Investing to Combat Slavery & Restore Cities

by Wesley Lyons

We all sense the world is not the way it ought to be. 40 million people are enslaved, and 16% of the US is caught in poverty. We all agree our systems leave many people poor, oppressed, or captive. We want and hope for justice and better systems. We have faith for restoration—for something more, something better for our world. Our hope will never completely come to pass until Jesus returns to assume Kingship of this world, but until then, He announced His mission in His first sermon:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free. . . 

Luke 4:18 (NLT)

In his Kingdom Advisors 2021 presentation, Finny Kuruvilla called this quote the “Nazareth Manifesto,” the mission statement for Christian investing. At Eagle Venture Fund, we agree with Finny. This mission resonates deeply with our passion to fight for the hearts and lives of the oppressed and the impoverished. We fight for the poor who can’t break out of the cycles of living paycheck to paycheck. We fight for the single mom who feels trapped while she fights for her kids to have a better future. We fight for the little girl who will be trafficked if her family can’t find enough to eat. We also love to connect those we serve to a relationship with Jesus and communities that will help them grow, bringing the gospel in word as well as deed.

We fight for them through investing, but how is our investing different from the $1 trillion of impact investments already in the marketplace? First, we are a different kind of VC team—entrepreneurs first who invest deeply in our companies through Eagle Venture Lab, where we co-found ⅓ of our portfolio, Eagle University; where we pass on the lessons learned from 67 startups; and where we invest in the spiritual and emotional health of our founders through Eagle Leadership Development. We also bring big solutions to big problems through focusing our funds on causes, like Eagle Freedom Fund, and locations, like the Dallas City Fund.

1. Cause-Based Investing [Eagle Freedom Fund] Combatting Slavery and Human Trafficking: There are 40 million slaves in the world. Many of the most exploited populations are systematically oppressed, disadvantaged, and impoverished. Nonprofits and governments are valiantly serving, but they face systemic headwinds. We have been investing for three years in four startups that are combatting slavery (FRDM, Evidencity, World Wide Generation, and Techless). We have a pipeline of 10 opportunities to combat trafficking and slavery, and we plan to expand our exposure and leadership in this space. Our primary thesis is that the majority of the 40 million slaves are employed by first world economies that enable it to happen through a lack of transparency. For example, Apple does not vote “yes” to slavery in their board meeting to improve profit, but it’s unlikely that they know if the tungsten in their phones was mined by an adult paid a fair wage. Companies like FRDM, Evidencity, and WWG are all working to bring transparency to the marketplace. We’re also working with startups to address the demand side of human trafficking through pornography-free devices (Techless) and to incubate a distribution platform for companies that employ survivors.  

2. Place-Based Investing [Dallas City Fund] Building Flourishing Cities: Cities with huge concentrations of people are amazing and full of potential, but they’re also full of the painful realities of systemic poverty, oppression, human trafficking, and people caught in systems they can’t escape from. Rampant urbanization has produced some of the most pressing challenges and the greatest opportunities of our generation. Startups are uniquely positioned to shape flourishing cities. We’ve been investing in companies that are part of building flourishing cities for six years (VeroSkills, UpFrom, LivFul, Wise Medicine), and we are expanding and deepening our investment funds in specific cities, starting with the Dallas City Fund. We are investing with a city impact focus through a three-fold strategy. First, we’re investing in local, faith-driven, high-impact startups. We’re also investing in a “bring your startup to our city” strategy for high-impact startups that is proving successful. In addition, we’re engaging our venture building engine through Eagle Venture Lab and M5 Labs, which are proprietary business creation labs incubating and accelerating businesses in line with these missions.  

We are investing in our pipeline of impact businesses through our movement-birthing partners at Eagle Foundation (See Eli Mercer’s CEF 2022 white paper, “10,000 Voices”). The early results of Eli’s work show that the top issues that leaders in Dallas Fort Worth are talking about are (1) entrenched poverty, (2) racial and political division, and (3) lack of unity in the church. 

Our goals are to leverage the pools of shared passion around these issues to mobilize advantages for our companies and catalyze movements of people working together to solve entrenched poverty, racial divisions, and lack of unity in the church.

We Aspire to Deeper Impact

The impact investing industry often suffers from impact that is widespread and hard to measure. For example, a green energy fund investing in alternative energy with the goal of caring for creation is a worthy cause, but it's an impact that is widespread and difficult to measure.  

We are guilty of many investments with widespread and hard-to-measure impact—we’ll continue to invest in some companies that are investing in hard-to-measure impact like long-term culture building—but we are also striving to join a new cadre of impact investors that we call “Big Problems, Big Solutions” investors. We seek out entrepreneurs who are tackling the biggest problems in society—problems where the impact can be clearly measured—such as blighted communities with massive disparity from nearby zip codes or modern-day slavery. One of the best examples of “Big Problems Big Solutions” investing is Talanton in East Africa. David Simms once described their work as, “We help people move from $1 per day to $10 per day.” David’s description may be the clearest statement of impact that I’ve ever heard, and Talanton’s work investing in job-creating businesses in East Africa is an amazing example of “Big Problems Big Solutions” investing. We have set a goal to join Talanton, Ibex, Eventide, and many others who tackle big problems in partnership with investors and entrepreneurs.  

We Collaborate for Wider Impact

We invest in entire ecosystems in order to unleash the potential of groups of organizations on mission together. No single startup can end modern day slavery or raise up a blighted community, but a cohort of startups working in partnership with governments, non-profits, ministries, artists, and consumers has a great chance of success. This is why our funds are themed by location (like Dallas-Fort Worth) and causes (like Freedom from Modern Day Slavery), so that we can play a role in convening and investing in the entire ecosystem.  

We also believe that concentrating our efforts and our family of startups around causes and locations provide advantages to our companies because they are joining and building networks of passionate people on mission together. For example, our startups can benefit from the natural marketing that comes from a group of organizations all combatting human trafficking.  Finny Kuruvilla in his Kingdom Advisors 2021 Conference presentation contended, “The prime way to win social capital is to demonstrate a sacrificial commitment to serve in ways that are true, good, and beautiful.” Our companies sacrificially serve in ways that are true, good, and beautiful, and we help them leverage that beauty into marketing and growth through earned media. Serving sacrificially can be a competitive advantage when you build communities on mission together.  

We Aspire to Be Investors Who Demonstrate High Authority and High Vulnerability on Behalf of the Needy

Andy Crouch contended in Strong and Weak that true human flourishing is the combination of high authority and high vulnerability on behalf of the weak. To illustrate this idea, he paints a picture of watching an expert skier on an impossibly treacherous descent. We’re attracted to the scene because the huge vulnerability the skier is placing himself in is matched by the high authority of the skier’s skill. To take it a step further, we would be engrossed if that descent was on behalf of a stranded child whom only that skier could help. This picture has captured our imagination for what the calling of an investor is. We’ve been entrusted by God with authority in the forms of money to manage on His behalf, our experienced venture building team, and relationship with entrepreneurs with a passion to change the world. Like the skier, we propose to define success as investors as taking risk skillfully on behalf of the vulnerable, in ways that bring good news to the poor, release captives, give sight to the blind, and set the oppressed free. 

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.