, learned Creole. I preached in Creole by the time I was done. And but one of the most transformative moments was actually in a small conversation I had with a couple of teenagers after an English class. I tried to teach English, I was terrible at it. But these guys were, you know, these guys were 17, 18. I was 21-ish. I was a fairly young guy, just a couple of years older than these guys. And we were talking about, what do you want to do with your life. 

And I said and I still remember the phrase I want to work with moun ki pòv, you know, people who are poor. And they said, that's great. Yeah. What are you going to do? And I realized nobody had ever asked me that question before. And I had seen the videos, you know, I'd seen videos of people that looked like me, you know, white people walking into African-looking villages. And everybody seemed excited that they were there and happy that they were coming. And there was this kind of sense that it was just better because they showed up. And I thought, man, I want to be that guy. I want to be the guy that shows up. And things just get better. And I realized, hey, I'm not treating these people like people. I'm treating them as, you know, my fantasy world. As it were, my fantasy was just getting demolished with this, this one question. And I realized, if I'm going to do something, you know, if I really want to help people, I need to do something that benefits them in a way that truly is beneficial. 

And fast forward another 20 years. I did seminary. I was in the Middle East for 10 years. I was doing business over there. I've started seven or eight businesses. And I came back here and felt God, putting that calling back on me in a way that said, this is the time. And I connected up with a guy who was doing entrepreneurial ecosystems, and it struck me. Of all the things that could really change an environment was the thing that could do that. Ecosystems, being in that space that actually allows local businesses to grow and start creating jobs and that kind of thing. Think of the petri dish, you know, in your high school biology class, you know, you're not just finding single businesses but you're creating an environment where stuff just starts bubbling up. 

And that's how economic growth starts happening. It doesn't happen through charity, it happens through people taking control of their own economic destinies, and creating the jobs within their own culture, and really creating that kind of economic growth that can really change things. And that's what I decided I wanted to invest in. It kinda spun out of that because we really wanted to focus on some specific communities. And we've been doing this now for two and a half years. And we're just really excited about the model that's developed out of that. 

DW:  Yeah, that's really neat and interesting and excited to hear more. But, what was the challenge or problem that you guys saw in the marketplace that you were like, hey, this is the solution? Or can you share more about the genesis behind that?

TC:  Sure. I think part of it comes from a frustration of the process that most of us go through when we're given a charity, you know, that charity tends to be money that's spent in a way that comes out of pity most of the time. We, Americans have this image of the starving African child, and we tend to give to that. You know, we want to have an impact right away. But the problem is that when you feed somebody today, then feed them tomorrow. When you're in Turkey, and you've had an earthquake, absolutely, people need stuff. When your house burns down, you need things. In America, we have insurance, and that's what covers some of those things. But in a lot of places, they don't have anything, so we need to get them aid. 

But, when that aid continues after two or three years, what you've done is you've gotten people dependent upon that aid because they're not building anything themselves. And so part of what we're realizing is that if we really want to change communities, not just help the starving child today but really change the trajectory of his life, over the course of you know, the next 10 or 15 years. The way to do that is to help people around him, his parents, the people that could provide jobs for him. Start businesses that are theirs that they own and that they can really want to invest in, in a way that changes things. 

But the problem with that is that the economic environments just really make it difficult to create sort of these middle-income businesses. You can do a lot of micro business and micro business is great. It helps families get off of poverty, but it doesn't really move the needle forward as far as economics goes. So when you can help people start seeing a pathway and help get them the capital that they need to start trying new ideas and growing businesses that can hire 10, 50, 100, 500 people, you're really beginning to change the entire space economically of that community.

DW:  So, how do you guys actually implement that solution?

TC:  So, what we've been working on over the last two and a half years is really figuring out how this model works. And obviously, we want to work with entrepreneurs because they're the backbone of the entire process. So we've done some cohorts, we've been using the MIT method, which is part of what I've used before, which is fantastic stuff. But what we really wanted to do is figure out how do we get this in a way that even the engine of economic growth becomes a locally owned process. So, the way we've set it up now is, our US entity is a 501c3. So we're charity-based, which means that we're running off of charitable dollars. But we're helping, we're using this charity to support for-profit entities right now in Ethiopia, in a way that it's a decentralized incubator which means that that incubator, that entity, partners with different organizations in Ethiopia, starts creating cohorts within those organizations, which means we can start lots of cohorts and have the care and the capacity for each one of the entrepreneurs there. Get 100 entrepreneurs going, and as they grow and gain traction, and gain revenue, we move them centrally into smaller and smaller cohorts until we get them into an incubation community of those that are really beginning to scale those businesses. And that's how we develop revenue but it's also how we start really growing things. 

