We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Beth Humbert. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Beth below.

Beth, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

My husband and I have 3 daughters, with our youngest labeled with autism. Raising a child with a disability can be a blessing and a curse. It’s certainly not something one plans for ~ it’s like your plane reroutes in mid-air without a discussion. You land somewhere you weren’t planning to visit; you get shuffled off the plane and then suddenly realize your itinerary looks very different from what you had envisioned. Figuring out a new normal without a map of your new destination is like swallowing a large pill that doesn’t want to go down. Coming to terms with our different direction has turned out to be a blessing. God doesn’t give you anything you cannot handle.

Planning for our youngest daughter’s future after high school was no different than stepping off the plane on an island we hadn’t selected. I quickly discovered there were very limited vocational options for people with disabilities after high school. Fortunately, I am a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor by trade so I have been helping people with disabilities go to work since 2000.

The idea of opening a coffee shop began evolving in 2016 and I stepped away from my professional career in 2017 to begin the research. I chose to start a nonprofit instead of an LLC because of the mission behind my passion to change the way society views people with disabilities as employable. I completed all the required paperwork and in 2018, I linked with score.org to help me finish my business plan, Proforma and organizing a board of directors.

Once I had an active board and we had a plan forward, the website and social media pages were created. We had our first fundraiser on Giving Tuesday in 2018. After that, I spent long days, & months learning about marketing and grant writing. I got in front of the community and formed relationships with donors – basically with anyone who would listen. I would talk about my NPO with any group that invited me and I participated in more Farmers Markets than I care to relive.

In late 2019, I finally had enough money raised to sign a lease on a brick n mortar space. We were in the middle a full blown build out when the Pandemic shut everything down. We were able to get a lease amendment which got us into early 2021 and the construction returned. I secured additional funding to hire my staff and then 6 months before we were scheduled to open, my board blows up (this is another story for another day ).

I immediately pivoted and rebuilt the board …. After raising $275,000, our soft opening happened in December of 2021, and our grand opening in January 2022.

I share all of this because starting a grass roots nonprofit wasn’t easy. Running a nonprofit is messy, complicated and rewarding. I went from being a Founder and in the driver’s seat to reporting to community volunteers. Despite a NPO being a functional business (hopefully!), a NPO is not owned by the Founder. Your board / the community assume the fiduciary responsibilities.

Today, we are approaching our third year in business. Our business model is working and our mission is coming to life!!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Currently a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC), I have been working in the Vocational Rehabilitation Industry since 2000. Prior to this, my background largely focused on Human Resources.

As a seasoned ISFJ with over 20 years of sales, recruiting & case management experiences, my focus has always been on building customer relations, and is now on mentoring small business enterprises.

I am a member of the National Rehabilitation Association (NRA). A highly accomplished consultant who strategically implements the design & execution of rehabilitation programs within public and private entities.

Specialties Include: Social Service, non-profit organizations, Mental Health, Transitional students, Deaf & Hearing Impaired, Blind or Visually Impaired, CP, MS, TBI, Stroke and Spinal Cord injuries. My passions are with the Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities population, as well as with Autism, & Speech and Language disorders.

Determined to change how society views the value of inclusion in every workplace, my purpose is to provide a platform for those who have every right to be invited to the table!

I am currently the Founding Director of Whole Latte Love Café and Whole CommUNITY Academy ~ changing how the community views people with disabilities, one cup at a time.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Starting a nonprofit from scratch is a journey and it’s a costly one. If I had known back when I got started what I know now, I’m sure some of my decisions would have been made differently, but in the end, our mistakes only make us more determined and resilient.

With my vision, I jumped feet first into this project with a small amount of personal funds that enabled me to get the project off the ground. And when I say small amount, I invested approximately $10,000 of my own money. Back in the early days, while the website was being created and our social media platforms were just launching, I had to come up with content to market to the public. I wanted to involve the very population I was promoting and I wanted to give them a platform where they could be seen and heard and remembered.

We decided to create coffee bean succulent jars to sell. My daughters’ friends would come over and we would fill jar after jar on the deck in my backyard. I would take videos and pictures of them working from my phone to post. We participated in many local Farmer’s Markets, selling these coffee bean succulent jars, while talking about our mission. Eventually we got real creative and sold t-shirts with our logo and once we found a coffee roaster, we created a campaign to determine our “signature roast”.

Meanwhile, I went to several banks in search of funding, but I quickly learned no bank will lend to a start-up nonprofit. I took more grant writing classes, but I also learned funders want to hear about a sustainable business. I found myself in a precarious situation. A catch-22. I could explain the impact of my social enterprise, but I needed funding to complete our full build-out, purchase equipment, start up expenses and hire staff.

I will forever remember the day my financial counselor at SCORE.org told me during the long days of working on my Proforma (it only took 18 months to create), I would need to raise $275,000. I recall saying to him, “I’ve never written a grant, or organized a fundraiser or marketed a new business in my life, how on earth am I going to raise $275,000”? But by the grace of God, I did it and we opened our doors debt free!!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there were many times I wanted to quit. Organizing a Board of Directors, educating them on my vision and maintaining the engagement of this group of volunteers was probably the hardest challenge in all of this.

I started my nonprofit board meetings in my church with one of my grad school professors, several colleagues who believed in the mission, someone who started his own nonprofit, a parent of someone with a disability and a financial person. Volunteer board members come and go. They serve for a time, provide what they are able and then move on. There is quite the art to searching and selecting for board members. I have learned this the hard way.

Just before the Pandemic, I was desperate to find someone who could chair my board. I didn’t have enough experience ~ actually, prior to forming Whole Latte Love Café, I had never served on a nonprofit board before so I was learning as I went. A mentor of mine recommended someone and without properly vetting this person, I again jumped in feet first. This decision almost cost me the project. After 16 grueling months of being micromanaged and inappropriately criticized, this person resigned and split my board in half ~ meaning half of the sitting board resigned too and I was six months away from opening the café to the public.

I had no other choice but to pivot, go back to the table with the remaining members, determine who we could approach and add to the board. In the end, the right people stayed with me and God walked us all of us through this terrible storm, successfully opening on schedule.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wholelattelovecafe,org
• Instagram: @nclattelovecafe
• Facebook: nclattelovecafe?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/humbybeth
• Twitter: n/a
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n4x9EApRmdAnSKL8z9bRg
• Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/home/_15vpDTyC31XVl-uSLpTHw/?utm_campaign=Branded_Paid-Claim_Main_Promo&utm_content=Original-RSA&utm_medium=search&utm_source=type%3Aclaim_ad_google
• Soundcloud: n/a

Image Credits

Laura Esposito is the photographer of the professional portrait taken of myself, my daughter and my husband. All other photos taken from an iPhone & I have permission to share.