UNREACHED
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world.
For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining.
Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the UNREACHED.
UNREACHED
Solving The World's Greatest Problems with Henry Kaestner
We trace Henry Kaestner’s path from startup grit and an IPO to faith-driven community building, redemptive investing, and a practical roadmap for stewarding capital to reach the unreached. Along the way, we unpack righteous risk, local partnership, and excellence in public and private markets.
• learning from 40 venture rejections to build durable growth
• how identity in Christ steadies leaders beyond stock volatility
• sovereign’s capital as a partner for convictional founders
• why faith-driven entrepreneur and investor were born
• righteous risk and stewardship vs scarcity thinking
• giving fish vs teaching to own the pond
• discernment, local partners, and fund managers in Africa
• stories of entrepreneurs solving power, cold-chain, and data gaps
• using donor-advised funds for redemptive investments
• integrating values in public markets with smart screens
• solving the world’s greatest problems through focused DAFs
• keeping the Great Commission central while building markets
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In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people, and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb. Yet today, there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world. My family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet, and fund the task remaining. Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the unreached reach. Hello, friends, welcome back to the Unreach Podcast. Dustin Elliott here, your host today. And today we are kicking off a new year. We're kicking off a new season, and we've got a friend, a mentor, a guy that is making waves across the globe through several different companies and initiatives and nonprofits that he started. This is the founder of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Network, the Faith Driven Investor Network, bandwidth, a public company, and now solving the world's greatest problems. I'm I might be missing a few, but help me welcome Henry Kasener to the show. Thanks for being with us, Henry.
SPEAKER_02:Dustin, what a treat. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00:All right, let's start with your story. Uh, I mean, how does how does a guy go from tech founder and and business guy and and ringing the bell on the New York Stock Exchange to uh kind of what you're doing with your life now? Give us some background.
SPEAKER_02:I discovered my first love in college, actually, and that was uh was not a girl, although I'm now very happily married uh to a wonderful woman. It was the fact I could make a t-shirt for$5 and I could sell for 10. And Dustin, that's probably the last time I really knew what I was doing. I was really good at selling t-shirts door-to-door in college and then training up others to do the same and and love that. Um, in each case, along my entrepreneurial journey, God has enabled me uh before I knew him, uh, uh, because I came to faith at age 28. And then after I knew him, in each case, though, I could look back and I see God having just helped me to understand different problems that needed to be solved or opportunities that could be leaned into. And and it started off with t-shirts, but then through his grace, it's built off into solving larger problems. And and with on the technology side, it was helping folks understand how they might. Well, actually, before that, it was on the energy side. It was helping uh utilities and power marketers understand how they could trade electric power between different utilities. And that was awesome. And then we went into telecom and trying to figure out how do we help small to medium-sized businesses get access to the internet. And then it developed into something much larger on the voice side. And then out of that came this sense, especially as I had come to faith, that there's an opportunity to encourage faith-driven entrepreneurs in their walk and bringing them together in community. We did that at first with Sovereign's Capital. Um, and then as I handed that off to uh to John and Luke to do that with the Ministry of Faith-driven entrepreneur and faith-driven investor. And then we're so well solving one of those greatest problems, is then how do we take this group now of more than 30,000 entrepreneurs in 130 countries and have them as they have come to understand God's purpose for life, how do you you bring them together in communities to love their neighbor, right? So in each case, God has allowed me to see the next logical thing to do. And each one has built on the other. None of them have been done because of this incredible drafting and planning session. I wish I could tell you I was more spiritually matured to say that I'd check myself into a monastery for two weeks and f prayed and fasted. And then out of that came the impact of the thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Christ, right.
SPEAKER_02:But the it's that's that's that's kind of the progression. I think that's probably the same for most entrepreneurs. It's just like I'm like, that's like that's an obvious thing to do, and let's go do it. And then and every last thing I'll say on that, Dustin, is that everything I've done entrepreneurially has been equal parts naivete and hubris. And getting involved in things are probably over my head, but through God's grace and sending me great partners and allowing me to make mistakes in small amounts, and then bringing people around, and then through the power of his Holy Spirit has allowed some of these things to achieve some scale. But a lot of it, and it sounds like false modesty, but a lot of it's in spite of me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, that's that's beautiful. I think that's your that's your version of the of the joy and suffering conundrum in the Christian faith, right? And and how you live in that medium and and that tension between those two things. Let's start with your public company with bandwidth. So just because we haven't had anybody on our pod that can tell the story of taking a company public, maybe give us a little look into Wall Street. What was that process like that kind of, you know, a lot of that equipped you with some with some liquidity and and experience to start these new initiatives? So take us through that story.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it I I couldn't tell the story without talking about my incredible best friend and business partner at bandwidth, David Morgan. So one of the things that God blessed me with early on was uh just a phenomenal business partner. And he's done that four times now. And uh David was my partner at Bandwidth and Republic Wireless, Luke Rausch at Sovereign's Capital, Tom Hahn back on the energy side, now Justin Foreman with Fate-Driven Movements. And with Bandwidth, it was um uh it was a long heart slide, to be honest. You know, it's kind of like this 20-year overnight success story. Um when David and I set out to raise capital because we wanted to grow, and that's really why a company goes public. It's primarily to raise capital to grow and reinforce um success you have. That came, uh culminated after, I guess, 12 years of having to raise trying to raise capital, especially in the early days. We went 0 for 40 in venture raises. Amazing. Oh for 40, unbelievable. And so those were 40 different institutional firms that said no. Many of them were three or four meetings. There are a couple that actually came down to a term sheet, and then they it just didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00:Several times you thought you you thought it was gonna happen. And then you you you snatched the feet out of the jaws of history. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:In retrospect, they were incredible blessings. Uh and David and I would pray before each one of these meetings because we were Christians, and I was a new Christian, he was a lifelong Christian. And we'd pray that we come out with a term sheet. But we never really prayed and fasted about whether we should raise money at all. And God answered that question. We're trying to- That's a great example of a season in which we were being willful rather than faithful. And if we'd been successful early on, we would have made the mistakes that we made with larger sums of money and we might not have ever gone public. Instead, it focused us on, by necessity, on looking at cash flow, emphasizing delighting our customer and getting customers in from referrals because we didn't have any money to buy any of them. And then that really helped us to iterate along this kind of what I now talk about as an investor, this optimal growth rate, growing at the speed that the market will give you without the pressure of having to buy customers. And in our case, that worked out really, really well. So we're able to raise a fast growing and what became profitable company that allowed us to go public. It was a great celebration of God's work through the team over a long period of time and solving problems. Grateful for the opportunity to spin out Republic Wireless and then Relay, which are two companies that are still private, and the team and the innovation that came from that. But you know, the other part of going public is that you know, there's there's an upside to it and a downside to it. So the second part we don't talk about a whole lot. We came out at 20 bucks and it was awesome. Uh, raised some money in the offering. And then maybe even more awesome is the company went from$20 to$192 after going public. And then since then, and you know, any of your listeners will look, you know, the company's trading at say$15 right now. So it went from$192 to$15, which meant that over the ensuing three years, it would go down two days, up one, down two, up one. All the while the company was having more revenues. The revenues are significantly higher than we they were when we went public, and the profits are as well. But you know, in that course, God can teach you some incredible things on identity. Uh about is your identity wrapped up in being leading a company that goes public? What's real success look like? But to be clear, the going public experience was great. There are 1,300, 1,400, what we call bandmates that continue to innovate and deliver outstanding value for customers. We have this culture that's based on faith first, then family, then work, and then fitness. And it is a blessing to continue to serve customers at scale with an incredible team. And while the market doesn't assign the same multiple as it did during COVID to our stock, it's still a great opportunity to get in the battle every day with a team and having the financial stipp uh sustainability and uh that we have to be able to say, we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna solve a new problem today. Yeah, and they're a customer today.
SPEAKER_00:So some lessons out of that for for the audience, right? One might be that just because just because you're starting something and not getting funded doesn't necessarily mean that God's not in it. He just may not be in it in that season in that way. And you know, you can look back on that now and see how his hand was all over that. He didn't necessarily want your venture capital money that might not have been aligned to your faith, uh, that might have challenged you to be cut corners uh or to try to chase profits too soon or to do some things that wouldn't have resulted in the operational excellence and the focus on the customer and the faith-first kind of posture that you were able to lead the company with. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_02:That's exactly right. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So I think that's helpful to hear because a lot of times when we get told no, especially 40 times, we probably start to think God's not in this at all. And that might be true. Uh, in your case, that wasn't true. In your case, he just was in it in a different capacity for you and your co-founders and your employees. So now we'll fast forward. That event has happened, and a lot of folks would say, okay, great, let's go buy some more houses, let's buy a yacht, let's buy a jet, let's go enjoy the fruits of our labor. But not Henry. No, you looked at your wife and said, I'm going to work even harder now because I feel like I need to inspire the marketplace and other entrepreneurs to get into community and do life together and go solve problems together. So, sovereigns, take us through sovereigns and kind of the next steps for you, if you will.
SPEAKER_02:The next logical point, having learned these lessons that God taught us, for instance, the first one right there, is being endeavoring to be faithful versus willful. And then another 11 lessons that we learned at bandwidth became the marks of a faith-driven entrepreneur, which is this ministry to bring together other entrepreneurs, having understood that some number of Christians that were running businesses we talked to didn't feel the same type of freedom that we did to share their faith and the love on their employees in the same way, because they said, well, you know, we've got we've got this, and they were not, they were, they were six out, they were one out of 40. They got the money in. Right. And then they had the venture capitalists on the on the board and felt that they didn't have the same type of freedom. And then saying, what does it look like to encourage this generation of entrepreneurs? And so the first uh evolution in solving that problem was to start sovereign's capital, which was how do we come alongside and how do we become that institutional capital partner that can encourage them and can help them solve real business issues like intellectual property, supply chain, capitalization, all those different things. But then also to encourage them in how they think about a benevolence fund, how they think about chaplaincy, how they think about their own personal time, knowing God and his love for them. What does that look like on an individual leadership basis? And so through the grace of God, sovereigns have become very, very successful. We'd wanted to set out the show that you can invest in Christian-led businesses and you could succeed both on the cultural side and the discipleship side, like I was just alluding to, but also on the financial side. You can make money with those companies, not at the expense of biblical values, but because of them.
SPEAKER_00:Amen.
