Banking on KC – David Geenens of Benedictine College
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Kelly Scanlon: Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Professor David Geenens, the director of the Thompson Center for Integrity in Finance and Economics at Benedictine College, and a key leader behind Spark Tank, an initiative that supports the launch of economically viable enterprises in under-resourced American cities and communities.
Welcome Dave.
David Geenens: Thank you so much, Kelly. Really glad to be here.
Kelly Scanlon: As I said, you are the director of the Thompson Center for Integrity and Finance and Economics. Uh, tell us a little bit about that because it has a really close connection to Country Club Bank and, and so I'd like for you to explain a little bit about that, what that is in the work you do there.
David Geenens: Yeah. Yes, it does. Uh, Byron G Thompson, the namesake of the center, is the founder of Country Club Bank and of course, the Thompson family is active in leading that bank today. So it's a. It's a wonderful privilege to be able to lead that center out of the school of business at Benedictine College. Its footprint in the school of business is substantial.
It's, it's one of the ways the college extends itself into the world outside of an academic orientation on campus, and so we use that Thompson Center as a way to be relevant to the world. As we know a lot of people who practice in business and in banking and in the economic sector who need. To know the things that we teach at our college, not the least of which is the importance of the Christian faith in the practice of business.
Kelly Scanlon: So let's talk about one of the rather new initiative, uh, one that is your brainchild. From what I understand, it sparked. Tell us about the program and how it balances the goals of business success with some of the things that you just talked about. You know, primarily that mission of promoting justice and equity.
At the same time that you're successful as a business owner.
David Geenens: So one of the things that's unique about the Spark Tank is that we focus on marginalized communities. Our mission as a college at Benedictine is to transform the culture of America. That's our mission for the next 30 years till 2050, there were no caveats place around America.
And so we've included in that mission. The idea of marginalized communities and how does integrity and finance and economics mesh with that? And so we could easily close our eyes because those are difficult. Uh, areas in which to endeavor business and, and, and especially entrepreneurship. And so we've decided we're gonna own that space.
From what I understand, we picked one of the more difficult cities in the united to launch in the United States, I would say. So United States to launch. And that was because the door opened for us. Uh, somebody from that area called me out of the blue. And asked about the fourth book. I had written "Truth in the Transcendent Business" and we hit it off and he said, let me introduce you to a pastor in Ferguson.
And I've learned in, in my years, when the door opens, walk through it and see what God's gonna do. And that's how we ended up in Ferguson.
Kelly Scanlon: Talk to us about the program itself. I know there's three phases. There's education, pitching, and team formation. How do those all work together to accomplish your goals?
David Geenens: Well, there's actually a fourth one now that we just created a, a month ago. That's probably why you haven't heard about it yet. It's not on your website yet, but it's, but it's cri it's critically important, uh, obviously, uh, being at Benedict College, our swim lane is education. It's, it's what we do, it's what we know how to do.
It's what we're really, really good at. Our efforts in Ferguson. Required, not just us, we weren't gonna just parachute in and save the day in any marginalized communities. And that's a, that's a big lesson we could talk about later. We had to go in with partners into that community who, who already had the trust of the people in the community.
There's no shortage of people with ideas regardless of the communities they're in. And so we found that to be true. In Ferguson, but to get their skillset set up to a point where they could literally be successful at business. And over the five years of planning and executing the spark tank, we've learned, uh, not only that, that was an issue, which we anticipated it would be, but it, but that it's much harder that we had anticipated.
'cause we're five years in now. And you think, well, okay. You know, we can, we can fix this lot to learn. So the education is the first step and then the, uh, pitching. So preparing them to be ready to think like business people was, is substantial. Uh, most of the entrepreneurs that we've seen don't have a formal education in business.
We just finished our first pitch event. Last weekend, as a matter of fact, we had eight or four entrepreneurs of eight prepared and ready to pitch, and they pitched in front of family members and community leaders and investor philanthropists. Uh, so we're, we'll see if we can't get some of these businesses launched and, and funded in Ferguson.
One of the lessons we teach these entrepreneurs is, no entrepreneur does this alone. And so the book, the E-Myth speaks to, right, it requires a team. And, and a lot of these people are individual performers and they're good at what they do because they know how to make money. But to build a business, you've gotta have a team around you.
