Charity Got Down To Business

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Rowan Vansleve, general manager of a homeless charity in Sun Valley named Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, wanted to stage a business panel for his organization’s donors and partners.

If anything, he overdelivered. Among the big-name speakers who addressed several hundred people in Granada Hills last week was Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico.

So how did a modest size charity in the San Fernando Valley score a panel with international heft?

A personal acquaintance of the ex-president of Mexico is a Hope of the Valley board member and that person helped the charity reach Fox with an e-mail query late last year. Fox promptly responded, mentioning that he was already scheduled to be in Los Angeles on May 9. That became the date of the event.

The other speakers, such as Antonio Cue, a co-owner of L.A. professional soccer team Chivas USA and Dr. Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Health Care in Long Beach, committed after Fox was on board.

The panel discussed business opportunities in emerging markets in the United States and abroad, with a focus on tapping into the Hispanic population. General admission tickets for the event sold for $100; VIP seats went for $250 and included a reception with Fox.

The panel was a first for the charity, which provides food, clothing and hygienic services to those in need at five locations in the San Fernando Valley, but Vansleve said it was a natural extension of the charity’s mission to reduce poverty.

“When business does better, there are more jobs and less people in poverty,” he said.

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