Most businesses in Kenya are very small, usually one person or a small family. They typically have a service they provide but typically it is within a small area and provides minimal support. Businesses in Kenya typically operate without any guidance or training. They simply do what they’ve seen from others in their community or from their relatives. Examples of the businesses you typically see are:

• Laundry service

• Packaging/selling clean water

• Furniture making

• Soap making

• Chicken farm/Goat farm

• Small restaurant

• Mobile phone cards

• Barber shop

• Taxi service-car or motorcycle

• Tailoring shop-Sewing

• Vegetable farm

• Cleaning service

• Security service

• Solar power

Having conducted two business conferences, one in Nairobi and one in northern, more rural Kenya, it became quickly apparent that small business owners in third world countries need help in order to lift themselves out of poverty while simultaneously impacting their communities for Christ. From initial interviews and questionnaires, it is apparent that 95% of small business owners need two things: knowledge and money. Most business owners have never been educated in any formal way in how to run a business correctly. For them, they follow the lead of someone else who ran a business, whereby, most of the time, it was run badly and inefficiently. Therefore, doing a strategic business plan, operating off a budget, doing profit-loss statements, saving for equipment or new supplies as well as marketing, are virtually never done. Giving basic business education is huge for the vast majority of business owners.

Besides education, they have little to no money to run their businesses. For some, a small investment of $1000-$5000 could launch their small business into a place of sustained profitability. For instance, a chicken farm that has 10 hens, 1 rooster, and all cages and fencing can be purchased and set up for $500. Two such farms could create a sustainable income. They also have no concept of their business being God’s business and using their business for God’s purposes to reach people extending their profits into places of need in their own country. Beyond this, they almost all live under a spirit of poverty. They expect to be poor and expect to live without enough to make ends meet. They assume they will never make enough to be fully provided for. And, those who do make lots of money quickly become corrupt and become a part of the greater problem of corruption in the nation simply because they are not spiritually discipled in business and money management from a biblical perspective.

The Kenya Business Empowerment Project will address all of these challenges. As funds become available, vetted businesses will receive grants for the purpose of being mentored in business from a professional and Christian perspective. A business curriculum will be used that integrates both biblical principles and business practices so business leaders can learn how to do business from God’s point of view. That curriculum is entitled “God’s Business Plan for Business Leaders”.