So we, we, we create what, what we call the Spark team. And that's where we have people from the community who may not be entrepreneurs, but they have an accounting skillset or a legal skillset, or a graphic artist skillset, or an engineering skillset, or a problem solving skillset. And we say, would you like to work with an entrepreneur?
And so we build the teams as we go so that they're not alone. And it's, it's been amazing.
Kelly Scanlon: And these, uh, people in the community that you tap and that are willing to come and serve, uh, with Spark Tank, are they, they're actually performing the services for those companies?
David Geenens: They're actually part of the executive team.
They're not mentors. They're, they're literally part of the executive team. And I've shared stories in my career in the marketplace where, uh, I earned equity in companies. Most, most of the companies that I was an executive in were not my brainchild. But I earned my equity by delivering my accounting skillset or my operational skillset, or my executive leadership skillset to that enterprise.
And so that's exactly what these team, team members do. And it's a, it's a new concept when you think about integrity in finance and economics to say, you know what? You don't have to own it all. You know, especially if you can't afford to pay somebody right now, which is not uncommon for a startup business, bring the talent in and say, you know what I need, I need your help.
And, and with your help, we'll come an equity stake at some point in the future.
Kelly Scanlon: I know that you had others, uh, behind Spark Tank besides yourself, but, uh, you, you were really the driving force. So what, what inspired you, uh, given your background, how, how did you come to this idea?
David Geenens: We don't have enough time to probably roll the roll history all the way back, but it's a passion for people without a caveat.
When I got my MBA at Rockhurst University here in Kansas City, I was exposed to leadership as it should be, and I've studied leadership now for over 30 years. I was a heads down hardworking producer for a long time, and then I realized, oh, wait a minute. It's not just about me, it's about the people around me.
And that changed my life, changed my faith, changed everything in it. And so as I started concern myself with. People, I was fortunate as part of my career to start the largest prison industry in the United States under one roof in Lansing State Penitentiary. And uh, that was an amazing experience. And if you'll take the time to listen to their stories.
And I teach this at the college in some of my management and leadership classes. I always say it's the knowing that expands and love fills in the spaces.
Kelly Scanlon: Blending your business background with your experience working with the inmates at the prison, uh, you saw this possibility.
David Geenens: The key is our entrepreneurship and business, the solutions because so many people view business as part of the problem.
Well, it's actually part of the solution, and if you read what the Catholic Church teaches in its social teaching, it is part of the solution. And so even bringing that to a community where perhaps Catholicism is not the primary faith tradition, that's okay.
Kelly Scanlon: So when you say that it's part of the solution and that the Catholic faith teaches that for non-Catholics who may be listening, or even Catholics who may not.
Be following that. Uh, explain that a little bit.
David Geenens: Sure. Well, uh, again, I, I was new to it when I started Benedictine. I was not Catholic and I was exposed to what students said were papal and cyclicals. And I said, could you please spell that because I'm not sure how to, and they told me what they were. And, and honestly, I was an evangelical Christian.
Really didn't want to read those things, but they convinced me to do it. I started reading them and. In the very first document I read paragraph three, uh, Pope Leo XIII in 1891, defined the core problem the public institutions and the laws had set aside the ancient religion, the Catholic church, consequently and henceforth.
It started to explore why workers are exploited, unfair, competition, greed, and so forth. And that set the stage because I had always known that, that as a Christian, we had to bring our faith. To the workplace to business. And so when I read that problem definition, I was like. Okay, how can I be my age in my mid fifties? And no one has ever told me this.
Kelly Scanlon: So let's talk some more about Ferguson. You mentioned that you had learned some lessons there. One of 'em is the trust factor. You have can't just fly in, helicopter in and say, here we are. So in addition to the trust factor, uh, what are some of the other lessons that you learned and how is your understanding now from those lessons helping to shape other?
Areas that you are moving into?
David Geenens: That's a great question. There are two primary lessons, and I just learned one of them about four months ago, so I'm still learning as we go. The first one relates to the perspective of the entrepreneurs in those communities. Entrepreneurship to taking a risk in business is a negative in those communities because they're already under stress.
