News and Knowledge

Merriam Webster defines extraordinary as “going beyond what is usual, regular, or customary,” which aptly describes Extraordinary Ventures. Begun in 2007 by a group of parents in Chapel Hill, N.C., hoping to provide employment for their children on the autism spectrum, the organization started “doing fulfillment and renting out space for events, working with around 10 employees,” says Van Hatchell, the organization’s managing director.

Today, though, it is anything but typical. In 2010, it transformed itself into an entrepreneurial “flat” nonprofit that hires recent college graduates as managers to start businesses that employ people with developmental disabilities, hoping to jumpstart the organization into new ventures and provide increased energy for what it wanted to accomplish.

Currently, those businesses are the event center; a laundry service; an office services business that provides packaging, assembly, sorting, and related services to small and mid-sized businesses; a candle-making business; and a bus-cleaning group that cleans Chapel Hill buses. Aimee Sweet, a new manager, also recently started a pet walking and sitting service. Each manager oversees his or her business and manages a core function of the organization like marketing, human resources, or finances.

Like any other entrepreneurial venture, success is not always guaranteed. Take the laundry service, for example. When it first started, there were no paying customers, Hatchell says. Employees brought in their laundry so those working in the business would have something to do. Then it took off, going from 12 paying customers to 87 in one week. When asked if he could handle it, Hunter, an employee who had worked in the business for a year, said, “It’s a lot of work but I can tell it’s real people’s clothes.” He recognized that he was doing something of value finally and that made it worthwhile (and profitable, which is important as well).

Getting the Job Done

There are 43 employees with developmental disabilities ranging in age from 22 to 65, though most are in their 20s. Like any other business but unlike sheltered employment organizations, employees apply to get the job based on their skills and being able to perform the job functions correctly. Most of the people who work there work in two or more of the businesses and work either full- or part-time depending on their capabilities.

For parents who want to know how to prepare their children for work like that offered through Extraordinary Ventures, Hatchell says getting high school students involved in work, if possible, or activities that could provide work experience is important. “Push them into the experiences and then get out of the way and see what happens,” he advises.

Managers look for businesses at which employees with disabilities are likely to succeed. The pet walking and sitting service, for example, came about in part, Hatchell notes, because some employees volunteered at a local animal shelter so managers knew they were likely to have the interest and skills necessary for that business.

Some employees are hired through an online application process; others are referred by local high schools and supportive employment agencies. Employees get to know all of the businesses and try their skills at one or more. Some fail, Hatchell says, but failing is a key skill in an entrepreneurial organization. It’s what they do after they fail that matters. Extraordinary Ventures does not give up on them, finding other positions for them to try.

Failure is a key experience for everyone at Extraordinary Ventures and in the work world generally so it’s necessary for parents to allow their children to have those failures. “We have had a number of parents tell us their children would not be able to do the work but two weeks later those children are doing the job,” he says.

Stubborn Entrepreneurs

Like most of the employees they work with, Extraordinary Ventures’ managers are in their 20s.  In addition to Hatchell and Sweet, the current managers are Ryan Fulcher, Cyndi Whisnant, Paige Morrow, and Michael Betts. Most of the managers graduated from the University of North Carolina and all come with an entrepreneurial bent. Hatchell says they look for people who are “self-starters and doers and capable of working with a team.” One of their common traits is “stubbornness. They will get the job done or kill themselves trying,” he says with a smile.

What may surprise most people in the autism community is that only one manager has a background that includes working with people with disabilities. Hatchell believes that the fact that most of the managers do not have prior experience working with people with autism can work to everyone’s advantage because they don’t know what employees can’t do. “Strategic ignorance works for us,” he notes, saying that many of their employees surprise their supervisors and their parents with their accomplishments.

Managers first work in existing businesses to better understand how Extraordinary Ventures operates before launching their own ventures. When they are ready, they create a one-page business plan.  The organization then tests the product in a small way to see if it will work. “We are more sales oriented – finding out what is needed in our community and fulfilling that need – than research oriented,” says Hatchell. Morrow, the manager who created the office solutions business, sold three contracts before she even figured out how to do a mail merge in Word, he notes.

“One of the reasons we picked the businesses we have picked is that they could be done fairly easily without much investment. The dog walking service started a few days after the Aimee came up with the idea, and it is already profitable. Someone can start a laundry service like ours out of their house,” Hatchell says.

“We tell people who are interested in what we do to embrace trial and error and expect failure. Treat it like a business. Find something easy to do that is needed in your community, the low-hanging fruit, in other words.”

Bottom Line

While the majority of Extraordinary Ventures’ income is earned money, it does still receive donations and some grant money. “Those contributions enable us to employ some individuals who may not immediately be as efficient right away and provides a cushion for our new businesses.” The organization is likely to always need those contributions to operate, he says, unless it wants to cut its workforce and quit starting new businesses.

Extraordinary Ventures also manages a recreation program, offering social activities for people with developmental disabilities. Those activities include a monthly Friday night party, a summer basketball camp, art classes, and outdoor recreation.

Venturing Farther Afield

Beginning this year, Extraordinary Ventures is working with five groups around the country to replicate what it does, including the Doug Flutie, Jr., Foundation for Autism, Boston; the Foundation for Empowering Citizens with Autism, New York; Sweetwater Spectrum, California; Our Place of New Trier County, Chicago; and the Autism Alliance of Michigan/Oakland University, Michigan.

Success stories spill out of Hatchell, and few of them have to do with a financial bottom line. Some employees, he says, were so impacted by their disability they had forgotten how to tell time, but when they started working, they wanted to learned again so they would know when to go to work. One set of parents was told that their child was not capable of working. Today, he works 16 hours a week in the laundry business, folding clothes and picking up and delivering the laundry. Another was so shy he didn’t want to get ready for work in the morning. He came to work at Extraordinary Ventures and a year later, he spoke to an audience of 150 people at a conference about what he does.

That’s extraordinary. Defined.