SPEAKER_02:And then we had the you know, deal flow started coming in. And the deal flow is the lifeblood of any private equity or venture capital fund. There's so many things you need to do well when you're a venture capitalist. You need to be able to raise money and you need to be able to get deal flow, negotiate deals, manage your portfolio, do fund outs, a whole bunch of things. By far and away, the most important one, though, is deal flow. And so we now got this reputation like, hey, these are a fund. They invest in Christian-led companies, and gosh, we should, we should apply to them. So entrepreneurs would come in, and uh, we found our big problem was that we were saying no to 99 out of 100. And we got into the business because we wanted to be an encouragement to faith-driven entrepreneurs. And when you say no 99 out of 100 times, well, for the vast majority of them, you're not being an encouragement. And so that's so as an entrepreneur, you look at that as like, okay, so that's a problem to be solved. And so we started Faith-Driven Entrepreneur and and the ministry, which is meant to serve all entrepreneurs through content and community and bringing them all together because entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey.
SPEAKER_00:So it wasn't no, it wasn't no, never talk to me again. It was no, this isn't a right fit for this fund. However, here's this community we'd like you to engage with where you're gonna get mentored, you're gonna get trained, you're gonna get fellowship, you're gonna get to have some questions answered. And maybe through that your business will get to a place where adding some capital could make sense.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that was really well said. Yes, much more succinctly than I did, but that's you that's absolutely it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think I love that. And in HK, honestly, I'd never heard that. You know, a big part of my curiosity, I've known you for a little while. We've hosted faith-driven entrepreneur and investor conferences here in Austin. We've you've stopped by. Um, and I've known you for a while, but I've I've always wanted to hear the story of the progression of these entities and why each one happened. And it's really helpful. I know a lot of people that are going to enjoy hearing this because they think of you and Luke and John and the whole group, and they think, okay, what is which one and which one am I in? So did FDE start first, right? Then FDI?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So FDE, there's a quick fun origin story of that. A guy named Anatole Melancholy called me up, is uh is running sovereigns with Luke and said, I want you to invest in my company. I said, Tell me about it. He's like, Well, it's a real estate business in Moldova. I'm like, oh my goodness, I I can't even calculate a cap rate. I can't invest in a real estate deal. And I'm not even sure Moldova is a country. So he is a great guy, and he's been a leader of the faith-driven entrepreneur movement in Moldova, but that was kind of the first case there. But then out of Faith-Driven Entrepreneur, which we operated for about three years and started building these community groups and the things that you've been such a great encouragement and support down in the Austin market and beyond on that. And so we started finding folks like you, but then three years in, a guy named John Porter called me up. John had lived in Rwanda for three years and set up a dairy, uh, dairy business, it was a yogurt business, and was looking for capital. And he calls me up and says, Hey, looking for capital. And we're the second largest dairy, we're the second largest yogurt manufacturer in Rwanda. And I'm thinking, I don't even know what how to what does that mean? What does that even mean? I don't even know if they eat yogurt in Rwanda. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. And so I say, listen, I'm so sorry, we can't invest. So I start to do like what I'm gonna do with Anatol, right? But we have these faith-driven entrepreneur groups. We got a podcast, we got a conference and watch parties and all that stuff. And at the end, he wasn't as blunt as this, but pretty close to it. It's like, that's great. I need money. And so, like, all right, so now we've got a new, if we want to serve faith-driven entrepreneurs and their biggest felt need is getting capital to grow what God has put in front of them, we need to address that. And we can't just say, hey, here's a link to a podcast. Right. And so we started Faith-Driven Investor as a movement to try to get the body of Christ that was stored in capital thoughtful about how to stir that capital in a way to advance God's kingdom across all asset classes and all geographies. And that has been much of the work that I focused on over the course of the last six or seven years is we have an incredible team that leads faith-driven entrepreneurs, which continues to scale. Uh, last watch party. There are 630 watch parties in 130 countries around the world, and that team is crushing it through the grace of God. But much of my work now is working with the body of Christ that has financial resources to store it and inviting them to get in the game. And in many cases, is coming alongside entrepreneurs in emerging markets, primarily through funds, to be honest. You know, you know, it's difficult to find three or four angel deals to do a you know entire continent away. But there's some incredible Christian-led private equity and venture capital and real estate funds all around the world. And what I think that God had taught us as we made that, as we brought FDI in the mix, was hey, up until now, you've thought you guys are real great stuff with sovereign capital, but you're not the only game in town. This is what I felt that Luke and I felt that the Holy Spirit was telling us. You need to get out and you need to introduce your limited partners to other funds led by Christ's followers in different markets, different asset classes, and your own. So fate-driven investors started by endeavoring to have a movement where Christians could come together and understand as they started financial resources for God's glory, they could advance his kingdom through the placement, not just of philanthropic capital, although that's a big part, and a big part of solving the world's greatest problems, which is this newest thing, but on the investment side. And so uh John Porter ended up getting funded.
