Following Traditional Business Practices and
Biblical Principles, Chicago Area Christian-based School Believes
Businesses Will Uplift Underserved Communities Around the
World
FOREST
PARK, Ill., July 15,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Wharton, Stanford, Booth, Kellogg, Sloan, and Harvard may be renowned for producing future global
business leaders. Still, the Joseph Business School (JBS), nestled
in this village five miles west of Chicago, is poised to make a significant mark.
Today, the world-class institution, located inside a once-abandoned
shopping mall at 7600 Roosevelt Road that also houses a
state-of-the-art worship center, a technology hub, an education
institution, a business incubator, and a thriving shopping plaza,
officially launched today a monumental campaign that will rival the
best of what any elite school offers and reshape the global
business landscape.
Under the leadership of Dr. Deloris
Thomas, an MBA graduate from Harvard
School of Business, this unique Christian institution, the
brainchild of Dr. Bill Winston, a
renowned visionary leader and evangelist, has embarked on a
distinctive five-year mission to assist 100,000 entrepreneurs in
scaling their businesses to a remarkable $1
million.
"We believe we are about to make a huge impact in Black and
Brown communities," said Dr. Thomas,
president of JBS, noting the campaign's reach will be global. "We
found that 80 percent of our U.S. entrepreneurs reinvest in the
communities where they come from and hire within the community, and
their businesses outperform the national average. This makes it the
opportune time for us to be serious about eradicating poverty and
changing conditions in our community."
Named after Joseph, the creative problem solver, innovator, and
trader in the Bible, The Joseph Business School was founded in 1999
by Dr. Winston and established by Ray
Thomas and his wife, Dr. Deloris
Thomas. Dr. Winston, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot
and graduate of what is now Tuskegee
University, and Mr. Thomas, who graduated from the
University of Chicago's Booth School of
Business, met at IBM. But as they ascended the corporate ladder,
they were called into the ministry. As Dr. Winston's ministry grew,
so did his vision of expanding the church beyond the sanctuary. To
help eradicate poverty and create generational wealth using
Biblical and practical principles, JBS was established. The school
is deeply committed to its faith-based education and community
development and welcomes students committed to this noble
mission.
Michael Reed, a real estate
investor from a suburb southwest of Chicago, graduated from JBS in June, following
the footsteps of his mother, Patricia
Grant, who graduated from the school more than a decade
earlier. Before Ms. Grant was 18, she gave birth to Mr. Reed and
his sister. She dreamed of living on Chicago's Gold
Coast, the gleaming high-rise apartments and office towers
where some of the city's rich, influential, and powerful lived and
worked. From her apartment, she had a direct view of life on the
other side of the economic strata. One day, while pushing her
children in a stroller from her mother's apartment in the complex,
known for drugs and homicides, she started crying and praying and
visualizing, "Lord, there has to be more to life than this. What is
life like over there? How do people get there?"
Three decades later, she enrolled in JBS to learn how to expand
her investment portfolio, which included a rental property in
Indianapolis. Guided by JBS
faculty, she acquired many additional properties, including a large
farm in Illinois, where her vision
is to build affordable housing.
Her plan also included supporting her son's real estate
company.
"My goal was to own my first investment property before I turned
30," Mr. Reed said. "Today, nearly 15 years later, I am up to 47
units (including 13 townhouses)."
Ms. Grant added, "He (The Lord) can do anything with anybody. We
have the ability inside to do anything, and that is what works me
up."
Dr. Thomas said the Grant/Reed story is about generational
success. "It's what we do within the school," she said. "We help
them understand that the traditional system is about maximizing in
the business world. We help our entrepreneurs to understand that
the mission is bigger than the mission of one, and it is bigger
than just for this generation; it is multi-generational, and what
we do is to help them see that God has big plans and can plant big
visions in them. And the school is an example. We have trained
thousands of entrepreneurs to become successful, and now we are
ready to train 100,000 more in the next five years."
This year marks JBS' 25th anniversary. The school is
also launching a $25 million campaign
to provide full scholarships to students and entrepreneurs who
enter programs to eradicate poverty, close the wealth gap, and turn
desolate communities into Gardens of Eden.
"I tell my team, we are midwives," said Dr. Thomas, who said a
study launched two years ago has already identified 50 JBS
graduates who have become millionaires. "We bring these babies
(businesses) and the visions these entrepreneurs have to make a
difference in their communities into full term and to full birth
because they do not have anyone to help them nurture and grow their
ideas. The Joseph Business School believes entrepreneurialism is a
key factor to economic growth, and entrepreneurs' ideas are key to
any economy becoming a thriving economy. Dr. Winston says, "Poverty
is not caused by a lack of resources but rather a lack of
self-production." We believe we can help nurture the gifts evident
in these underserved communities and turn them into entrepreneurial
ventures whereby they can close the wealth gap in communities,
their families, and the world."
For information about the Joseph Business School, visit the
school's website at https://www.jbs.edu. To arrange an interview
with Dr. Deloris Thomas and
graduates, contact Jerry Thomas at
(312) 804-7999 or 380362@email4pr.com. Pictures and videos are
available.
Contact: Jerry Thomas
Jerry Thomas Public Relations
380362@email4pr.com
(312) 804-7999
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SOURCE Joseph Business School