Because even number 97 out there, A) he could start a business that could hire two people which would be amazing. But he's also watching that one guy that got all the way up there. And he's thinking, man, next time around, I want to be that guy. And we're starting to create inspiration that gives people that chance to be able to move up. So that's how we're doing it. This is a for-profit, decentralized incubator in each country supported by the US 501c3. They give them content, advice and vision, and capacity. But ultimately, we want them to own it and run it and take over. And then we want to move to other places.

DW:  Is there a microfinance component or savings group? Or what are the other financial pieces to that?

TC:  Yes, so microbusiness, again, microbusiness is a fantastic thing. But it's not what we're doing, savings groups as well. So we're doing some that we've actually got one of our businesses that are doing a larger style savings group, which is very, very cool. But again, what micro business does is you get $100, or $500 to somebody. You get them a sewing machine or a goat or something like that. And they can start sustaining their family. And that's fantastic stuff. But it doesn't really move, like I said, it doesn't create jobs necessarily, it doesn't actually change the economy. So what we're saying is, we want that micro business to happen. But we also need to build into the middle, the SME, the small and medium enterprise space. 

And so there is a microfinance component to that because if you think about the way you start a business in the US, we talked about the three F's money, the friends, family and fool’s money. This is that crazy uncle down the street that says, hey, I believe in you, kid, daddy's got 5,000 bucks, and you can, you can try something, you can start out on something, and you need to have that kind of capital, or else you never get to experiment, you never get to try a crazy idea. You never get to start on something. Over there, their three F's don't have that kind of money. So, what we're trying to do is we are trying to get a microfinance process going for growth-oriented businesses, so they can experiment. They can try new ideas. It's high-risk stuff, but you have to do it. And you have to diversify over a broad field, in order to really start creating that SME space that can start transforming communities. 

So yes, there is a microfinance element, but it's not microbusiness. It's small loans that help people move up, get the data they need, so they can get in front of an angel investor and eventually, and say, yes, we took $5,000, we've spent three weeks selling everything and we got 90% of our product sold. We know we can do this or whatever it is.

DW:  Can you share maybe a story of quick or easy success or early success that you've had in the process?

TC:  Sure. I mean, we've done prototypes, we did a prototype and money for India on a sort of an online thing still during the pandemic. So, we couldn't actually show up in person, unfortunately. And realize we've got to have the community there. We got to have the in-person community. We did. We've done four different cohorts in two different locations in Rwanda, and worked with about 300 entrepreneurs, great stuff. Again, though, we worked in the church which was just an Anglican church that was there and loved the process. But unfortunately, the churches over there. It's hard to get out of the nonprofit mindset. And there's always that conversation at the end that says, hey, this guy needs $5,000 and we say, okay, let's see his financials. What's his plan? How's he gonna go to market? And they're like, oh, no, no, he doesn't have any of that, but he's a really good guy. You should give him $5,000.

You know, it's just they have a heart for their people. They want to get their people money, which is understandable, but it's not building a business. So, we still want to keep working there. And we've got some people that are beginning to build more for-profit stuff there. But in Ethiopia, part of what we have is we have a fantastic team, a team of guys that have come out of the incubator space. In Ethiopia, they've been frustrated with that. And they're really trying to do something different. And, through that, we've had a cohort there since January of 2022. So it's been going on for a little bit over a year, we've already got seven businesses that are launching out of that. Got three major loans that have gone out, two of which have already been paid back, and now we're seeking larger loans. 

So, we're really beginning to see some success in this model. And we feel like, we've now got six new organizations, all of which want to start cohorts, and we're beginning our first breed, in the next three months. So it's exciting, exciting stuff. I think on a business level, we've got two ladies who are trying to create the Door Dash for laundry, which I think is amazing. They're trying to put an app together. So you know, you're a single guy, you say, hey, I've got three loads of laundry, somebody shows up at your door, they take your laundry, they bring it back a few hours later, it's folded, it's pressed, it looks good, you know, just like you'd get at home, or whatever it is. 

We've got another group that is doing an investment vehicle for poultry farms. So, they're helping local investors invest one to $4,000 in a cycle, four months cycle of a poultry farm, get the farmers up and going, get them the capital that they need. And then, when they finish the four-month cycle, they can return investment to the investors. So, it's both helping local farmers and helping local investors find investment. So, those are a couple of the seven businesses that we got going there. I'm just I'm really excited about the creativity. And the scrappiness of the entrepreneurial system in Ethiopia. They just need help, they need community and they need to be able to work together. That's part of what we're helping them do, build that community that says, hey, you're not alone. And there's people around you who want to help you.

