Episode 377 – The Business Framework to Solve the Foster Care Crisis | Chad Spencer

What does it look like when God owns not just your business, but your suffering, your family, and your calling? Chad Spencer—entrepreneur, Ashley Furniture dealer, and co-founder of For Others—found out the hard way. From a Memphis apartment where three girls slept on one sleeping bag, to a hospital room at rock bottom with a book he didn’t plan to open, his story is what happens when an entrepreneur stops trying to manage God and starts listening to Him.

Chad traces a journey that runs from founding Beds for Kids in 2005 (now nearly 200,000 beds given nationwide through Ashley’s Hope to Dream program) through a decade of infertility, two failed adoptions, a business in freefall, and a premature baby born with life-threatening complications—all hitting in the same 90-day stretch. He shares how God used that breaking point to recalibrate everything: his leadership, his marriage, his purpose, and ultimately his calling to tackle the foster care crisis in America alongside worship artist Chris Tomlin through For Others.

The business mind Chad brings to this conversation is striking. He doesn’t just talk about caring—he talks about vision, path, leadership, team, and execution. When he realized there are over 400,000 kids in foster care and over 400,000 churches in America, the math hit him the same way a good business problem does: this is solvable. Tune in for one of the most honest, practical, and spiritually grounded conversations on what it means to be a faith-driven entrepreneur in the fullest sense of that phrase.

00:00 Cold open: Single moms and kids without beds

00:33 Welcome and Chad’s introduction

01:34 The ABC Home Makeover contest that started it all

03:20 God’s call: Business as a mission field

04:49 The moment Beds for Kids was born

06:12 How Beds for Kids became Ashley’s Hope to Dream

07:02 For Others video: The foster care crisis in America

10:14 Connecting the businesses to the bigger mission

10:23 A decade of infertility and failed adoptions

12:03 The weight of watching your wife suffer

13:00 Telling Kelly: “I will not go back to work until He is enough”

15:24 Number 16 on the Kenya list — and then Lisa

17:11 The employee God placed at the company

18:06 The Olive Garden meeting — and a gastroschisis diagnosis

19:56 Rock bottom: Business collapsing in real time

21:29 The hospital closet, 100 books, and Tim Keller

23:09 Worship music, tears, and a prayer in a hospital room

25:00 Romans 8 and the voice of God

26:20 “Hey babe, we have a son” — naming Mac

27:53 15 months in the hospital and what Chad began to see

28:32 When entrepreneurs stop armchair quarterbacking

30:30 Fear of failure, hubris, and losing sight of why

31:35 “How’s your soul?” — the question that cracked him open

32:55 Guard your heart — the wellspring of life

34:46 Motivation is a breath mint; purpose is a pillar

36:00 The Great Shema and building an org around heart and soul

36:40 Stepping into For Others: Meeting Chris Tomlin on a plane

39:14 The VPLTR framework applied to the foster care crisis

40:47 400,000 kids. 400,000 churches. One per church.

42:15 The data problem in the foster care system

43:49 Curating best-in-class providers and scaling them

44:30 Defining the problem: Prevent, provide, prepare

46:58 Root causes of kids bouncing through 8+ placements

49:32 The matching problem — and a Tennessee Christmas story

50:42 Governor Lee and getting kids out of government buildings

53:12 Why billions spent hasn’t solved it — and what’s different now

54:48 Five-star families and CRM thinking for foster care

56:21 Street by street, county by county — and the church’s moment

57:14 A bigger table: Entrepreneurs, investors, influencers, athletes

59:00 Solving the world’s greatest problems — visit solving.org

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