Tomorrow Talk: From Refugees to Entrepreneurs - How Communities can Bank on Belonging
- Sep 1, 2023
- 3 min read
Wed, Oct 28, 6:30pm
Tom Tom Foundation, 100 W. South St
As we prepare for the 15th Annual Tom Tom Festival (April 21–25, 2027), whose theme is NEXTGEN, the Tomorrow Talk series invites us to explore who our neighbors are and what they are doing, particularly when those neighbors shift from the margins to local leaders and creators.
Around the world, more than 100 million people have been displaced by war, persecution, and instability. The dominant conversation asks how governments and humanitarian organizations can support them. This Tomorrow Talk asks a different question: What is possible when refugees are recognized not simply as recipients of aid, but as entrepreneurs, employees, investors, and economic partners?
Drawing on years of research, fieldwork, and investment experience, authors John Kluge Jr. and Christine Mahoney explore how refugee entrepreneurs are creating businesses, generating employment, and revitalizing communities around the world. They introduce the emerging field of Refugee Lens Investing—a framework for directing capital toward refugee-led enterprises, companies employing displaced people, and the places helping newcomers establish new lives.
This Tomorrow Talk examines a broader concert of “belonging,” not only a social or moral aspiration, but something communities can actively build through access to capital, employment, networks, and opportunity. Charlottesville is significant because it has been a home to refugees for decades, and this conversation asks how our financial institutions, businesses, universities, philanthropies, and residents can help create an economy in which newcomers do not merely arrive, but participate, contribute, and prosper.
Half the proceeds from the tickets will go to Kiva’s World Refugee Fund, which makes micro-loans to refugee entrepreneurs.
Registration is required.
General Admission: $25
Tomorrow Society Members: $20
Students: $15
John and Christine are the co-authors of Banking on Belonging: Why Investing in Refugee Entrepreneurs Benefits Everyone. In partnership with New Dominion Bookshop, books will be available for purchase and signing. Following the Talk, Thistlerock Mead Company will offer an inaugural tasting of its newest mead, which is made with refugee-grown coffee beans and produced by a company that provides employment for resettled refugees in the United States.
FACILITATORS
John Kluge Jr. is a social entrepreneur and impact investor working at the intersection of refugee economic inclusion and regenerative enterprise. He is the founder of the Refugee Investment Network (RIN), which mobilizes private capital to support refugee entrepreneurs and host communities worldwide, and Co-founder & CEO of Thistlerock Mead Company, America's first net-zero meadery, built on a regenerative flower farm in Virginia's Monticello AVA. He serves on the boards of the Montpelier Foundation, Norwegian Refugee Council USA, and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum. He has spoken at the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Vatican Impact Investing Summit, and Milken Institute Global Conference. He is co-author of Banking on Belonging: Why Investing in Refugee Entrepreneurs Benefits Everyone (Columbia University Press, 2026), co-author of Charity and Philanthropy for Dummies (Wylie, 2014), and John Kluge: Stories (Columbia University Press, 2008).
Christine Mahoney is chief innovation officer and professor of public policy and politics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. She is a global expert on social entrepreneurship and impact investing and has secured over $40 million in funding for programs to research, teach and support innovative solutions to social and environmental challenges. She is the author of multiple books including Banking on Belonging, Failure and Hope and Brussels versus the Beltway. She co-founded the Refugee Investment Network, directs the Tadler Program on Impact Investing in Appalachia, chairs the Impact Investing Fund of the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, and serves on the board of the angel investing network Cav Angels.
Paul Beyer is the founder of the Tom Tom Foundation and Tom Tom Festival, and in his role as executive director, is responsible for its strategic vision and community partnerships. Beyond Tom Tom, Paul works on a variety of gatherings and events ranging from festivals, dance parties, dinner series, meditations, men's groups, conferences, seminars, and concerts.
CO-HOST
Thistlerock Mead Company is a nature-driven social enterprise and benefit corporation in Charlottesville, Virginia, co-founded by John Kluge Jr and Allison Wickham. The company crafts ancient honey wine (mead) using regenerative agriculture, chemical-free beekeeping, and solar-powered production to become ‘the Patagonia of beverage.’
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Tomorrow Talks are a year-long series that picks up critical themes from our April Festival and continues the conversations to create impact in Charlottesville. Each session is facilitated with an emphasis on participation, connection, and new collaborations. Tomorrow Talks begin with a connection exercise or meditation, and proceed into a presentation and breakout activities. They aim to impart knowledge that is practical and relevant to people's lived experience; combining academic or theoretical insights, alongside pragmatic tools, and experiential and somatic learnings.