DW:  Where do you see this going in the near future?

TC:  I want to take it to all sorts of different places. But I mean, right now, we've got a couple of leaders who are wanderers that are beginning to build some cohorts that come in and outside of the church. And we want to go back in there and really help them once we've got the model finished in Ethiopia. But the other may not finish, I feel like we've got the model. And now we just need to run it through all the way and ensure that you know, so that we can really make this happen. But I spent, like I said, I spent 10 years in the Middle East, and I spent a lot of that learning Arabic. And now that Arabic is going to waste on here in Colorado Springs, which you know, I love Colorado Springs, but then there's a part of me that wants to get back up into that part of the world. 

So, we've got some places in Cairo and Lebanon, and there are actually a couple of other spots in North Africa, which I can't necessarily tell you about. But, there are some great ideas for being able to do that. We've also got spots in Uganda and Pakistan. So, there's no shortage of people who want to see real growth happen. It's just helping us get to them in a way that can serve them well, get them the capital that they need. That's part of what we're trying to help them do. And they really connect them with investors who can grow with them.

DW:  What do you think is the greatest challenge that you guys are facing right now?

TC:  I think this is going to be...that's a great question. And I'm going to give you a strange answer. But I think the greatest challenge that I find on both sides of the ocean is a charity mindset. And I know that sounds strange but it's this is a hard space to invest in. Part of the reason I love talking to guys like you, Daniel is that, you know, you and your listeners get investment. You know what it's like to create value. And yet when we go to charity, for the last 50, 60 years, America has been, it's been inculcated in Americans, that charity is about buying food and like just giving it to people and it's a black hole where money just goes down and it never develops the economies of any place. And part of what we're trying to help people see is like all of that ROI that you got out of investments, it's coming from the fact that you're building something of value on the ground. You're creating something that can then be reinvested and you're building a valuable thing that then creates more value, and that's where you get your return. When you take your charitable capital, when you take your DAF money or whatever resources you have there, why not put it into the same kind of value creation, but do it in that high-risk startup space where we need to diversify broadly?

We need to help 300 people before we get the 10, or the 15, that really start growing something. It may not create a lot of ROI, but the ROI that happens gets reinvested into that space, then that community doesn't need the feeding program ever again because now they're feeding themselves.  As believers, as Christians, isn't our calling to love people, and to actually change their lives, not just make poverty less painful for the moment? You know, when we know that child is hungry because he's poor and you give him food, he's still poor. It hasn't changed his situation. If we change their environment, we're genuinely loving them in a way that is going to change their lives and actually be able to help them grow in a way that they don't need us anymore. Which is what we want. We want them to be able to stand up on their own. And that's what ecatalyst is trying to do, trying to create the community-wide solution that actually brings people off of charity.

DW:  Yeah, and I think the biggest revelation for me was, you know, seeing that, we can have so much greater impact, if we think beyond just our philanthropy, and, and say, wait a second, we can use our entire portfolio of investments depending on where we're investing them, to be Kingdom investments, and to really, you know, change lives through that. And so, it's really incredible to meet all these different people that are doing things like this and talk with them about it. Because I think, you know, part of the reason that we even have the podcast is to get exposure to people like that, and people like you, and because we don't realize it's an option, we don't look for it. And so, you know, once we realize it’s an option, we're like, oh, wow, that's, that's incredible. So we've got to look into, okay, how do we actually do that? And who do we do that with and everything.

TC:  And Daniel, there's one more thought about that, too. I mean, you talked about people's whole portfolios, and really using them in a way that changes things, take your charitable dollars and help build up that high risk base so that you can find things that you can then invest in on an impact level, and then those can grow and actually start investing them on a truly for profit level. You can take all of your capital from various different levels of it, but use it in a way that creates the same kind of value, and actually changes the economy. That would be my challenge to your listeners and to other people who really understand what investment looks like. Let's use this whole portfolio and let's really create the kind of value that you know you can create.

DW:  Yeah, absolutely. So turning to you then, what is the greatest investment that you've made personally?