They have unique stressors in a marginalized community. I mean, where am I gonna eat? Where am I gonna sleep? I don't have a vehicle. How do I get to work? I mean, think about all of that piled onto taking on the risk of a business. They know how to make money. So they, they buy a bottle of water like this one, and they buy it for a quarter and they sell it for 50 cents.
Well, they just made a a hundred percent markup, 50% margin on that bottle of water. And so when we started talking to them about accounting and talking about, well, you need to give an account when an investor invests in your business, uh, because you were a steward of that money and you're gonna lose money your first.
Four months, and the reaction was immediate. It was like, Hey, why would I do that if I'm gonna lose money? So we had to convert the entrepreneurs from the hustler mindset to a business mindset, and that was mind blowing to me that that's where we had to start. That was just four months ago, and it was mind blowing to them, as you could tell.
They all went, oh, that's different. That was huge in terms of lessons. The second lessons was we can, we can educate and build all of these entrepreneurs that we want who have really good ideas. 'cause they do know how to make money or lease them at the end of the program and then they need capital. Like any startup business.
Sure, yes. Well, where are they gonna get capital from? An SBA loan requires collateral, a personal guarantee. Or positive cash flow, at least two of the three. My understanding, I will defer to the bankers here at Country Club to correct me if I'm wrong. If you're in a marginalized community to get two of those three are, it's, it's not likely.
Then you have venture capitalists who will look at a business as long as it's $5 million. There's a VA, $5 million valuation because the cost of doing due diligence and all the legal work and attorney work and accounting work auditing and what have you, it's just too big, so they won't even look at it.
So there's this. Desert of capital for these marginalized investors. So that started to point to, well, where do we get capital? And that introduces the fourth piece that just started 30 days ago, and we call it New Venture Philanthropy. We believe that is a culture transforming idea born out of our experience in the school of business and the Thompson Center at the college.
So what we're talking about doing in that, we've actually. Proven it in another business venture is we're asking investors, leave your investor funds to make those prudent investments where you can get a strong return, but reconsider the use of your philanthropic dollars. As capital to be deployed as capital into marginalized communities.
Three weeks ago, we just, we just did three pitches to a group, three different groups of philanthropists in St. Louis, and, oh, you can do that and yes you can. You put your money, you get your money ready, you put it into a donor advice fund. Which is very common for families or people with resources, but they, most of 'em, think I can, I'm only gonna be able to deploy that in a not-for-profit sense.
Well, no, you can actually deploy those monies in a program related investment. That's the term the IRS uses. And what'll happen if, if that money comes back to you through loan repayment and interest rates, it's an evergreen fund. So you deploy it five years later, everything's paid back. You deploy it again.
What an unbelievable solution, not only for the donor-advised fund as opposed to give it away once and it does some good. That's awesome. I recognize that. But what if we could redeploy that in an evergreen investment and launch these entrepreneurs because we believe it's the only source of capital they have.
That's the only option they've got.
Kelly Scanlon: Are there? Other programs like that where they're using the, um, philanthropic dollars as investment dollars? Or is this new to your program?
David Geenens: It actually did some research. It actually started in 1979.
Kelly Scanlon: It's been around a while.
David Geenens: It's been the idea of Venture Philanthropies has been around for a while and it was born out of pharmaceutical companies wanting to do research on, um.
Chronic diseases because the private sector wasn't willing to take the risk because it would, it's too much R and D..
Kelly Scanlon: Right, exactly. It doesn't move fast enough for the return.
David Geenens: Yeah, exactly. And, and the, and the government was too slow, so interested People took their philanthropic money and started to pay for r and d for these chronic illnesses in return for an equity stake in these pharmaceutical companies or the release of these drugs, and it worked.
So that's where it started. Our focus is in particular with the Spark tank because of our calling for transforming the culture of America, all of America is marginalized communities. That is a very new concept that we're not aware that it exists anywhere. I. In the US
Kelly Scanlon: What role does mentorship play in Spark Tank?
I know you said that the people in business that you tap to come in and, and be part of these executive teams in these businesses are not mentors, but you do have a mentorship component. Talk to us about that.
