Enterprise Building Challenge Stories

CJ Stewart grew up in one of Atlanta’s most dangerous apartment complexes, Hollywood Brooks, located on Hollywood Road. His story is a perfect example of the phrase, "where you start doesn’t determine where you finish." He used baseball to overcome statistics and become a compassionate, engaged member of society.

Through the help of community supporters, he was able to take his love for the game from John A. White Park all the way to Wrigley Field when the Chicago Cubs drafted him.

Now CJ Stewart and his wife Kelli are doing the same for inner city youth in Atlanta through their non-profit organization, L.E.A.D. (Launch, Expose, Advise, Direct). L.E.A.D.’s mission is to empower an at-risk generation to become Ambassadors and leaders to transform their city.

CJ Stewart provides a way for deserving inner-city youth to transform communities through baseball. For young men who complete L.E.A.D.’s Ambassador program, 100% have graduated from high school, 93% have enrolled into college, 90% have received college scholarship opportunities and 14% have entered the military or workforce.

CJ Stewart’s way of saying "Thank you!" to those who helped him stay on the right path is to pay his blessing forward and create empowering opportunities for Atlanta youth today and into the future.

“This is life-saving work,” CJ Stewart says.

In the Atlanta metro area, the median household income of a Black family is $28,105. For a white family it is $83,722.

In the first half of 2021, just 1.2% of total US venture dollars went to Black entrepreneurs.

The chances of a Black youth in Atlanta escaping poverty in their lifetime is a measly 4 percent.

In the most recent statistics provided by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, more than 23,000 kids were arrested in the state during 2020 and it wasn't just for small offenses. More than 4,000 teenagers were arrested for assault in 2018 and 52 were arrested for murder. A higher percentage of Black youth are arrested for juvenile crime. Black youth are over-policed, to be sure, but CJ Stewart also does not sugar-coat there is an issue with juvenile delinquency in the Black community.

The over-riding challenge is funding for these micro non-profits, like L.E.A.D., who are compelled to fix this problem.

“The thing about any business, and especially a nonprofit, is that you can't have fun without funding, if you don't have the money, you're not going to be sustainable,” CJ Stewart said. “And part of the dilemma that we find ourselves in every year as an organization is that we're constantly going out trying to get people to make donations and doing fundraising. We need a next level process for making that happen."

L.E.A.D. is a proven non-profit business model for helping at-risk youth. What they do works. They no longer have to prove it works. Now comes the next step, which is to increase the number of kids to help in the Atlanta area.

That next step is BBATL, or Breaking Barriers Atlanta.

CJ Stewart’s vision for BBATL is a fund-raising mechanism for L.E.A.D. that teaches the game of baseball, but also enhances leadership skills for Black youth, along with a diversity component for white kids. The Black coaches, who are teenagers, can also earn money while continuing their journey of learning through L.E.A.D.

To address this next step of the Bs—a Baseball Bridge from Bankhead to Buckhead—we have to first look at the 3Cs, which is a process for entrepreneurial success created by business-builder Pat Alacqua.

In creating the non-profit BBATL strategy for L.E.A.D., CJ Stewart reached out to Pat Alacqua for help to make his vision a reality by using Pat and his 3Cs process as a guide.

The 3Cs is a disciplined thinking process for taking action. Customizable for tackling any big challenge when growing a business, the 3Cs synthesizes strategy and tactics for CLARITY of the challenge, CHARTING the course for reaching desired outcomes and COALIGNING stakeholders for sustainable and successful implementation. The 3Cs are the guardrails for focused action.

Alacqua, who has been a mentor, business coach and advisor to CJ Stewart for more than 10 years, talks frequently about “laser-focus” and how to use this focus to take on a business challenge.

CHART the Course

“I want to do baseball programming with Black boys and white children.”

CJ Stewart, co-founder L.E.A.D. Center for Youth

CJ Stewart has been involved in baseball as a coach and mentor for decades in the Atlanta area. He has built relationships with local community leagues and with the top-shelf “travel baseball” programs, who draw the elite young talent. This is the foundation he works from, which is knowing the entirety of the baseball landscape in one of the most fertile areas of the game in the U.S.

BBATL (Breaking Barriers Atlanta) is the fund-raising mechanism, the process for sustaining L.E.A.D. Center for Youth. BBATL will leverage the relationships CJ Stewart has built in the eco-system of baseball in the Atlanta metro area and then build even more relationships.

