After working in the Boston area biotech industry for several decades, John Conley set his eyes on two local nonprofits: the YMCA of Greater Boston where he is a board member, and the Jericho Road Project, a small organization in Concord, Mass. that matches professional volunteers with non-profits in Lowell. Inspired by Doug Rauch, an ALI alum and former CEO of Trader Joe’s who worked to expand access to healthy and affordable foods, John knew that the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) was his next move, and joined in 2014.  

Following his year with ALI, John decided to engage more deeply with a promising local organization. Entrepreneurship for All (EforAll) had been launched in 2010 by Jaishree and Desh Deshpande as the “Merrimack Valley Sandbox,” where potential entrepreneurs could gather and share ideas. EforAll focused initially on midsized cities with populations of 75,000 to 200,000 and with struggling economies. John joined as a mentor for their first accelerator program in Lowell in 2012 where he helped a computer programmer open a yoga studio in Lawrence. After completing ALI, John became EforAll’s chief operating officer, just as it received its 501(c)3 nonprofit designation.

Today, EforAll operates 11 sites in Massachusetts, New York, Colorado, and Arkansas. Each accelerator site aims to generate 30 startup projects and host four “pitch contests” per year where John notes that “the number of people who raise their hands saying they want to be entrepreneurs is extraordinary.” Seventy-two percent of the businesses boast co-founders or founders who are women, and 70 percent are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). More than 700 startup businesses have been launched from EforAll’s accelerators, generating a combined $43 million of annual revenue in 2020 and creating 1,329 jobs.

John believes it’s more than revenue that makes EforAll so successful. Because of the sometimes lonely and difficult nature of being an entrepreneur, the mentor program makes the greatest difference in the success of new ventures. Mentors provide not only sound business advice, but also a necessary support in taking on the new, sometimes overwhelming, responsibilities of entrepreneurship.

EforAll’s ventures have proven to be resilient. Despite the pandemic, the combined revenues of businesses grew by tens of millions of dollars. John credits the small number of employees, and the focus on basic necessities; for instance, the bilingual accountant who can speak Khmer for the Cambodian community is still in business and thriving. In Lawrence, Mass., 99 Degrees Custom started by making niche active apparel for large, brand name companies. When the factories in Bangladesh and Vietnam couldn’t ship and supply chains were interrupted because of the pandemic, their local capacity made them invaluable.  Today they boast more than 375 employees and produce cutting edge tech-integrated apparel.

Currently, John is working with an Indian immigrant who is a physical therapist creating a “neuro-gym” for people with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. She has a business plan, funding, a line of customers and has just negotiated a lease. After almost a decade with EforAll, his excitement for these projects is still going strong, and the organization is continuing to grow with expansion plans across the country.

John is driven by the goal of inclusivity. “The thing that makes me so passionate about EforAll is that it’s a way to enable people who don’t have access to the open doors that I did, so they can have a similar sense of agency in their work lives.” John credits his experience at ALI with helping him progress forward on this work.  “I had worked with businesses and nonprofits before coming to ALI. During my fellowship year I learned to connect with new sources of philanthropy and government support, and how to scale a promising social enterprise successfully.”