Q&A with Alumnus Mike Smalling: Bringing Homes and Hope to Communities in Need

Smalling has brought over 1,200 homes to over 7,000 people through nonprofit Homes4Homes

Belmont alumnus Mike Smalling is making a global impact for people in need as the co-founder of Homes4Homes, a nonprofit that builds homes for families in developing countries. Smalling played on the men’s basketball team and golf team while he was a student and graduated in 1990 with a degree in finance. 

What began as a modest effort to help families that he and his co-founder Jonathan Harris met while on a trip to Uganda has developed into a full-scale effort, positively impacting communities in 4 countries: Uganda, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. 

In a Q&A, Smalling shares the inspiration of Homes4Homes and its mission, highlights how his university experience shaped his entrepreneurial journey and discusses how he has integrated his faith and values in business and service.  

1. Homes4Homes was inspired by a trip to Uganda. How did this experience change your perspective on global citizenship and community flourishing? 

The initial response to my first trip to Uganda was a new spirit of gratitude for the many blessings that I have been undeservedly given.  For the first time, my eyes were truly opened to a world I didn’t really know existed.  My next response as part of my global citizenship was “how could I help?”  God loves every individual equally and calls us to act accordingly.  I’ll never have the resources to make the dent I envision, but I can do everything in my power to help.  And the difference I can make for Ugandans, who don’t possess 1% of what the average American possesses, is exponential to what those same dollars will do in the US.

2. Your organization works with partners in the real estate community. How did your finance background from Belmont contribute to developing this innovative funding model?

At Belmont, I learned that people will more readily engage where their passion lies. Even as a student, you see that people will spend their time and money on things they love.  I’ve personally had a 30+ year career of helping people buy homes – coaching them on how best to borrow money so that they can use this knowledge to help them with their overall personal finances.  My passion is homes. What better way to tie my passion to something that makes an even greater difference for the families we are helping?  This same passion is what I hope drives many of our donors in our effort to provide housing for families that would never be able to live in the improved conditions our ministry provides otherwise.  They understand the importance of what a home means to them and want to help provide that to others.  It’s truly amazing that with $4,000 anyone can provide a home to one of our families.  And then getting an opportunity to see the family with their new home (every home donor is matched with a family) and learn about the family adds fuel to our donor’s generosity.

3. As a Finance major and basketball student-athlete at Belmont, how did your university experience shape your entrepreneurial journey and prepare you for co-founding Homes4Homes? 

My involvement with Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) on campus taught me that the most important aspect in life is my faith.  That created a desire to be about Kingdom building activities as a focus and gave me the drive to work hard with whatever profession I chose in support of this desire.  As a student-athlete, I loved to compete.  I realized by my junior year at Belmont that I wanted a career that rewarded me for my performance.  Compensation was simply the scoreboard to measure the competition, and my career path has always revolved around performance-based compensation.  It just so happened that my path involved home finance and ultimately Homes4Homes became the mechanism for joining the two together: work hard helping people buy homes here so that we could help give homes there.  Thus, the concept homes for homes.

4. At Belmont, we love to highlight people who are ‘radical champions’ for human flourishing. In your opinion, what does it mean to be a radical champion for human flourishing?

At the core, it’s simply recognizing the existence of an injustice or inequality, then committing to do what you can to help improve the situation.  We are helping families exit an abysmal situation of living on dirt floors with mud or scraps for walls, holding up a roof made of grass or similar scraps.  It’s unsanitary and frankly a very difficult existence.  By providing them with a concrete floor, brick walls and a metal roof, we are enabling their family to have a safe and secure place of residence for them and their future generations.  Once that basic need is met, it improves their health, their sleep, their ability to be educated and work outside of the home.  They can now flourish!

5. Homes4Homes is currently working in 4 countries. Can you tell us about the process of expanding your operations internationally and any challenges you've faced?

From our inception, we prayed that God would bring appointed people that would guide our efforts.  He did just that.  Each country we support has its own unique and miraculous story.  We started building in Uganda by partnering with a local ministry focused solely on serving widows.  We added Mexico in year two and within a couple of years both Guatamala and Honduras.  In each scenario we connected with other ministry partners (that God literally dropped in our laps) doing work in these respective areas and created a plan to start helping the neediest in each specific area with housing.  Each area offers unique challenges working with the local church, builders and government – and each call for a slightly different style of home, designed to meet the cultural aspects of each area.

6. Your organization believes in providing homes with no strings attached. How does this approach contribute to family preservation and community transformation?

The New Testament teaches us that our salvation has no strings attached – it is completely a gift.  What we do with that gift is up to us.  In a similar way, we are providing housing as a gift. It is a starting point that each family is being given, the most basic need being met. They can now put their efforts in improving all other aspects of their families and communities that would be impossible without a healthy environment to live in.  We have evolved in Uganda from building one-off houses to restoring complete communities.  We have now completed homes for 5 total communities.  We’ve even had donors step up and provide funding that allowed us to build churches in some of these communities. To date, over 1,200 homes have been given to over 7,000 people.

7. Looking back on your journey from Belmont student to co-founder of an international nonprofit, what advice would you give to current students who aspire to make a global impact? 

The first thing is you have to get out of your bubble.  Go see firsthand how the majority of our world’s citizens live and get a realization of just how incredibly blessed you are.  Hopefully once that happens, you have no choice other than to act.  And the sooner you start acting, the bigger the impact you will make.  It’s like compound interest – another lesson I learned in my finance classes at Belmont.  If you help 10 people, then each of them in turn helps 10 people – the growth is exponential!  But it all starts with the realization that for those who have been given much, much is expected. 

8. How has your faith influenced your work with Homes4Homes, and how does it connect to the values you learned at Belmont? 

Faith is at the core of our entire ministry.  Our desire and prayer with Homes4Homes is that every family receiving a home realizes that God loves them and He is the one providing for their need.  I was very fortunate to have been surrounded by phenomenal teachers, coaches and fellow students that were committed not only to their faith, but to being difference makers wherever God put them.  Many of my instructors, particularly in the field of finance, could have made a lot more money with a business career.  But they loved us and chose to make a difference by helping their students become great people. I also had the opportunity to play basketball for a coach that would become a Hall of Famer and could have coached anywhere, but chose to coach most of his career at Belmont because he loved the school and its people. I was fortunate to be influenced by some phenomenal men and women with great faith and incredible values. Hopefully, the work being done by Homes4Homes honors them.