BBATL will give corporate sponsors a platform to connect their brand to an active involvement in L.E.A.D. civic programming, which will help at-risk kids bust down barriers.

The programming for BBATL will include using trained teenage Black coaches to teach the game and its fundamentals to the children of predominantly white stakeholders, or to the children of corporate partners. The aim is to not only teach the game, but to expose these more affluent children to what Black kids deal with on a daily basis, which CJ Stewart calls the “curveballs of crime, poverty, and racism.”

L.E.A.D. has four pillars it stands on and those are athletics, which is baseball, academics, commerce, and civic engagement.

The commerce is a necessary component to meet the needs of the community and the L.E.A.D. mission.

The target customer for BBATL baseball programming is children 5 to 14.

Buckhead Baseball has players from age 5 to 12 and plays in a spring and fall league, as well as tournament teams that play through the summer. The size of the league is approximately 1,300 children.

The Northside Youth Organization (NYO) has 1,500 kids ages 4 to 14 playing in its league.

There are many other children from around the metro Atlanta area who are traveling “north” to high-level academies like East Cobb Baseball or 6-4-3 who could be drawn in to the BBATL programming.

It starts with CJ Stewart training his “ambassadors” or his coaches on the fundamentals and intricacies of a challenging game. In this regard, he has a track record. The Gold Glove outfielder Jason Heyward, among others who are playing professional baseball, learned from CJ Stewart’s coaching expertise.

These certified Ambassador coaches will deliver eight baseball “programs” through BBATL covering all aspects the game; pitching, defense, hitting, baserunning. Everything starts with a FREE online assessment of a player’s skills. Then a 90-day development plan is created that guides the family.

Group programs are scheduled and marketed through L.E.A.D. community outreach channels. These programs provide a “channel” to connect with potential fundraising prospects in larger numbers, or a pool of contacts. Individual programming can begin to develop deeper relationships with the families.

This is not charity. CJ Stewart has created a skills lab for pitching and hitting that is valuable. Inside that lab he emphasizes parts of the swing, or parts of the pitching motion and mechanics. It is a professional approach that requires player commitment to practicing in a “repetitive format” to improve hitting or pitching performance.

It is not baby-sitting. This programming also includes putting some pressure on young players to build their skills. The 3K Swing Club Program will teach the youngster how to practice. The “Skill Build” Program prepares them to perform.

This is how you chart a course to a successful business venture: you demonstrate the value.

And all along the value-add pipeline in BBATL, you keep adding value with more offerings.

There will be a Fundamentals Baseball Camp, Leadership and Baseball Super Skills Camp, and Baseball Clinics that will take a deeper dive into specific areas of the game, like base running and fielding for infield, outfield, and catcher.

The key to ongoing baseball program development is L.E.A.D.’s fundraising goals. It has to be an orderly build for going as fast, or as slow, as needed to meet those goals, and so risk of implementation is minimized while enabling infrastructure/process to be built/scaled in an orderly sequence.

Then there is an off-field component that may be just as alluring to customers, whether they are charitable giving individuals or corporations.

BBATL baseball programming is designed as an initial point of access to attract charitable giving families who have the potential to support the L.E.A.D. mission, CJ Stewart said.

“It will be giving white children an opportunity to connect with teenage African-American boys who are coming from poverty-strict communities,” CJ Stewart said. “Those boys, our leading ambassadors, will teach white children the core values that guide the life of the Ambassador.”

Corporate Sponsorship Packages are a key driver for the success of the BBATL strategy. These offerings are being developed from feedback provided by the metro-Atlanta business community. 

The focus of BBATL fundraising is to identify potential sponsors and charitable giving families. We leverage interest in our baseball programming to sell L.E.A.D. Sponsorship Offerings and increase Donor Contributions.

What is key here is the different way white children will learn the game of baseball and, at the same time, be exposed to a different teaching methodology than what they have previously been exposed to.

CJ Stewart is convinced his robust, energetic programming will provide parents “a sense of newness and amazement” in the L.E.A.D. Ambassadors and how they go about doing things. There will be a curiosity about what L.E.A.D. is that continues to build.

The next step is to then schedule a tour of the L.E.A.D Center for Youth. Fundraising sales increase significantly when families and any corporate decisionmakers they are connected with come onsite for a tour.

