Star Finance, a Somali led social enterprise bringing a disruptive, community-created home ownership solution within reach of muslims in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, is partnering with Mission Driven Finance, a multicultural investment bank with a track record in Islamic finance, to build the plumbing to make the faith compliant financial housing solution a reality. GatherLab’s Transformation Network will provide the connective tissue for the collective intelligence peer learning network with regular calls, local pop up Transform Labs and larger conferences for the whole network to gather and seed replication in other communities.
Star is led by its founder, Said Sheik-Abdi, a widely recognized international expert and speaker on humanitarian aid, Somali diaspora communities, and partnerships. Said serves as Managing Director at Aamin Consulting Group, an International Consulting company that helps build the capacity of nonprofit organizations, government institutions, and the private sector. GatherLab, through Kevin Doyle Jones, is a co founder and share holder of the for profit company Star Finance. The company is majority owned by a local Somali non profit focused on housing, jobs, education and entrepreneurship.
The project arose from a lab at the Transform conference in May where a guild on a quest coalesced to create a system shifting solution. Other guilds are in the process of coalescing from the conference.