Bill High

CEO | The Signatry

After graduating with a degree in law from the University of Kansas and building a successful career as a lawyer, in 1999 Bill High left the law firm to embark on a new adventure—becoming CEO of The Signatry. Since then, The Signatry has sent out nearly $3 billion in grants. Bill High has also branched out in numerous business ventures to further the causes of generosity and family legacy. He founded iDonate, the country’s first giving software to handle cash and noncash gifts in a single platform; and Family Arc, an online private family archive service.

Bill High is a forward-thinking entrepreneur with over fifteen years’ experience running a nonprofit. Having lost his own father at age 12, Bill deeply understands the need for strong families and lasting legacies. Today his mission is to empower families in building legacies of generosity. He specializes in coaching families, individuals, and financial advisers regarding biblical generosity and family legacy.

Bill and his wife Brooke have been married over 30 years. As the proud parents of four children and grandparents of two grandchildren, they love building their own family legacy.

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Friends Don't Let Friends Sell Businesses

Friends Don’t Let Friends Sell Businesses

“We are heading into the season where many business sales are going to wrap up and close before year-end.  Typically, there are lots of good reasons to close a deal before year-end.” But there’s much more to it.

In this post, Bill High reminds leaders of the pros and cons of a business sale. He highlights a great opportunity during this process “If an owner donates some of his or her ownership interest prior to the sale, they can deduct the fair market value of the shares donated. Taxes go down. Giving goes up.” The key is in planning ahead!


Can Money Buy Happiness?

Can Money Buy Happiness?

Money is something that every entrepreneur will struggle with. We know that God tells us that we can’t worship both Him and Mammon. In addition to the eternal truth that we see in the Bible, there is some great research on money that can help us understand the dynamic that money plays in our lives. Which makes people happier – purchasing material items or experiential purchases? Bill High shares some research to help us answer that question, “Can Money Buy Happiness?”, once and for all.

Ben Bohannon

Founder | sseko designs

Ben Bohannon is a Founder at Sseko designs where he uses fashion to create opportunity and community for women across the world and right here at home. From luxury leather travel bags to customizable footwear, Sseko creates stunning goods with an innovative business model that enables women in Uganda to attend university and pursue their dreams. Sseko products are sold by Sseko Fellows, a bright and bold community of dreamers and doers, who are using their passion and smarts to send women in Uganda to college and earn an income to pursue their own dreams.

Ben thinks we should use our talent and skills to build a better world, and he deeply believe that purpose will drive value in the future economy.

He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and co-founder, Liz, and their children.

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Episode 256 - Keeping Marriages Healthy as an Entrepreneur with Patrick Lencioni, John and Ashely Marsh, Les Parrot, and More


Episode 256 – Keeping Marriages Healthy as an Entrepreneur with Patrick Lencioni, John and Ashely Marsh, Les Parrot, and More


Compiled insights from leaders like Patrick Lencioni, Les Parrot, John and Ashely Marsh, Ben and Liz Bohannon, and Ashot Iskandarian on how entrepreneurs can keep their marriages healthy.



Episode 65 - How Do You Build a Healthy Family and a Growing Business? with Ben and Liz Bohannon of Sseko Designs


Episode 65 – How Do You Build a Healthy Family and a Growing Business? with Ben and Liz Bohannon of Sseko Designs


Is it possible to have a healthy family while building a successful business? That’s the question at the heart of this week’s episode with Ben and Liz Bohannon of Sseko Designs. Their business began as a way to generate income for high-potential, talented young women in Uganda to continue on to university. Since then, it’s grown rapidly from a Shark Tank phenomenon to a global success. Hear how Ben and Liz are navigating the world of global business while still managing to focus on their home, their marriage, and their family.


April Anthony

Innovator and Entrepreneur | Homecare Homebase

April Anthony has over 27 years of experience as an innovator and entrepreneur in the home health care field having founded and led 3 successful homecare-related ventures over the course of her career. Her commitment to the home health industry over the years has facilitated the delivery of essential healthcare services to hundreds of thousands of home bound patients and has provided a rewarding employment opportunity to thousands of healthcare professionals. April is the founder and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of both Encompass Health’s home health and hospice division and Homecare Homebase.

Encompass Health’s home health and hospice division provides essential homecare and hospice services to over 50,000 patients per day through a network of over 325 offices in 31 states. Homecare Homebase is a leading software technology platform for the home health and hospice industries. Currently over 40% of all homecare visits and 25% of all hospice days of service are processed through the HCHB platform.

April’s operating philosophy that focuses on putting employees first by creating a best place to work culture has resulted in Encompass being named a “Best Place to Work” over 28 times during the last year while also leading the home health care industry in clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Additionally, April has leveraged her knowledge of the homecare industry to create an industry leading technology platform for the homecare and hospice industry.

In December 2013 and 2014 respectively, April led both Homecare Homebase and Encompass in transformational transactions with the sale of 85% of the HCHB equity to the Hearst Corporation and the sale of 83% of Encompass to HealthSouth Corporation. April remains CEO of both companies.

April and her husband Mark have been married for 28 years and have three children, Ashlyn – 24, Luke -22 and Allie -19. In addition, April has served for 20 years as a member of the Board of Trustees of Abilene Christian University where she and Mark both attended as undergraduates. April currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Trustees for Abilene Christian University.

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Episode 110 - Disruption Can Help the Healthcare Industry with April Anthony


Episode 110 – Disruption Can Help the Healthcare Industry with April Anthony


Listen to April Anthony share her entrepreneurial journey that started when she took over a company in her 20s and then grew it into one of the most successful home healthcare businesses.