Visiting the L.E.A.D. Center for Youth is an experience for baseball, personal growth and diversity learning. Once a family shows this interest through initial relationship development during participation in BBATL’s baseball program, the L.E.A.D, Community Development Staff begins to share the possibilities for supporting the L.E.A.D mission for changing lives.

How L.E.A.D. COALIGNS with Stakeholders

CJ Stewart insists baseball can be one of the many remedies that eases poverty and replaces crime in Bankhead and other under-served areas of Atlanta.

There is no better time in Atlanta to use baseball as a door knocker to companies who want to help a community. The Braves were World Series champions in 2021 and have six straight National League East division titles. The city is soaked in baseball. The Atlanta Braves are also very supportive of CJ Stewart and the L.E.A.D mission.

L.E.A.D. is threaded together by four pillars: academics, commerce, civic engagement…

…and baseball.

“To be able to serve 250 boys annually and continue to grow that number, we need to position ourselves as a partner with Atlanta-based companies and global brands,” CJ Stewart said. “And we can get more financial support if these companies see value in us and not just look at us as a charitable donation.”

It is value-messaging, at its heart.

“You're giving these companies an opportunity to literally save someone's life and give them an opportunity for a better life,” CJ Stewart said. “That's a pretty powerful pitch and a selling point to a potential partner. You have a chance to have an impact locally with a proven commodity in L.E.A.D.”

BBATL programming connects potential sponsors to L.E.A.D. for exploring sponsorship opportunities from big business or private foundations interested in the mission of closing the racial divide.

CJ Steward understands BBATL has got to be created in such a professional way that its partners see a deeper meaning. There has to be a bond and a joint commitment to fix these issues of crime, poverty, and racism in the Black community that impacts so many Black kids.

“Our message to them is ‘We want your brand to be a part of this brand, not just, here's a check for $5,000’,” CJ Stewart said. “You're also understanding that company's mission and vision so there's some co-alignment.”

There has to be a strategy to the COALIGNING of L.E.A.D.’s Breaking Barriers Atlanta (BBATL) with corporate support. It is not arriving on somebody’s doorstep with hat in hand. There has to be purpose and shared goals. You have to understand the culture of the company you want to COALIGN with.

It motivates more thoughtful viewpoints while enhancing collaboration and alignment. CJ Stewart needs to close the knowledge gap between L.E.A.D. and the companies and individuals it wants to partner with. 

“You have to understand who you're targeting. So there has to be a deep dive into that,” CJ Stewart said.

“It's just not cold calling; you're just not picking up the phone, calling people, asking them for money. That doesn't fit into what you want to do.

“I just don't want your $200. I want you to put your name to it.”

That company BBATL will ask to join the endeavor needs to have an awareness that "Hey, these L.E.A.D. people are different. They have vision’. Somebody at the corporate level has to buy in.”

CJ Stewart is clear about the goals of COALIGNING his brand with a bigger brand.

“We want to do something different than other nonprofits,” he said. “We have an earned revenue component, especially with commerce being one of our pillars. Our value-add programs are revenue streams to support L.E.A.D.’s mission.

L.E.A.D. is making it a priority to train Black youth to be leaders. Many businesses have leadership programs where they nurture their next generation of workers. L.E.A.D. can partner with a company that has a strong professional development component and those decision-making skills can benefit Black youth.

What better way to COALIGN? What better way to take a partnership between L.E.A.D. and a company beyond the donated cash?

“What we're telling the company is you invest in us so that we can use the sport of baseball to develop our voice,” CJ Stewart said. “And over a period of time, you'll be able to have one of our Ambassadors working at your company in a space where you don't have anybody.”

Here is the other opportunity to COALIGN:

Closing the gap of understanding between white and Black by collaborating with a company.

Socially conscious corporations are always asking, “Who can we help?”

L.E.A.D. is now asking, “Who can we help?” in terms of teaching diversity. If a company is willing to hear that message from Black teenagers, the baseball ambassadors, it gives the company a license to operate.

Non-profits routinely under-estimate their value to a business. L.E.A.D, through CJ Stewart, will never be afraid to reach out and build alliances and trumpet its cause.

“It’s rooted in self-confidence,” he said. “It takes a different person to make these connections and tell our story. You have to be bold.”