SPEAKER_00:So, so Henry, are you saying that my job as a marketplace business leader is not just to make money and tithe on Sunday mornings and then trust that the church is going to do all the ministry work? Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_02:That's yes, again, dude. You nailed it. That's exactly what I'm saying. I think we've missed that. And it's not just, it's not just like, hey, you're not really a real Christian unless you find, you know, the entrepreneur in Rwanda to invest in. It's that there's a greater joy that's set before us as we just like, God, like as we come to understand here that that we're storing your capital, how do you want us to deploy it with the hopeful expensive we'd all have that would experience God's joys, we do it. And it can be a lot of fun. And it's challenging, but it can really move the needle in a way that brings us closer to knowing the heart of the Father.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Let's talk about the parable of the servants. So we get this rich guy, he goes on a trip, he leaves eight talents with three servants, right? And he does the the the Bible Jesus doesn't tell us how long he was gone. He doesn't tell us what they invested in, but he tells us that two of them doubled the money. One dug a hole in the ground and put it in the ground because he was fearful. And we know it didn't work out very well for him. Now, uh through some economic study through a friend of mine, Jerry Bowyer, who you may know as well, he he's established that the GDP of the nation of Israel was around fifteen hundred talents a year at this point in time. So if you take eight and divide it by fifteen hundred, you get.005. And if you take Bezos or Elon's net worth and divide it by the GDP of the United States today, you get 0.005. So this this wealthy guy was probably the wealthiest guy in Israel. Okay? And they doubled. They doubled the majority of his net worth while he was gone. So these were not house servants, these were professional allocators, I would maintain, and they were very, very good investors, right? To be able to do that well. So by by leveraging the lesson in that parable, you've gone on to Say this term righteous risk. God wants us to take righteous risk. Talk about righteous risk and investing. And how can investing be redemptive beyond just my tithing and giving dollar?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think it starts off with understanding what risk is. So we've been taught a form of economics that's based on scarcity, micro and macro, all based on scarcity. But you know, when you look at five loaves and two fish feeding 5,000, all of a sudden you realize that we're worshiping a God of abundance and that his rules and his economy works differently. So if his rules and his economy work differently, maybe his definition of risk is also different than the definition of risk we get taught in finance and economics classes. And so really, I mean, Dustin, what's the worst thing that can happen to you? It's that you die, right? And and it and when we start thinking differently about what risk adjusted return looks like, and we start thinking differently about ownership. That, okay, wait a second. I'm a steward of the capital guys, and trusting me what? He owns it, and I can experience his joy as those two servants did and have this maybe this hopeful expectancy that I might one day hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Well done, good and faithful steward. How might I then allocate this, knowing that the risk is actually getting up there for judgment day? And look, I believe that the work of a Christian is to believe in the one in whom he sent. But I also believe that once we're up there in heaven for a while, at some point in time, there's going to be this time when we we come in front of the master and give an account for what we didn't do. I mean, it's in the Bible. So my greatest risk is actually that I get up there and I don't acknowledge the fact that he owned it all anyway, that wasn't his 10 talents or five talents or whatever. And then that I like, you know, I don't know. I got better, you know, the sharp ratio is a little bit better here. And I really felt that if I could do this arbitrage between gold and like platinum, I could get a little bit better yield. And no, no, no, no. It's like you knew that I my heart was against injustice and and and and to love the poor, you know, the very thing we should be eager to do, going back to Galatians 6.10. You knew all of these things, and yet you decided that you were going to manage things with a risk definition that had been handed down to you from some sort of finance professor. That's, I think, our biggest risk. Our biggest risk is not seeking out the the will of the owner. Like, what do you want? Like, you know, we go back to the parallel of talents. You know, those stewards before the guy goes away, is like, listen, help me understand the intent here. What's real success look like? If they had each gone through, and maybe those other two did, and asked, like, God, what do you want me to do with your money? Then they wouldn't have there would not have been a big surprise for that third guy at the end when he'd buried it.
SPEAKER_00:That's a great point. And and so I'll I'll offer this thought. When we give to a lot of the nonprofits that a lot of us support, and I'm not in any way saying we need to stop giving, so don't mishear me to the listeners. But a lot of times what happens is they give a man a fish, give a man a fish, give a man a fish, right? And when you support a for-profit entity that's uh hiring people, training people, raising up their standard of living, raising up their their community, their family, etc. Doing so in Jesus' name and discipling them in the business and therefore through the community, look at the difference. They're not waiting on another handout, they're actually taking the reins. And A, they're getting to know the master, they're getting to know eternal hope. But B, they're actually getting to have some stake and responsibility uh for their own time here as opposed to just waiting for the next fish. And so there's this concept of give a man a fish, and there's this concept of teach a man a fish. And then my friend Trinity in Uganda recently said, No, we need to teach him how to control the ponds. And I feel like that's what you're doing. You're like up at the control the pond level of this whole kind of schematic or this game board. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02:Well, it does. It does, and that's a great illustration in helping folks to own the pond because it gives them the sense of of just of agency. And when you own the pond, now you can invite other fishermen into the pond. You can go ahead and start looking at the market and the offtake for the fish. You can start talking about conservation efforts so you can increase the yield of of the of the harvest every year. There are a whole bunch of different things that can happen. When you find the right leaders, the men and women of peace that show excellence in the marketplace. And so if you teach a man to fish, then you've got an employee. But if you go ahead and you show somebody how they can have agency over the pond, now you have leverage and scale, especially when you do it with the local partner. All too often in the past, the the West has looked at Africa, for instance, and seen, gosh, it's an incredible business opportunity. And it ends up being some level of an extraction. But this next uh thing is like, how do we give the folks that run Masaka Creamery the the, which is now, by the way, now by the way, the largest yogurt manufacturer in Wanda. There you go. It turns out people don't want to eat a lot of yogurt. It's a big win all around. Like 65 deaf people. It's a wonderful story. But yes, that last piece, how do you identify the right person to own the pond? Now that's a challenge because you need to have some level of discernment. You need to spend some time on the ground and say, gosh, I really want to help have a local owner of the pond, but you don't want to pick the wrong person. Just think of back in your community in Austin. Some number of people that you know of would be excellent owners of a pond or stewards of a business. And other ones may be less so, but in order to be able to figure out who to come behind with your capital, you need to have some level of excellence and discernment. And in order to do that, the danger, let me say this differently. The danger is that we come away from a podcast like this and say, Oh my goodness, I'm I I get it. I should be investing in Africa or Moldova or whatever the case is. And they they hear about a deal on a church parking lot and they put capital there, but it's not the right deal. They don't understand the competitive landscape or it's the wrong person. And so, as with anything, we need to make sure that we invest, give, operate with excellence. And if we can't do it by spending the requisite amount of time on the ground to endeavor to see where excellence is, we have to find the right professional manager who can do it. So that's the can and this is one of the things I really want to impart with uh with anybody I talk to about Africa is if you follow my LinkedIn, but I I talk about Africa a lot. But the here's the risk. If Dustin, if you invest in three angel deals in Silicon Valley and you lose money in all three, you're like, I guess I get the wrong deals. If you invest in three deals in Africa and you lose all your money, your temptation will be there's something wrong with Africa if you can't make money.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. Yeah, it's a real it's a real threat to the future investment of the whole nation.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. And there there are some unbelievably capable uh fund managers in Africa and folks that are run have incredible track records, or men and women of great faith who are running two, three hundred, and in two cases, more than a billion dollars of assets on our management with great track records. They exist. And we just need to we need to store them well, as those two stores in your in the parable you shared would have done.
SPEAKER_00:So we we look at where the gospel is not, right? We know there's still unreached people groups, we know there's still translation to be done. You can't go into those countries, a lot of those countries, with a missionary visa, right? You can't go in and just say, hey, I'm here to tell everybody about Jesus. But the door is wide open to come in with a great business and hire people and and operate a business that lifts up their economy. How how do we process as stewards of God's money, both as investors and as givers, how do we process, you know, the allocation for what we want to do personally?
SPEAKER_02:Well, first of all, you know, and it I guess it really is worth saying again, is to get on our our our knees and and through f prayer and fasting ask God how we would do it. Uh a second thing I think is really important is that while I love the idea of folks going overseas, you know, that's one of the things, for instance, that John Porter did. John Porter went overseas, spent a lot of time on the ground in Rwanda, found out that there is a problem to be solved and an opportunity to be leaned into, and went ahead and with a partner, started Masaka Creamery. In many other cases, and maybe I'd even go so far as to say this is preferable, if somebody has that type of dairy manufacturing experience from the states, is to go and just learn and see who on the ground is already doing it, and then to come in at their invitation to partner with them. And just what does it look like to lift up? I mean, we've had so many advantages in the United States because of just the way we're set up with just the installation of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and five navigable riverways and and just a constitution that was based on freedom. And there's something amazing about the American market. Long term, I think we really need to find more of the Anatolma Lantias who are pioneers and the men of peace that are of that local culture and come alongside at their invitation and to partner with them. And what you can do is you can get into a closed country in business, but you can also get in as an investor. What does it look like for us to go and spend two or three weeks in Moldova, learn about the market, talk to the senior pastors of churches, who are the people that are faithful disciples that you think of that have real business skills? Spend time with them, break bread with them, hear what they see in the market, and then just without prescribing or presuming, just being open to how the Holy Spirit would lead them to partnering with the local leaders on the ground.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, good point. I want to I want to plug globalswitchboard.io here because not everyone's gonna be able to go spend a couple weeks in Africa or Moldova and look at uh business opportunities and ask the right questions to find those. Obviously, you can get engaged with the faith-driven networks, but if you go to global switchboard.io, you can fill out a profile, you can tell it what you're good at, what your gifts are, and you'll get pinged and get connected from people from other parts of the world who need accounting help, who need web design help, who need supply chain help. It's a place where you can donate some time, limited time, that might turn into you know something far greater. Check that out as an opportunity if you're looking for kind of a how do I get in the game in a in a next step that's not I'm gonna pack up and leave and go spend weeks at a time uh interviewing folks in another country. That's a good step. Help everybody understand, Henry. So when you go somewhere new, maybe tell us a couple of stories of who of who you've met. Uh I you've got this huge heart for Africa. And if anybody goes on your LinkedIn, you're gonna see story after story. You have this thing you do where you you turn your phone around and you video uh live people and you ask them questions, who are you and what are you doing? And you just share that with the world. And I love, love, love that about you. Tell us a couple of the stories of who you've met and how what questions do you ask? Because you don't come in and tell them what to do. Uh, you have a very humble posture.