IBAM is always looking for strong alliance partners. These could be churches, but more often they are missionary organizations that specialize in planting churches and making disciples. The best alliance partners have a focus on a small number of nations, or even just a region within a nation. This way, they have deep understanding and knowledge of the culture and language, and have already established working relationships with key people from those communities.

We’re looking for partners who:

As the Alliance Partnership is forming, a survey trip is conducted. A team goes in to an area that may or may not have an existing church, and assesses the potential for business startups that will be run by locals to accelerate disciple making activity.

For example, there may be a small house church in an area that the Alliance Partner either knows about or helped start. They know the leaders. Those leaders share the opportunity with members of their community – that they can get trained to start a business.

They are looking for people with three qualities. To access our training, aspiring business owners must:

Aspiring business owners in the program spend ten hours a day for about a week learning what the Bible says about work and money, as well as receiving practical equipping related to starting a business. They conclude by gaining insights in how to integrate disciple-making practices into their business routines.

We want all our business owners to have a strong foundation in what we call a Kingdom Business Plan. This is a business with a higher purpose than just making money. We want businesses that become fixtures in the community and also help spread the gospel.

But we also want businesses that succeed. Aspiring business owners are taught common reasons why businesses fail and why they succeed, and how to identify an idea and plan it out so it has a high chance of succeeding.

Over the past five years, IBAM has helped launch 32 businesses in multiple nations, and 91% of those businesses are still going – a testament to the effectiveness of our process.

In Phase 2, IBAM and alliance partner trainers help aspiring business owners determine the viability of their business plan, and work with them to strengthen it to the point where they will be able to launch.

Trainers help them figure out where their business idea fits in the market, what products and services they will offer, who their target customers are, and what it takes to start a business – including a budget.

For business startups that complete Phase 2, the alliance partner gives them funds to help launch their business. The goal is for the money to be paid back to a local fund once the business succeeds so it can be reinvested in another business startup, thus repeating the cycle.

The business owner launches the business with the help of their coach who will either be trained by IBAM or the alliance partner.

The coach will work with them about once a month for a 2-3 year period, helping them navigate those critical early years of business ownership. No one should undertake a venture this great all by themselves – especially in countries with high levels of poverty or corruption.

As the business generates profits, it will be able to pay forward the equivalent of the granted startup funds so the same money can be given to the next aspiring business owner entering Phase 1, and the cycle repeats.

As a successful business, the owner will now have the respect of others in the community, and this position will give them influence into many people’s lives that a typical missionary would never be able to reach.

The owner will be making business transactions with other businesses. They will be hiring people and providing good wages. They will operate their business with integrity and honesty, which will quickly give them a powerful witness for what God has done in their life.