(If you’re a Guild member, I kindly ask you to watch back this town hall meeting. It’s an hour, but it’s critical to understand WHY we are here — why Catholic Founders exists at all. We share that plus updates about the Guild).
On May 1st, 2024 (the feast of St. Joseph the Worker), Catholic Founders launched with a simple question: What would Jesus do if He were a CEO? We started with 6 friends and have grown to roughly 270 members.
Here is where we are, why we exist, and where we’re going.
Our 3 Pillars & Ultimate Objective
Some people have asked us what really is Catholic Founders. It can feel hard to explain because we are doing a lot of things, but after praying and thinking about it, we’ve narrowed it down so you can understand.
We have three key pillars in how we serve Catholic entrepreneurs. Those three pillars serve to hold up the roof of our key goals as an organization: To Transform Culture and Make it Catholic (starting with America).
The easiest way to remember our framework is with the acronym SECT: Start, Educate, Convene, Transform.
1. Start (and Grow)
Beginners Welcome: There are many peer networks for people who have already made it — we are for those too, but we are also open to beginners.
Embrace Holy Ambition: Desire to build comes from God. Don’t be pusillanimous (small minded). If God is calling you, take the leap.
Preferred Economy: Buy from each other first. Nationally, and locally when you can.
Peer Investment: Invest in each other to grow, support each other, and without relying on predatory capital.
HOW: This objective is served by the mentorship one can get from others in the WhatsApp community, and in part by the tips and advice we share. In the future, we will have a proper curriculum for beginners.
2. Educate
Theology of Entrepreneurship: Through discovering the stories of people who have actually lived out their faith in their businesses, we can learn from them, formalize the frameworks, and share them with you. When we learn together and share, we can skip decades of struggle and help others start on the right foot from day one.
Tangible Action: It’s our goal to offer practical advice on how to integrate your faith into your business. Encyclicals are great, but not everyone can translate those into their business.
HOW: This is done through the weekly podcast, newsletter, group chat, local events, and online guild calls. It’s not just us educating you, it’s us educating each other as we grapple with these challenges.
3. Convene (to Create Unity)
Protection Against Temptation: In isolation, the devil can control us through fear. True friends can tap us on the shoulder if we’re headed in the wrong direction. With great financial success comes great temptation. It’s critical to have true friends whose key objective is heaven to hold each other accountable.
Your Tribe of Likeminded Builders: Sometimes we feel judged by fellow Catholics for ‘being too ambitious’ or being ‘greedy’ because we think and talk about building our businesses. If we can’t find community with our fellow Catholics, we’ll often end up finding it with secular entrepreneurs. Those people don’t have heaven as their ultimate goal. And as we all know, we become like the 5 people we spend the most time with.
Heaven on Earth: Entrepreneurs are stewards of God’s gifts. True community (communion) brings a foretaste of heaven to earth. We are unified to God through the Eucharist, and to each other.
Local Safety Nets: With a strong network of Catholic builders, we can take bigger swings because we know someone has our back. In tough seasons of business, they have our back.
HOW: This is primarily served through our local communities. The online community is helpful, but true friendship comes from spending time, in person, 1:1.
The Culminating Objective: Transform the Culture
Once you have a business — and likely some disposable income — you start to gain prestige.
If you know WHY you were given the gift of entrepreneurship through understanding the Theology of entrepreneurship — you now know how you’re called to put those gifts to use.
Finally, if you have your tribe of people who are also in pursuit of heaven, who are also builders — you have community to do things with. And you’re all in pursuit of the same goal.
You’re all called to get to heaven. For you, that path is via a life of multiplying the talents God gave you for the benefit of his kingdom.
Now that you have these things, prestige, knowledge, and communion — you can go out and transform the culture. You can make America Catholic by:
Funding beautiful art and public statements of faith (e.g., Sacred Heart billboards, Rosary processions).
Hosting wholesome cultural events (ballroom dancing, orchestras, potlucks).
Standing up against anti-family policies and make religious holidays central to business culture.
Paying a family wage and live in close-knit proximity to one another.
And many many other ways.
In addition to sharing WHY we exist, in this call we also shared some key changes for the guild.
Key Changes & Next Steps for the Guild
3 Core Commitments: Going forward we ask every member to:
Pray for the Guild daily (at least a Hail Mary. Ideally a decade of the Rosary).
Be helpful (mentoring, switching to Catholic suppliers).
Help us grow (connect Catholic founders to Oscar).
Monthly Office Hours: We’re rolling out several recurring office hours with experts across various fields. AI, sales, marketing, paid ads, hiring, etc.
Cohort Onboarding: Group onboarding calls every 1–2 weeks so new members join alongside a peer cohort (will help save Oscar from onboarding every person 1:1).
Introducing the Steward Tier for $500/yr: When you support us with this tier, you can request to be added to a curated mastermind of peers in a similar stage and type of business. This will be a group of 5-8 other founders who meet bi-weekly or monthly (upgrade here). This will help us pay Oscar a proper wage and allow us to grow the project further.
Upgraded Directory: We’re moving away from our fancy spreadsheet to a real directory (coming soon).
WhatsApp Structure: Please stick to designated channels to keep discussion organized.
Announcing Our Official Patrons:
Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth
St. Homobonus (Patron of Entrepreneurs) — Novena runs Nov 4–12.
I saved the best for last. We officially have two primary patrons for the Guild:
Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth. We exist to transform culture, and that title of hers has stuck with me. I can’t get it out of my head.
St. Homobonus, patron of entrepreneurs. We kind of need him. His name literally means “good man.” We don’t know much about his life, and I think that’s the point. Like St. Joseph, he wasn’t glamorous. He was a good man who did good things, and all of us can imitate that.
Pray with us: the Novena to St. Homobonus starts Wednesday, November 4, and ends November 12, the eve of his feast on November 13. Join us in praying for the whole Guild.
Let’s keep building God’s kingdom side by side.
Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth, pray for us.
St. Homobonus, pray for us.
Silas
The topic call is a recurring monthly event where we discuss relevant topics about running the business.
To join future events, become a member of the Catholic Founders Guild today.
End of the Road for Free Subscribers
Alright, the rest of this session is exclusively for CF Guild members. If you’d like to join future calls, consider upgrading to a paid membership today.
The Catholic Founders Guild is an association of Catholic Biz owners who believe that their business is meant to be an extension of God’s will in the world.
If you share this belief, join today! (PS: It’s only $100 a year or $10 a month, so anyone can afford to join)
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