‘Slingshot’ takes aim at chronic poverty

Donald Jenkins didn’t want to be lifted out of poverty. He didn’t even want anyone to give him a ladder.

He just needed someone who believed in him enough to give him some wood and let him borrow a hammer and saw.

“I can do the work,” he said Friday morning at his job in South Memphis. “I just needed a positive environment and the tools to get off the street.”

Jenkins, 49, is a former homeless addict. He spent years living off his own wiles and the charity of others, including folks who ran a homeless shelter in Clayborn Temple.

Now he’s a warehouse supervisor, owner-operator of Jenkins Lawn Service, and one of the more successful graduates of Advance Memphis.

Advance Memphis is a nonprofit founded in 1999 to fight chronic generational poverty in the city’s most impoverished ZIP Code, 38126.

It’s exactly the sort of “a hand up, not a handout” organization Justin Miller is looking to support.

Miller, a former bond salesman, left his comfortable life in a Florida beach community “to disrupt chronic poverty” here in his hometown.

Last week, he launched Slingshot Memphis, a philanthropic venture that takes aim at chronic poverty by presenting it as an investment opportunity.

Not as a way to make money, but as a way for charitable contributions to make the most social impact.

“We’re going to try and give money in the most strategic and expeditious ways possible,” Miller told during a Talk, Memphis podcast.

Miller, 39, obviously wasn’t your typical institutional investment broker.

Before he started buying and selling bonds, he went to seminary. Then he worked as a teacher, coach and chap-

lain here at St. George’s Independent School.

Then he moved into the private sector, helping big investors make money. His success allowed him to move his family to a beach community in Florida.

“We loved it,” Miller said. “Business was great. Our life was great. We lived in a beautiful, amazing little bubble.”

Miller and his wife, Jena, decided to burst the bubble in 2015. They wanted to help others, not just themselves.

“We asked ourselves, ‘Where can we make the most impact?’” he said.

They chose Memphis, their “beautifully broken” hometown, one of the most generous and impoverished big cities in the country.

Miller wants to use his investment skills to direct charitable contributions, large and small, to the most effective poverty-reducing organizations.

He plans to do that by helping those organizations grow and become more effective by managing and measuring their results.

Some call is “venture philanthropy.”

Slingshot is modeled after the Robin Hood Foundation, founded by Paul Tudor Jones, a billionaire hedge fund manager and native Memphian.

Robin Hood has invested more than $2 billion in hundreds of poverty-reducing nonprofits in New York City. Its sole focus is how much a program increases future earning and income.

“Robin Hood has a portfolio that, in aggregate, provides investors a return of 11:1,” Miller explained.

“For every $1 somebody gives Robin Hood, they have an $11 impact as it pertains to fighting poverty. Our return on investment is about short-and long-term social impact.”

Miller is also influenced by the work of Bob Lupton, an urban minister in Atlanta and author of “Toxic Charity.”

“Giving to people in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy them,” Lupton wrote.

“The fact is, we cannot serve others out of poverty.”

Lupton believes the best program for ending generational cycle of poverty is a full-time job with benefits.

That’s what Miller sees in Advance Memphis, which became one of the first four local nonprofits added to Slingshot’s investment portfolio.

Others are Communities in Schools, a dropout prevention program; LeBonheur’s Nurse-Family Partnership; and the Salvation Army’s Purdue Center of Hope.

“I trust Slingshot is going to improve our systems and give us healthy data to inform our decisions and programming,” said Steve Nash, executive director of Advance Memphis.

Advance Memphis offers a series of classes and support services that help unemployed and underemployed adults find and keep jobs, manage their money, and launch or improve their own businesses.

There’s often a waiting list for the firstcome, first-served program slots. Jenkins camped outside the Advance Memphis office in 2010 just to ensure his place in line.

“I was ready to get off the streets,” said Jenkins, who grew up in a South Memphis neighborhood with 70 percent unemployment.

Advance’s staffing program connected Jenkins with temporary employment that became a full-time job with benefits.

That job led to his current full-time job as Advance’s warehouse supervisor. He works there with Ronald Proctor, warehouse manager, helping other men find wood and tools.