Commonwealth Ventures identifies, sponsors and manages high-quality impact investment opportunities for Christian private investors and family offices who seek integration of their most deeply held values into their wealth management strategies.

Commonwealth Ventures is a wholly owned subsidiary of Commonwealth Impact Foundation. These two organizations exist for the same purpose of accelerating high quality deal flow for impact investors. The field of impact investing is still emerging which causes investor confusion over whether the deals are fully market-driven or subsidized by concession on return or philanthropy.

CIF provides research, consulting, and convening of high-net-worth Christian families to guide them to deals that possess both good economics and superior social impact. Commonwealth Ventures provides professional transaction management to investors and consulting to entrepreneurs.

High-Quality

Commonwealth Ventures has selected COhatch as its debut transaction because it offers the highest rated investment opportunity that we’ve discovered in all three key impact categories: (1) economic return on investment; (2) social impact via community renewal and entrepreneurship support; and (3) faith-driven outcomes.

Work. Meet. Live.

It’s the COhatch tagline but it’s also their mission statement.  COhatch reinvents work in America by blending enhanced productivity with family and community well-being.  In other words, their success is measured in human flourishing and community renewal.  COhatch’s method is forged in being a mixed-used developer, owner, and technology-enabled operator of spaces—think: “Community Town Hall 2.0”. COhatch serves the emerging entrepreneur alongside small businesses, large corporations, nonprofits and churches. COhatch creates community in 10,000-20,000 square foot sites located on “Main Street” of suburban and urban sub-markets; i.e., places where people work, meet, and live.

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Leadership Team

John V. Handelsman

With 35 years of experience in specialty finance, strategic leadership, and consulting, John has a proven track record in leading businesses to success. Most recently, he was the Chairman and CEO of The Garage Group, a boutique innovation consultancy to the F500 in the CPG, Food & Beverage and Financial Services industries. His PE experience came as co-lead on a $40M raise of Fund II for Brixey & Meyer Capital, where he also served as Operating Partner for both Funds I and II, including leading the establishment of governance and strategic planning and execution and serving as Chairman on many of the boards.

John won EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1999 during his time as Founder, President, and CEO of The Vaughn Group, Inc., a Cincinnati-based commercial equipment finance company for which he raised multiple rounds of private and institutional capital and that he successfully exited to a public bank in 2003.

John is driven to mobilize the gifts of the team members, create value for all stakeholders and tirelessly serve the client. His courage comes from knowing how to calculate risk and work interdependently with teams of smart, capable people in order to solve problems and continue to focus on growth.

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John V. Handelsman

President & CEO, Commonwealth Ventures

Mike Humphrey

Mike Humphrey serves as chairman of Commonwealth. His career in private equity began as co-founder of Tanglewood Investments in 1997, a private equity firm focused on hands-on investing in the global manufacturing industry. Over seventeen years Tanglewood acquired 22 businesses that were assembled into five operating groups. These groups were re-envisioned, restored to profitability, and sold to long-term owners.

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Mike Humphrey

Chair, Commonwealth Impact Investing

Board Member, Commonwealth Ventures

Jay Hein

Jay directs Commonwealth as part of his role as president of Sagamore Institute.  Between these two entities, he manages a $20 million annual budget and 50 staff who perform a series of research, consulting, and impact investments accelerating market solutions to uplift society.  He also directed numerous public-private social enterprises as a senior advisor to President George W. Bush from 2006-08 and chronicled the White House compassion agenda in his book, The Quiet Revolution.

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Jay Hein

Managing Director, Commonwealth Impact Investing

Shari Johnson

Before joining Commonwealth Shari spent 8 years in nonprofit work with JH Ranch and most recently served as the Operations Director for JH Outback. Both organizations provide programming and content focused on strengthening families across the world. Shari has a Bachelor’s Degree from Auburn University and recently completed her MBA from the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University.

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Shari Johnson

Operations Manager, Commonwealth Ventures