David Geenens: We do and it's, and it's critically important. We can only accomplish, especially when we're doing it from Kansas City right now to St. Louis, you know, we'll have a class where we'll, we'll, we'll share some education or we'll work through the entrepreneurial bootcamp and they'll, they'll be moving their idea off of just square one to square two, three, and four. And they need that support in between those, those sessions. And so the mentor fills that gap, uh, and hopefully we try to match.
Someone with industry experience, with someone who's trying to start a business in that industry. Because as investors know, uh, we call that smart money. It's not just money 'cause money is fungible, but smart money, if you can get, if you need marketing and money, then if you can find somebody who knows a lot about marketing in your industry, that's just a, a double gain.
So it's a critical component for the program.
Kelly Scanlon: One of the things I've read, and I don't know if it's still true, but at least early on, uh, there was a, a focus on the food industry to the point where you have partnerships with, uh, social kitchen and food is love tv. Talk to us about those.
David Geenens: Yeah, yeah. Well, that was also one of those.
Doors that opened and you walk through it. I know. I like to eat. That's my knowledge of the food industry. Luckily my wife likes to cook, but I got a call out of the blue from a gentleman who's a retired brigadier General, John Michelle out of Swansea, Illinois, just east of uh, St. Louis on the Illinois side, and he found us on the internet and found the Spark tank program.
He wanted to know about it and we hit it off. He was a really strong Christian Guy and uh, we hit it off and he invited us to come visit. So I filled my car with students and, uh, in January, two years ago, we drove to Swansea to see what he had done and what he and his wife Holly had done was absolutely amazing.
They bought a two block area in Swansea. Uh, he, he tells me he tore down two crack houses and there was an abandoned restaurant building on the premises. They refinished the restaurant. And this, uh, mind you, this is an Air Force general, right? Didn't know anything about food, but what they recognize is that the lowest entry jobs for anybody who's struggling to work are in hospitality.
So you can be a dishwasher, move from dishwasher to buser, from buser to server, server to greeter, greeter to maybe supervisor or lead and and so on. So. They had a passion for helping people who needed work. And so they'd go into these marginalized communities, recruit 'em to come work at the restaurant, train them good hospitality skills.
Well, but then there was a lid, right? I mean, so they, they may, they work up their way through the ranks and then they kind of get stuck. And he said, well, what if we, what if we put these people into the food business? But then he said, well, the restaurant business is a very hard, it's very hard, very difficult pot.
Kelly Scanlon: Even for people who are experienced in it.
David Geenens: Yeah, exactly. And then, and then COVID hit and so restaurants were closing or not operating 'cause people weren't going out. Soup kitchens were closing. 'cause even the volunteers couldn't make it to the soup kitchen. So now you have this exploited problem of people in marginalized communities that couldn't get food.
And John thought, what about food trucks? And so was born, uh, not only social kitchen, but then out of his land he built a food truck park. And so now the promise is as these people evolve through his restaurant with hospitality skills, if they're skilled and they're willing to invest a year of education on how to run a food truck, coupled with Spark Tank to learn the fundamental skills and the entrepreneurial boot camp.
We will launch you into a food truck. And after a five year lease of that food truck, you will own your own food truck and you are a business owner. So these food trucks go back into their neighborhoods. So that one little picking up the phone with John has led to that partnership through the Spark Tank.
Kelly Scanlon: And you have the, the TV connection, uh, the food is Love tv. Uh, at that. Probably is a big marketing boost for you too.
David Geenens: It is, and that was one of John's connections, right? So the, the second degree of relationship, uh, he met Chef Sorenson, who lives in the St. Louis area and works out of Alton, Illinois. I.
This corridor east of St. Louis, that, that struggles large, marginalized area. And, uh, he has his own food show. And so he did a special piece on, on social, S-O-U-L-C-I-A-L, social kitchen, and the rest is history. The, everybody is moving in that direction, loving what John's doing with the food trucks.
Kelly Scanlon: So looking at that broader economic landscape, what trends concern you most when it comes to ethical leadership and economic justice?
David Geenens: One of the things I would like to add to this discussion of philanthropy versus investment is that that's a tough mindset shift. Um. For someone with resources. Yeah, because we, we tried to get investors to think about it differently with patients. That's very diff very difficult. So getting that mindset shift is critical to making this program work.