TC:  I think, you know, I've told a number of people recently that, you know, this has been hard for me. I've never started a nonprofit before. I've started for-profits before so this is my first nonprofit, I'm just starting for-profits with my nonprofit, but I'm, I'm still starting a nonprofit and it's hard. It has been really, really difficult. But at the same time, I feel a convergence of so many different parts of my life, in a lot of ways. All of the cross-cultural experience that I've had, I've been in like 51 different countries, I've learned reading books. I think, various different ones, including Creole, like five different languages now. It's that part, and then there's teaching, I've done a lot of teaching stuff, and then business, you know, and all of it comes together in a way that I feel like, I'm now going to work with those moun ki pòv, the people who are poor. And I'm actually doing something that I feel like is genuinely benefiting them. Not because I'm coming down as a white guy, and saying, okay, now everything's gonna be better. Because I'm able to come up underneath them, and say, you guys can do this. Let me help you. Let me be the, you know, the wind in your back, and see you guys really succeed.

DW:   Yeah, that's really good. Thank you. So how can somebody get involved in what you're doing? 

TC:  There's a lot of different ways. Obviously, you know, we need charitable capital, just to keep all of this running. We're looking for some investment capital, both for our entities that are over there for the Ethiopian entity right now. And then ultimately for some of the businesses that get spun off. So, we're looking for capital for all of that. But what I'm also really looking for guys who can help invest in some of these entrepreneurs. One of the things I've been wanting to do and want to try to put something together for this summer is to take a, let's call it a short-term mission trip as it were for business guys, but you know, not to go over and build a church someplace, or to pass out tracts or something like that. But you guys have got skills that entrepreneurs over there need. Come with us and put your skills to use in a way that can transform the economy of a place. Well, you know, let's go, let's do it. Let's do a big workshop, let's do an event, we'll get people excited about what entrepreneurship is. Because here all these American businessmen are not coming over to give money out, to give out skills that they can then use to change their own lives. And then let's invest in these entrepreneurs, let's make something really amazing happen. So yeah, I know some of your listeners are business people, I'd love to have some of them join us for something that could really use their skills, and in a way that really has an impact. 

DW:  Yeah, that's really exciting that that seems like a really neat opportunity. What would you advise somebody on taking their generosity to the next level?

TC:  Well, I think all of these things. In other words, think about not just the money that you're giving. And I mean, that is the first step, you've got to think about, okay, I'm willing to part with this amount of money or this amount of resource or something else. That's part of our journey, when we're first getting to be generous. But then really, I would challenge your listeners, don't just stop there, and then just give away the money. Think about where are you giving that money, that can have a genuine impact, that's really going to change things. Again, people are poor, and people are suffering, because they're poor. You know, people don't have clean water, because they're poor. They don't have food, because they're poor. If we invest in those things, we're helping. We're helping make poverty less painful. But wouldn't it be better if we could actually change poverty completely, and actually allow a community to really develop itself so that it doesn't need charity anymore? And then do it someplace else? 

So, I would really encourage your listeners, and it doesn't have to be through Ecatalyst, it could be through any other number of things. But to really think through, what's the impact that I want to have with this money? How do I want to use this money in a way that genuinely changes an environment?

DW:  So, is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners before we jump into the mentor minute?

TC:  Sure, um, I think, a couple of things, just some resources that I think are really helpful. If you haven't read When Helping Hurts by Corbett and Fikkert, you definitely need to get out and get that book. It's a fantastic book. I also was just reading Poverty of Nations by Wayne Grudem. He teamed up with an economist and also some amazing stuff. And of course, we've got stuff on our website, which is Ecatalyst.org. And, there's some stuff about the Missing Middle, go look for the video on the Missing Middle, you'll find it, I think, really enlightening about what poverty, the roots of poverty and how we can really start solving them. So, those would be all things that I think would be valuable. And again, if you have any inclination, come with us to Ethiopia and do something really amazing with your summer.

DW:  Yeah, it's good. All right. So I had one other question about, you know, we were talking a lot about poverty and alleviation. And what is maybe the number one thing that you've seen that lifts people out of poverty? 

TC:  The number one thing that lifts people out of poverty is hope. I think being poor is lacking resources. And we look at that, and we assume that that is also poverty. But I don't think that's poverty. Poverty is not having the ability to make a dent in the problems that you have in your life. And giving somebody a meal solves the poor, the lack of resources for the moment, but it doesn't change the system. What we really need if we're going to solve poverty, we need to give people a vision for a pathway out, a chance to be able to say I don't want my kids to live in the same dirt floor, tin roof house that I live in. I want to start a business, I want to start doing something that's different and change my life. In a lot of places, especially in the developing world, people just don't have the opportunity to do that. That's what we're about is really trying to come in and say, let's give people the opportunity. Not everybody is going to start a business. But those that want to win, everybody who wants to, has the opportunity to do so. We're starting to see real change. And that's what I think changes communities. It's not charity, it's not aid, it's the capacity, the opportunity to create something into which we can hope.