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Well, that's a great encouragement. I really love doing these LinkedIn selfie videos, and I really do love shining the spotlight on African entrepreneurs as a part of helping to change the narrative of what we think about African entrepreneurs. Most of us think, gosh, you know, it's it's folks making handicrafts like oven mitts or I don't know, free trade coffee, but it's so much more than that. And um, some of the stories that I've seen, I I I think about, I think about Ben Medisa. So what's universal, I think, about an entrepreneur is to see a problem around the around you and then look to solve it. The problems are very different in Africa and in any emerging market than they are in America. So what we're not talking about here are Africans who say, oh my goodness, I'm gonna do the African eBay or the African Amazon. No, they're saying, we've got a real problem here with power networks. If you've been overseas in Africa, you've seen the bird's nest of power wires crisscrossing everywhere. Well, that's a real challenge for getting reliable electricity into the hands of the industries and the factories that that make products. So BIM came up with a technology that allows a utility to understand where they're getting a drop-off in power and making sure it gets in the hands of the right institutional customers. And when we met him, he had about a million dollars in revenue. And now he has$30 million in revenue. So we're talking about an entrepreneur that's getting out there and scaling and then wrestling with, you know, gosh, how does I how do I share in a culturally appropriate way with boldness and yet consistent with our company quote culture that has uh people of all faiths working here, how do I share my Christian faith? And so that's a that's a that's a great story. I think then, you know, I also think about one of my favorite entrepreneurs is a guy who runs Kafresh. There's a big problem in Africa with ag and food. Okay, so Africa is 24% of the world's arable land, yet only produces 1% of the world's food supply. Um, there's a real challenge in the three-pole. And one of the things we're doing with solving the world's greatest problems is coming up with a hunger fund, which is a philanthropic fund that can make grants or investments towards solving the problem of hunger. And generally there are three different issues. Get surplus from smallholder farmers, get them plugged into a broader value chain so they can get products to market, and then getting the getting the making sure that you've got the buyers on the other end. But one of the big challenges is how do we get produce from the farmer to the market before it spoils?
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The whole group of entrepreneurs, and from the best of what we've seen, a bunch of these folks really motivated by the Christian faith, absolutely with Kafresh, and we've done a video documentary on that problem. Is it like, how do we keep an apple and orange fresh for another week so they can make it to a market in Dubai? That's another one that I love. Um, I think about Sadek Edu at Peak Insights, which is getting the data behind the informal economy, which makes up 87% of sub-Saharan Africa's economy. How do we get that data in the hands of large multinationals so they can see that they can invest in the infrastructure in the supply chain to make the roads, create the warehouses, get the trucks out there so that we can then open up some of these remote areas to commerce, which lifts up the entire market. So 87% of the world's economy, nobody knows what the sales data is and who's buying what. So that means that a Melancholine doesn't have the confidence of investing. Well, he delivers the data that allows them to say, okay, actually, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to build a warehousing facility over here. And that just what the economic impact is that of the entire country is amazing. In the meantime, each of these stories are delivering amazing bottom line returns and investment returns for their companies and for their investors. And and that's it, guys, it's just great joy to look at them. I think about Caleo Capital has made 80 investments in faith-driven entrepreneurs over the course of the last two years, each of them with a story that's unique to the problems that Africa has, each of them building up the economy in a way that philanthropy can't. To be clear, as you had said before, philanthropy is amazingly important for widows and orphans and oftentimes in church planning. And yet when we look at the five Asian Tigers and the fact that Korea was poorer than Sub-Saharan Africa 50 years ago, they got lifted out of poverty through the marketplace. And those are the opportunities and the stories that I think best illustrate that.
SPEAKER_00:Just for the listeners, and a lot of you may know this, some may not, but you know, you you can invest obviously in a fund that's going to access uh faith-driven entrepreneurs in in Africa and other parts of the world uh in a for-profit way. You can also do it in a nonprofit way. So if if uh in a nonprofit on your own balance sheet, I mean, so if you have a donor advised fund or a family foundation, right, you can go through groups like Impact Foundation and you can now do for-profit investing into funds or directly into companies that are redemptive and operating for redemptive good with your giving dollars. So your giving dollars could go, the gospel could be taken where it's not through a through a company. And then in theory, that company could scale and grow and sell, and you may have a lot more giving dollars come back in. So, in your estimation, Henry, like how do you decide if you're using giving dollars or for-profit dollars? You do a little bit of both. What's that look like?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a great question. So it comes back from uh the the concept of of ownership. Early on, uh Kimley and I realized that God owns it all. And so as we got liquidity from Bandwidth and Republic, it was this is so to be clear, Kimley and I have money in a taxable account that allows us to go out to dinner and to and pay our utilities. But the vast majority of the wealth that the Lord enabled us to make through Bandwidth and Republic wireless, we put in a combination of a supporting org of both Impact Foundation and the National Christian Foundation, NIM Cruts, and donor advised funds. So all of the almost all of the investing that we do is out of one of those structures.
