With Catherine Hoke (Rohr)
“What would it be like if you were known for the worst thing you’ve ever done?” asked Defy Ventures founder Catherine Hoke as she started the workshop. In this session, Catherine explained how
Defy Ventures provides carefully selected, ambitious men and women who have criminal histories with life-changing entrepreneurship, leadership, and career opportunities. Its mission is to transform the lives of business leaders and people with criminal histories through their collaboration along the entrepreneurial journey.
Attendees were asked to explore questions around scaling nationally by examining models currently used by other organizations and adapting them for Defy. The group felt that Catherine’s involvement in Defy was crucial and needed to remain a priority. It was also suggested that Defy Ventures create local “chapters” in expansion cities with headquarters in New York. Certain attendees thought that a franchise model may not be suitable for Defy, given the strong ties needed for the mission and the difficulty of standardizing processes and activities.
One breakout group tackled the issue of whether they should create a for-profit/hybrid structure to improve their current business model. Ideas varied from partnering with Macy’s to create fashion lines with graffiti lining for a percentage of proceeds, to ideas around creating a structure that drew from organizations such as Accion, Endeavor and Acumen. Attendees also suggested developing an online course for prisons as an opportunity to increase revenues as well as help identify key individuals for the full-scale program. For information on how to get involved, please click
here to see the upcoming events and to sign up for: Taste of Defy, Mocktail Day, and Sales Expo events.
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