DW:  Yeah, that's really that's a great answer. Thank you for that. All right, who is the most influential person that you know, and how have they impacted you? 

TC:  I've had a lot of mentors in my life. I've had a lot of people that that I would say, have had some significant influence over me in one form or another. I don't know that I could really lift one up. There was a guy named Scott Walker that helped me a tremendous amount when I was in Boston in my seminary days. There's guys here that I feel like, Ray Berreth with Henry Keyser are doing some amazing stuff. I think there are a lot of people that are out there doing some great stuff in poverty alleviation, not just alleviation but solving. I think I, I want to get away from that word. Sometimes I don't want to alleviate poverty, I want to help solve, I want to help people solve their own poverty situations. I think some of the most influential people that I've come across in the last couple of years have been some of these entrepreneurs. 

There's a couple of these guys that have really just taken on the mantle of saying, I want my life to be different, I want my community to be different. And they invest the time, the energy, against all odds, they're risking their financial future to some extent or another, in order to create something that changes their lives, the lives of their families, and the lives of the people around them. There’s a leader in Ethiopia, a guy named Ahmed, he's 30 years old, he's a young guy. But he has a vision for Ethiopia, to change it and to really transform it. And I just I'm excited to work with this guy. I feel like he is, he's just an amazing guy. And I want to invest in him. So, I hope…that's meandering a bit but that's somewhat of an answer to your question.

DW: Yeah. And then do you have a book or podcast that you would recommend? I know, you recommended a couple of resources. But do you have anything else? 

TC:  Sure. I would say I mean, When Helping Hurts, I think, is a foundational look at why charity needs to change. Why we need to really think differently about the way charity works. There's another book called Toxic Charity, I can't remember who wrote that but that's also a very good one. Yeah, there's I think, I think those are some very good resources. I guess I would just refer back to whatever I said, go to our website, take a look at the problem of the missing middle.

DW: What is your web address? 

TC:  Web address is Ecatalyst.org. So, E-C-A-T-A-L-Y-S-T dot org. 

DW:  Perfect. And then the last question is, what is the greatest lesson in leadership that you've learned?

TC:  Greatest lesson in leadership? I think, you know, when I first got out of college, I was working with troubled kids. And it was tough. It was really, really hard stuff. And it brought out every issue that I wish that had never existed in my own life. As I'm trying to try to help these kids deal with their own issues, I think one of the things that I realized was there was an older guy that was there, that would come out, he was, he had been one of the founders of these therapeutic camping programs, years and years before. Chief Mac, we used to call him. Chief Mac would say, you know, if you're not growing, the boys aren't going to grow either. If you're not willing to take a serious look at yourself, deal with the realities of your own brokenness, and your own deficiencies, nobody around you is going to do it either. So, I think as leaders, we've got to lead from that place of brokenness instead of saying, you know, I'm up on this level, and you're down to this level, and I'll help you up to my level. That's how I lead instead, coming alongside somebody and this is part of what I find so amazing. These guys coming out of impoverished areas are, some of them are brilliant. Some of them are just amazing, amazing people. And for me to come in above them is just wrong. So, for me to come alongside them and say, it's not that I have everything that I need but what we need is over there, whether that's you know, a walk with God, whether that's a business that can change our community. It's over there. Let's walk together to go find that and I think good leadership identity lives with people in a way that says I am not the solution but I will help us get there. I want, I'm going to do everything I can to help get us there.

DW: Thank you, Thomas, for coming on the podcast. This is really good, to hear about Ecatalyst and everything that you guys are doing through that. Really enjoyed it. Is there anything that we can be praying for you or Ecatalyst?

TC:  Sure, pray that we find some business guys that want to come out this summer. And pray that the cohorts that are getting started in the next few months really start well and that we get some good communities of people. We get people who are really hungry to build businesses. And that we can launch these things in a way that it's going to be really going to keep things growing like we launched the last one. But these next few are going to be key to seeing the model move forward.

DW:  All right, can we pray right now? 

TC: Please.

DW: Let's pray. God, I thank you and praise you for this time with Thomas. Lord, I pray that you would be with Ecatalyst and the cohorts that are starting up, the trip that's being planned. Lord, we want to serve you and glorify you, and love our neighbors. Lord, I pray that you would allow us to really think about how we do that effectively, and how we can serve them. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen. 

Thank you guys for listening to another episode of The Kingdom Investor Podcast.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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