SPEAKER_00:When you're talking about reinvesting your giving dollars versus your for-profit dollars, is there a different level of stewardship involved there? Or is it like it's the same? You're bringing the best of you to both scenarios, right? But like, does it feel more like it's God's money if it's already been given?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, if I'm honest, yes, there are times that I'm tempted to think, well, this is, you know, if I if I have a 10x fold return on this one, it'll feel differently than if it's in a different pocket. And yet, fortunately, because I've got a great accountability group, is one of the reasons, um, where we share our finances with each person. We help each other understand that we need to be excellent stewards of both the for-profit money we have and the not-for-profit money. And we need to we need to be vigilant for two things. One is not having the same level of operational diligence on the investments we make out of our foundation, because we can't use the proceeds of that to buy a boat or a car, right? We have to make sure that we have at least as much of that and then actually to step it up even further, because that's money that gets compounded to make an impact for God's kingdom. And yet we also need to focus on the for-profit side too, because as we make more money in the investments that Kimla and I otherwise have set aside for retirement or going out to dinner or paying our utilities, as we have more of a surplus, understanding that we only need a certain amount of money to live on before we die, any type of surplus then also gets given. So we know that we should have the same level of stewardship and diligence and professional management over both. So part of the answer to your question is I fall prey to like, well, maybe I don't have as much of a scrutiny over what I'm doing out of this donor advice fund. And I'm not looking at the expense rate ratio, or I'm not looking at the reporting or the KPIs or the metrics. There is a temptation. I need to acknowledge that as I do with all CEN and all wrongful thinking. But we have to, because I tell you, the we have to acknowledge the headwinds that we experience as faith-driven investors. People expect that as we do things with the Christian label on them, they won't be as good as the alternative. And we have to push through that and to show that faith-driven investing can be done with excellence, both with bottom line return and with outcomes that are measured. And we have to fight against it.
SPEAKER_00:We feel very confident that that's the case in private markets, right? We feel very confident that's a case where we're investing in a private company. Where I think the struggle right now that the uh a lot of us are trying to prove is can that be done in the public market space? Can we invest redemptively? Can we put the right screen? Can we figure out the right way to structure an ETF or a fund using public markets? And how do you how do you define it? Because what's acceptable to someone's level of discernment is probably different than what's acceptable to someone else's. How are we going to conquer that hill in in public markets?
SPEAKER_02:You're more the expert on this than I. Um, but I can tell you that is something that we absolutely can and have to do. So how do we do it? Well, number one, we have to uh understand. That while there's incredible spiritual integration that comes in the private markets by investing in companies like BIMS and John Porter's and others, those type of private investments don't offer a lot of liquidity. And we need to have liquidity and we need to pay our utilities. We can't just wait for everything we have for a 10-year return till we get our money back. So we need to be excellent investors in starting God's capital in the public markets too. And part of it is coming to understand that every one of our shares we buy in the public markets amounts to a vote. And if we vote into a Fortune 500 company that has 10% of their revenues coming in from, I don't know, dating apps, which I think are a scourge of society trying to trick you into just spending more money with them, or even worse, pornography or adult entertainment. If we do that, we're amounting to a vote there. And so I think that having the right type of negative and positive screens is really important. So what's negative screen means like it means making sure you're not investing in companies that do bad things. And number two is what does it look like to invest in in funds like Eventide and others that have, as a part of their tagline, investing that makes the world rejoice. Um, there's opportunities to look things at things like the SAVF, which is sovereign's capital fund, that invests in publicly traded companies that are led by Christ followers. The biggest first step is to go to your advisor and ask them, how do I navigate through all this? How can I do it with excellence in a way that matches my risk profile and my needs for maybe college, maybe retirement or whatever it is. And I think that the biggest need out there is this the this more. Look, you're an advisor and you do it with excellence and motivated by your faith. Um, and there need to be more Dustin Elliots. There need to be more Dustin Elliots that are well versed with how do I serve my customer, how do I have enough arrows in my quiver to meet their needs, both with negative screens and positive screens across public markets and private markets. And so, yeah, more Dustins.
SPEAKER_00:Well, God knows there's uh there's plenty of of work Dustin Elliott still got to do uh to to align my life to his will, but that's kind. Let's land the plane a bit here. Let's talk solving the world's greatest problems, which is kind of the latest uh endeavor where you've taken a lot of the uh maybe more engaged folks from the other ventures and brought them together. You you built a March Madness bracket of sorts of the world's greatest problems, and you had us all vote, and we kind of came down to the left, you know, the top, the top ranked them in the top five. And then you're like, okay, we're gonna take the top rankings and we're gonna start funds to start addressing these where we where we can work in community and give in community and invest in community. Tell us that story. This is really fascinating. I'm real interested in it.