Ashot Iskandarian

CEO and Founder | Shopmonkey.io

Ashot is the CEO and founder of Shopmonkey.io which provides software for auto and motorcycle repair shops to run their business. 

Ashot was born and raised in Yerevan, Armenia, and immigrated to the US in the early 90s. Ashot and his wife, Annie, live in the Bay Area and have 3 children with a fourth on the way. They run a ministry called Maintenance for Moms where they help underprivileged moms by servicing their vehicles. 

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Angela Smith

CEO | Yip Yap

Angela is the founder and CEO of Yip Yap, a mobile communication company that empowers parents to introduce their kids safely to mobile technology. Over a 6 year period Angela took Yip Yap from concept, to a fully custom hardware device, to a bring-your-own-device app based WiFi enabled communication platform.  

Prior to Yip Yap, Angela founded and operated Ultimate SoCal Vacation Homes, delighting families with three premium vacation homes in Anaheim, CA and building the business to $450k in gross annual revenue before exiting in 2014.

Angela is a graduate of Chapman University in Orange, CA with a BA in English with an emphasis in Communication.

Angela lives in a small lake town north of Austin, TX with her husband of 16 years Michael and their four children: Lincoln, Lilah, Lucy and Lazarus.

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A Journey of Entrepreneurship and Faith

A Journey of Entrepreneurship and Faith

There are some things in life that you cannot fully understand until you experience them, and I would venture to say that founding a startup is one of them.  I knew it would be difficult, but I underestimated the difficulty and the depth of which the experience would penetrate my whole self and the ripple effect it would have on all aspects of my life.  

In 2011 God called me out of my comfort zone and into a journey of entrepreneurship.  In His wisdom and grace, He opened my eyes to a problem, gifted me an idea, and aligned the burden on our hearts to pursue a dream that would somehow glorify Him! …

Andy Crouch

Partner | Praxis

Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organization that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. His two most recent books—2017’s The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place and 2016’s Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing—build on the compelling vision of faith, culture, and the image of God laid out in his previous books Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power and Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.

Andy serves on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. For more than ten years he was an editor and producer at Christianity Today, including serving as executive editor from 2012 to 2016. He served the John Templeton Foundation in 2017 as senior strategist for communication. His work and writing have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing—and, most importantly, received a shout-out in Lecrae’s 2014 single “Non-Fiction.”

From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief of re:generation quarterly, a magazine for an emerging generation of culturally creative Christians. For ten years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University. He studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology.

A classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz, and gospel, Andy has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to 20,000. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania.

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

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The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World

The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World

Recognition is the primary task of infancy. Feeding, crying, and even sleeping are just the support system for this most essential work of figuring out who we are, and where we are, by making contact with other people, seeing them seeing us, gradually beginning to build our sense of self through their eyes.


How to Increase Authority by Being Vulnerable in Crises

How to Increase Authority by Being Vulnerable in Crises

Andy Crouch, Partner at Praxis, explains what happens at the intersection of strength and openness in a time of crisis.


Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Love in the Time of Coronavirus

A leader’s responsibility, as circumstances around us change, is to speak, live, and make decisions in such a way that the horizons of possibility move towards shalom, flourishing for everyone in our sphere of influence, especially the vulnerable.


Strategies for Winter: Redemptive Leadership in Survival Times

Strategies for Winter: Redemptive Leadership in Survival Times

Many organizations (businesses, nonprofits, schools, churches) are struggling mightily to survive the blizzard of viral spread and rolling shutdowns. Many will not survive the arduous winter as social and economic life re-emerges in fits and starts, lacking the assets or the positioning to advance their mission under new constraints.


Podcast Episode 109 - Leaving the Storm Behind with Andy Crouch and Dave Blanchard

Podcast Episode 109 – Leaving the Storm Behind with Andy Crouch and Dave Blanchard

Hear Andy Crouch and Dave Blanchard, both returning podcast guests, discuss the idea of leading beyond the blizzard we find ourselves in and how Faith Driven Entrepreneurs can design a different future.


It's Time to Talk about Power

It’s Time to Talk about Power

Andy Crouch discusses the power of informality in the church and how we can best recognize and use it.


From Script to Improv

From Script to Improv

Praxis is always looking for models, both in the present and in the Christian tradition, of entrepreneurs who clearly lived out a redemptive story. And for a model of a redemptive entrepreneur from the New Testament itself — maybe the whole Bible — it’s hard to beat the Apostle Paul.


A Rule of Life for Redemptive Entrepreneurs

A Rule of Life for Redemptive Entrepreneurs

Andy Crouch from Praxis was a guest on this week’s podcast and shared about the powerful book they released called “A Rule of Life.” At FDE, we believe it’s one of those essential pieces of reading for entrepreneurs and others called to leadership.


Podcast Episode 49 - A Rule of Life for Redemptive Entrepreneurs: Andy Crouch, Author, Journalist and Partner at Praxis

Podcast Episode 49 – A Rule of Life for Redemptive Entrepreneurs: Andy Crouch, Author, Journalist and Partner at Praxis

On this episode, the team spends time with Andy Crouch, partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organization that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship, as well as an accomplished writer and journalist, having authored several books as well as articles published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine.


Does My Career Matter to God?

Does My Career Matter to God?

In the video today, Andy Crouch, Executive Editor of Christianity Today, sums up a lot of what we’re about as believers when he says, “For Christians, everything matters.” Four words that can, and should, change everything about the way we live our lives.


Why Should I Observe the Sabbath?

Why Should I Observe the Sabbath?

In this short video (1 minute 20 seconds), Andy Crouch explains how Sabbath rest has changed over the years and why it’s still vital today.  You will also learn that the God that made us to work also made us not to work.