I'm gonna emphasize that this another big picture, critical. Related to virtue in business. Uh, I just taught today, as a matter of fact, at noon, talking about business ethics. How that's really the low bar.
Kelly Scanlon: Ethics is the low bar ethics.
David Geenens: Ethics is absolutely the low bar that as Christians and Catholics, we are called to a moral standard that is significantly higher.
And I say it as I say this in my book, that profit is, uh, no more the purpose of business. Then oxygen is the purpose of life. It's necessary. And the Catholic Church says that explicitly. Yeah, true. So if it's not profit and it's not, profit is a consequence of exchanging value for value. Really, really, really well.
It comes. So the question is, what do you do with the wealth that comes after creating value? Right? Cardinal Dolan said this, that the success of any economic system rests on the personal virtue of those practicing within it. And I agree with that because that's what creates the success of the academic system.
When you take that idea, it, it has all sorts of implications on how you should lead as a person based upon what you believe about other people. And we believe every person is created in the likeness and image of God, and so they're worthy of dignity. Justice giving to each person, his or her dues, simply because they're created in the likeness and image of God.
The other really distorted viewpoint that I think is very, very significant is that when people don't see justice in the economic sector, business is the largest institution in civil society. The second one is government. So when they don't see it. In business where it's where it belongs. That's what the Catholic church teaches.
That's where it's supposed to come. Just distribute rewards justly. Um, they turn to the second largest institution, which is a government. I would argue that the level of government intervention is inversely proportional to the level of virtue practiced in business. So if you don't like government intervention, uh, in, in today's world, then you gotta go back to the core problem.
It's us. Are we gonna practice our virtue in our faith in business, or are we not?
Kelly Scanlon: So what is next for Spark Tank? You're in Ferguson. Where do you plan to go after this? And, um, are there any new cities, any new initiatives you're excited about?
David Geenens: There's a whole bunch of cities watching us with a very keen eye, and Kansas City is next.
I mean, it's, uh,
Kelly Scanlon: that's logical. Sure. It's, it's very
David Geenens: logical. I, I won't, I wouldn't have to be on Zoom. I might actually be able to. To teach in person. We may be a year away, or we may start it this fall in Kansas City. There's a tidal wave of momentum building around the concepts that we're using at the spark tank and new venture philanthropy.
Uh, some earned media, as it were, which, you know, this is earned media, so thank you for the invitation. The doors are opening wide in multiple places, in multiple arenas, and so certainly Kansas City's on the docket. Uh. Jt, who is the executive director of Civil Righteousness in Ferguson, he's our main partner.
He's in the community, so we've worked through him. He's been planting seeds all over the United States in major metropolitan areas on justice. And Saturday when I was with. The group of entrepreneurs. I used this quote from Michael Novak in his book business as a Calling. He said, profit arrives as justice earned.
Isn't that an unbelievable perspective about justice? When you provide value to society, profits will come and that's justice earned. And so that's exactly how we've positioned our entrepreneurs and look forward to doing so in any city in the United States that would be interested, they can reach out to us.
Kelly Scanlon: It's that whole mindset of abundance, you know, not scarcity. David, thank you so much for coming and sharing what's going on with Spark Tank and with the Thompson Center. And thank you for stepping in and, and being a catalyst, making it happen.
David Geenens: It's my pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.
Joe Close: This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to David Geenens, director of the Thompson Center for Integrity and Finance and Economics at Benedictine College. For being our guest on this episode at Banking on KC, through his leadership of the Spark Tank Initiative, David is demonstrating how entrepreneurship rooted in faith and guided by justice can transform marginalized communities.
Spark Tank is equipping aspiring entrepreneurs with education, mentorship, and team support needed to build viable businesses by fostering dignity, economic justice, and opportunity. The program not only uplifts individuals but also strengthens entire communities. At Country Club Bank, we're especially proud of our connection to the Thompson Center, named for our founder Byron Thompson.
His legacy of integrity and his belief in using business as a force for good is alive and well with the work being done through Spark Tank and the Center's leadership.
Thanks for tuning in. This week we're banking on you, Kansas City. Country Club Bank, Member FDIC.