SPEAKER_02:So uh it's it's it's just what we've been talking about thus far. It's like the next logical thing. So through the Great Race of God, we've got more than 30,000 entrepreneurs and investors. They've gone through these eight-week courses online with peers, wrestling with some of these things through through a content community. And like, all right, so they understand God's call to create in their identity in Christ. They've met and prayed with their peers. All right, they're running their businesses better. Now what? Well, what's it look like for that same type of community to get together and say, all right, let's look at looking at trafficking or solving adoption of foster care or how we might together to think uh about hunger or joblessness in Africa. Because any one of these things can be daunting. And the other thing is that, you know, back to the stock, you know, public markets versus private markets, a lot of us end up uh stock picking with the giving that we do. People have come to understand through mutual function, professional managers, there's different ways. So solving the world's greatest problems, and number one, let's acknowledge the fact that I am the world's greatest problem. Okay. The title solving the world's greatest problems is at best semi-arrogant. But the idea is that we might get together in communities to solve these problems under God's power and for his glory. We're creating the image of a God who created beautiful things, whose heart is towards addressing injustice. And when we tap into that, especially in community, there's something amazing that happens, especially as we come alongside and at the invitation of the Anatols and the Bimadisas of the world to solve some of those issues. And so that's our next thing. It's content and community. And then we've created funds around each one of these problems. We're rolling out eight this year around adoption and foster care and hunger and joblessness. And in each case, it's a donor-advised fund. So it's philanthropic capital going in, but then the fund manager, with the help of an investment committee of experts and a board of advisors, allocates that capital towards making grants or making investments in companies like Cafresh toward the end of solving that problem.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's fascinating. And uh, I will I will report to our audience who will be largely interested in hearing what the top rankings were that translation and church planting/slash kind of discipleship, Great Commission type things were in the top, we're both in the top three. Uh, so I was very encouraged to see that that's how the rankings came out. Not that there are other very significant problems, and I'm not trying to say they're not. Um, but it was encouraging to see that they that they garnered a lot of attention from this community. There is a real focus on doing all this work in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02:Partnering with Martin on the Bible translation side has been a great joy. We've got a new portfolio manager on the evangelism side working with some credible evangelism ministries. And yes, the biggest challenge is people not knowing the God of the universe and his love for them and their need for him.
SPEAKER_00:What's next for Henry, though?
SPEAKER_02:So over the course of the next year, it's it's all about solving the world's greatest problems. And then I also want to be an awesome husband. I want anybody to uh go into Kimberly and ask me what what letter grade does Henry get in being a husband? What letter grade does that his three boys would give him as being his dad? So I need to make sure that that God actually doesn't need me to solve any of his problems. God needs me to know him, and so I need reminders of that, and just me saying that publicly here in front of a bunch of people hopefully holds me accountable because God doesn't actually need me. God wants the the heart of the boy of John 6, who's anonymous. But because he was all in and he gave his whole lunch, the five loaves and two fish, God then used that to feed 5,000. And oh, the awe and the joy of the boy to see that happen. I want the same, but I have to do two things. Number one, I have to be willing to be anonymous. I have to humble myself in a way that I probably haven't, and I need to be all in in a way that I haven't been. I I would probably go to that guy with a beard asking me for my lunch. I probably was like, here's a loaf and a half a fish. I need to be all in.
SPEAKER_00:Let me say this because I want to encourage you and I want to encourage some other people that are that are significant figures that people look up to and follow. If you go back to the old testament, when they are rebuilding the temple, and King David is talking to the entire assembly, he says, I've gathered all of the materials needed to build the temple. God said, You can't build it, right? Your son's gonna build it, but he said, Okay, well, I'm gonna go get everything that's needed. And then he says, I've also donated all of my personal treasure, and it lists the tonnage of the silver and the gold and all the things. And then he says, Who will join me? And it says joyfully, they all gave. So there is biblical precedent for giving in community. There's biblical precedent for standing up as Henry Kasner and saying, I'm living my life for God and I'm doing it for these reasons, not to glorify me, but I'm willing to travel and I'm willing to put myself out there to glorify him. So, brother, when I look at you, I don't see a guy that's out there building the kingdom of Henry. I see a guy that's out there sacrificially going to the ends of the earth to highlight the stories and the people that God is using to bring the world back to himself. And it's incredibly encouraging for me and Richard and Marshall Cunningham and those of us around here that know you. So thank you. Thank you to you and Luke and John and the whole group. We are really we're grateful. We're excited for what's next, and and just man, I'm I'm cheerleading you. Keep it up.
SPEAKER_02:Super encouraged, brother. Thank you. Thank you for the blessing of uh sharing with your community. Thank you for the work you are doing in leading the space. And uh great being with you.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, now you know how we end our episodes, right? You gotta you we always ask our guests to pray for the listeners. So this is your opportunity to uh through God's word and and through prayer encourage everyone.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what a privilege and a blessing. Heavenly Father, we come to you knowing that we're not worthy, but we are so loved. We are so loved. And Lord, may the reality of your love for me and the love for this community of listeners be so that we are so overwhelmed with gratitude and joy that we just want to participate more in the work that you're doing in the world. Lord, uh it at least as far as it's concerned for me, help me to overcome the thorns or the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches that just tempt me every single day, knowing that there's something better that you have in store for me and participating in the work that you're building in the world. So, Lord, we just pray that you'd allow us to get more of you, that you would not find us waylaid by the evil one that would love to just sideline us. Uh, Lord, may you build a community of people whose whose scales have been removed from their eyes and they come alive as in Ezekiel, and we all go off into this holy, wonderful battle and mission, knowing that the worst thing that can happen is that we die and that we have eternity with you. Help that reality sink in and allow us to just live the life you've laid out for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. And amen.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to Unreached. Our sincere desire is that what you've heard today will cause you to see the mission of God differently and your role in it more clearly. If this adds value for you, and we hope it does, would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen? Also share with your family, your friends, your church, your life group, small group, D group, wherever you do life. And if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram at Unreach Podcast or email us at unreached podcast at gmail.com.
