Venturing into the future of RPCV businesses

A venture capital firm started by RPCVs helps RPCV social impact businesses flourish
A lot can happen when Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) meet one another and start talking. Stories are shared, ideas chewed on, experiences compared and, sometimes, a little magic is made. When Mike Bailkin and Glenn Blumhorst met and struck up a conversation at a celebration for the Peace Corps’ 60th anniversary, they discovered a common love for the Peace Corps and a desire to help the Peace Corps community of RPCVs. At the time, Blumhorst was president and CEO of the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA). Bailkin was decades into a successful career as a lawyer, practicing at Akerman LLP, and a real estate investor and developer.
Blumhorst had served as a Volunteer in Guatemala from 1988 to 1990, Bailkin in India from 1963 to 1965. Despite the difference in service generations and regions, the two found a deep connection in a shared vision for the RPCV community. Shortly after they met, Bailkin saw an opportunity to run for a position on the board of NPCA. He won and served in the position for a year. While in that position, Bailkin began honing an idea he’d had for a while—RPCV Ventures, a public beneficiary corporation specifically geared toward supporting and funding RPCV businesses that are “doing well by doing good,” here in the United States and abroad.

“Peace Corps Volunteers have been through the fires of creation,” Bailkin says. “They come home from service with skills honed by unique experiences.” Blumhorst found the idea of RPCV Ventures intriguing, given the significant number of RPCVs who had expressed to him the need for financial and technical assistance in starting up or scaling up their social enterprises. He felt strongly that it was a perfect fit for the RPCV community—especially for more recently returning Volunteers looking for opportunities and ways to focus their entrepreneurial work in underserved communities in the United States. By creating a way to support RPCVs bringing the skills they learned in service back home, RPCV Ventures expands the mission of Peace Corps to work in the United States by infusing RPCV business ideas with private capital and private equity.
In 2022, Blumhorst and Bailkin formed RPCV Ventures in earnest—with Blumhorst as CEO and Bailkin as president. Arianna Richard, who’d previously worked on the staff of NPCA, joined in as RPCV Ventures vice president of operations. Richard notes that when she departed for Peace Corps service in Eswatini, she made a promise to herself that she’d say “yes” to every opportunity she could. Holding to this personal motto helped her experience Peace Corps and her community in Eswatini in a deep way. And, when Blumhorst and Bailkin asked her to come work at their new start-up, she thought of how her motto had always led her to good things, and she said, “yes.” Both Bailkin and Blumhorst note that Richard has been instrumental in leading RPCV Ventures through the proof-of-concept phase.
“Peace Corps completely unmade me in the most positive way,” Richard says, a sentiment that Blumhorst and Bailkin and every other RPCV can understand. A sentiment, in fact, that was the seed of the idea for RPCV Ventures. “Peace Corps Volunteers are willing to make themselves uncomfortable on purpose to have conversations and build bridges,” Bailkin says. He continues, “Entrepreneurs are risk-takers and are willing to endure discomfort to see their ideas borne out. They have that in common with RPCVs.” For him, merging these two worlds was a natural progression of his career and his personal devotion to the Peace Corps—an experience that allowed him to start the first community development program in Asia and, arguably, set him on a path that allowed him to engage with community development throughout his professional life.
In an interview, Bailkin, Blumhorst, and Richard make complete sense as a cohesive group. Although they represent three different generations of Peace Corps Volunteers, three different service experiences, and three different reasons for joining the Peace Corps, they share a solid commitment to leveling up the opportunities for RPCVS to change the world after their service ends. Their passion for the RPCV community and for RPCV Ventures is palpable—they are all obviously in love with their work and with what RPCV Ventures can become and achieve.


RPCV Ventures sits on a solid foundation of four ideas that at first glance might seem disparate: Take what Peace Corps has made and put private capital and expertise behind it; Peace Corps training is a unique way of creating entrepreneurial practitioners; in many countries where Peace Corps Volunteers have served in the last 60 years poverty rates have fallen, but in the United States they have stayed level; and, finally, that when RPCVs apply the skills they learned during Peace Corps service, transformational change can be achieved. RPCV Ventures helps this happen by applying what Blumhorst names “the three M’s—money, marketing, and mentoring.”
The RPCV Ventures business model is evolving to act more like a venture capital company, providing direct capital to RPCV businesses and, most importantly, partnering with them to maximize growth and impact. From the beginning, Bailkin knew that getting other successful businesspeople involved would be crucial for support of RPCV Ventures’ mission. It didn’t take him long to understand that even for people who hadn’t served in the Peace Corps, the reputation of the agency and the work ethic of RPCVs was well-known. “Peace Corps is the gold standard of idealism and working for transformation.” Bailkin says, and he had no trouble finding four non-RPCV board members to help guide RPCV Ventures. Each board member has made wildly successful careers in business while also giving back to their communities, and each of them have a deep respect for the Peace Corps as an agency and for the role RPCVs can play in using entrepreneurship to transform America for the better. At the time of this writing, Bailkin notes that they are focusing on expanding the board and looking specifically to recruit RPCVs to serve. They are also hoping to populate several operational subcommittees with RPCVs.
Currently, RPCV Ventures is working closely to support several RPCV businesses through infusions of capital, networking assistance, and mentorship. A key part of the strategy is networking with a range of other institutions active in social impact to enhance our outreach and particularly to provide additional opportunities and resources for RPCVs. Bailkin is open about RPCV Ventures not being scaled up to full capacity yet, but Richard points out that part of the point of being RPCVs working to provide opportunities for other RPCVs is that they can be authentic—the group behind RPCV Ventures wants their fellow RPCVs to see the organization as a real opportunity. “We want RPCVs to see RPCV Ventures as a resource for them if they’re interested in creating social-impact businesses in the United States after service,” Blumhorst says. RPCV Ventures is a true Peace Corps story—with a narrative built through a desire to give back to underserved communities in the U.S. through hard work, connections, maybe a little capital, and an authentic love for the agency that shaped the three minds behind it.
To find out more about RPCV Ventures, visit them at www.rpcvventures.com