ABHMS Co-Creators Incubator Names Cycle 3 Cohort
VALLEY FORGE, PA (11/3/22)—American Baptist Home Mission Societies’ (ABHMS) Co-Creators Incubator has selected nine missional entrepreneurs from 22 applicants for its Cycle 3 cohort. The group will be together for the duration of 2023, beginning with a kickoff summit at ABHMS’ Leadership and Mission Building in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, from January 11-13, 2023.
The Co-Creators Incubator is a one-year integrative program that helps grow Christ-propelled ideas into viable ventures. The Incubator fosters a spirit of collegiality and collaboration amongst a cohort of co-creators, while providing them with resources to enhance and grow their ministries, including a seed grant and access to mentors, business and entrepreneurial experts. In pursuit of partnership and sustainability, the Co-Creators Incubator engages both the missional entrepreneurs as well as creative partners who may invest in the work of co-creators via financial or other means.
Members of the Co-Creators Incubator Cycle 3 cohort are:
Carmelle Beaugelin, Kendall Park, New Jersey
Beaugelin hopes to expand her business, BeauFolio Studio, beyond creative workshops and consulting and toward physical art studio and gallery spaces for sacred and communal fine art.
Azia Gambrell, Kansas City, Kansas
Gambrell created Art in the City KC to encourage community gathering in Kansas City through wonderful live art and other artforms.
David Moutz, Charleston, West Virginia
Moutz would like to become a mission-minded CrossFit affiliate with the goal of reaching the underserved, underprivileged, and those apprehensive or unfamiliar with a wellness-oriented lifestyle.
Bridget Querns, Rochester, New York
Querns has tentatively titled her venture “Coaching Communities.” It will explore and illuminate individuals’ unique spiritual paths with the goal of activating their potential to inspire flourishing movements of faith.
Joshua Richardson, St. Louis, Missouri
Richardson has been building a nonprofit organization that can help individual congregations take concrete and actionable steps to alleviate the suffering caused by climate change in their communities.
Paul Schneider, Bonney Lake, Washington
Schneider founded of The Oasis Project, an interfaith ministry of presence, creating safer, low sensory spaces called Oasis Rooms at conventions for people to recharge, relax, and be restored, and to seek spiritual care if needed.
Jennifer Stewart, Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania
Stewart has a vision for an organization that supports entrepreneurial business efforts of Black and Brown youth and young adults in low-income environments.
Benjamin Wakefield, Indianapolis, Indiana
Wakefield wants to build a youth-led Podcast through which youth ages 13-18 will generate ideas and issues that are important to them, discuss these topics, and produce them into a podcast that can also be video recorded for YouTube.
Torie Zeiner, Seattle, Washington
Zeiner seeks to create an organization through which people have access to spiritual care/spiritual wellbeing through their workplace.
Mentors for the cohort include former Co-Creator Tony Gapastione, founder and executive director of BraveMaker, a non-profit film arts organization; Molly Grisham, an experienced workshop facilitator and executive coach; and Darren Greenfield, chief operating officer of the Urban League of Philadelphia and founder of Invert Strategies, which advises on organizational strategy, operations management, brand strategy, and strategic planning.
American Baptist Home Mission Societies partners with American Baptists to promote Christian faith, cultivate Christ-centered leaders and disciples, and bring healing and transformation to communities across the United States and Puerto Rico.
American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with approximately 5,000 congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.
