Betsy Densmore, co-founder of Episcopal Enterprises, guest preaches at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church.
Betsy Densmore was guest homilist at Saint Michael’s on Giving Sunday, December 4, as they concluded the 2022 Stewardship Campaign. Betsy is co-founder of Episcopal Enterprises which helps churches like Saint Michael’s find ways to fund powerful visions for ministry beyond what churches can collect in pledges and tithes.
She is a current board member of Innovative Housing Opportunities and The Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Betsy founded the Academies for Social Entrepreneurship, an educational organization dedicated to linking the passion of social purpose with sustainable business practices. As ASE’s Director, she has worked with over three hundred not-for-profit organizations, catalyzing tens of millions of dollars in new revenue for innovative charitable ventures. Densmore is an entrepreneur herself, having founded three hospitality businesses, an insurance agency, and two nonprofit organizations. In her spare time, she co-owns and manages two Great Mex Grill restaurants in Costa Mesa.
“My career as a social entrepreneur started in college. Some friends and I founded the Center for Conflict Resolution in Madison Wisconsin. We were young, anti-war activists with passion and purpose but no money to pay our office expenses. As a start-up, grants were impossible to come by and funding for student groups was also very limited. So, we looked around for a reliable revenue stream, that served the common good without harming anyone. The result was that we acquired a paper route, which had over 500 subscribers. Two of us would get up every morning at 5 am to take care of it before going off to work or school. That route paid our monthly expenses for several years, freeing us to focus on creating peace education programs.”-Betsy Densmore
“Some of you remember the Rev. Canon Jaime Edwards Acton who worked at this Parish before becoming the Rector of St. Stephens in Hollywood. We became colleagues when he participated in one of my organization’s Social Enterprise Academies on the UCLA campus. The Academy program has served hundreds of charitable organizations as an “Incubator” for discerning viable social enterprises. In St. Stephens case, “Plate and pledge” was only generating $35,000 a year, a far cry from what was needed to pay staff, maintain property, and fund programs. How could they leverage their assets to address community needs and bring in more revenue?”-Betsy Densmore
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