A Business Training Program
Now Running Inside Recovery Centers.
Avante is a six week entrepreneurship program that has graduated over 80 founders across 10 counties in multiple states. We adapted it to run inside recovery centers and recovery support programs. We work with you to fund the program curriculum, we train your staff to teach it and together we make an impact on your community.
LaunchTN Regional Partner · Four time SBA Growth Accelerator winner · Featured in Forbes · Delivered with UVA Wise Hatch, STRONG ACC, People Inc, and the Johnson City Recovery Center
The Problem
Returning to the Workforce Can Be Difficult, If Not Impossible, for Those In Recovery
As your program participants reach a stable point in their recovery and begin thinking about returning to the workforce, they often find new barriers in the way of their futures. Then comes the job search. A gap in the work history. A record that shows up in the background check. No transportation. And at the end of it, they end up in a job that does not pay enough to hold a household together.
You already know which link in the chain is the weak one.
$2B+
What substance use costs Tennessee every year. More than half of that is lost income from roughly 31,000 people who left the workforce, close to 1 percent of everyone working in the state.
2x
Opioid overdose rates in Appalachia run more than double the national average. Mortality among 25 to 44 year olds, the prime working years, is 70 percent higher here than in the rest of the country.
Longer
Once employed, people in recovery take fewer unplanned days off and stay in jobs longer than the average worker.
The capability was never the problem. The way back in is.
The Guide
You run a recovery center. You should not have to build a business school.
We are not going to hand you a binder and wish you luck. Avante was built at FoundersForge in Johnson City, delivered to real founders in real counties for years, then packaged so an organization that has never run a business program can run one successfully. Your staff facilitates the program. We train them, give them the materials, and support them through the program.
Who We Are
FoundersForge is a 501(c)(3) entrepreneur center serving Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. We have been the front door for founders in this region since 2016. When we started, the region had a handful of high growth startups. More than a hundred founders are building companies here today.
Avante and FoundersForge is Recognized Beyond Tennessee
83
Avante graduates
10
Counties served to date
249
Companies supported in 2025
Recognized outside our own region
- FoundersForge is a LaunchTN Regional Entrepreneur Center Network Partner in the state of Tennessee.
- Our Startup Community was Profiled in Forbes
- Host and Creator of the Startup Mountain Summit, a conference focused on early-stage Founders from across the country.
Powered By a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit
Avante was created to make an impact in rural and underserved communities. It is not a venture backed platform waiting to be acquired. We don’t sell your data and we are not going to route your people toward a financial product. Revenue from licenses goes back into making the program even better.
The Plan
Three Steps to Your First Cohort.
1. Get Connected
During a thirty minute discovery call we ask about your community, needs, and answer all of your questions. The goal is to make sure Avante is the right fit for your organization and community.
2. Build a Funding Strategy
We work with your organization to find the funding to launch Avante in your community. We can provide data, statements of need, and assist in potential partnership calls.
3. Tain and Launch
We train your facilitators until they feel confident in running their first program. Then we help you launch your first 6-week cohort of Recovery Entrepreneurs. We also support your program throughout the program.
What You Get
What Comes with the License.
To date, all recovery programs have been funded by grants and regional initiatvies. Our program data makes it easy to justify to partners and they get to see the impact in real-time during the programs you run.
The Bootcamp
Six weeks, cohort based, covering idea validation, customers, business planning, financials, and marketing. Adapted for delivery inside a recovery setting. Unlimited cohorts under one license.
Facilitator Training
Your staff are trained to run Avante. The goal is for this to become your program that you customize. However, we are just a connection away to help assist your program at any time.
Community Builder
A private online space you control, connecting your participants to each other and to the wider Avante network. Early recovery does not end when week six does, and neither does the group.
AI Marketing Course and Tools
AI is empowering business owners of al sizes. A one person business started in your center can market itself like a company with a staff.
Materials and Measurement
Participant workbooks, supplemental courses, a video library, and cohort surveys come with Avante. We also provide you a report for your funders and partners.
Proof
Avante is Not An Experiment.
Avante has been running for years. The curriculum, the facilitator model, the six week arc, and the demo day are have been tested and improved. Delivering this within recovery organizations started with pilot tests in 2025 and we are continuing to expand this offering because of the impact it has been making.
Dickenson County, Virginia
Twenty participants, delivered with the UVA Wise Hatch Accelerator in one of the most substance use affected rural counties in the state. Surveyed gains across all eight competencies we measure. We saw a 100% completion rate and incredible gains in individual skills growth. Plus, it launched new businesses in the county.
Johnson City Recovery Center
Across every Avante cohort we have run, nobody has dropped. Cohorts have been small and we screen for the ability to commit to six weeks, so we do not sell that as a guarantee and our own funding targets assume it will settle around 75 percent as cohorts get larger.
Gains Go Beyond Launching
Participants left with measurable improvement in public speaking, financial competency, and problem solving. In a places where too many working age adults are outside the labor force, those hold their value no matter what someone does next. Improving soft skills along side
Why it transfers into recovery
We did not pick recovery at random. The barriers Avante already works against in rural Appalachia are the same ones your participants are up against.
- The counties where Avante performs best are the counties hit hardest by substance use. The overlap was already there.
- The program travels to the participant instead of asking the participant to travel. In a recovery setting that stops being a convenience and starts being the reason attendance holds.
- Six weeks with a public finish line is worth something specific in early recovery. Much of that stage is rebuilding a sense of your own reliability, and completing something in front of other people is how that gets rebuilt.
- Ownership answers a question employment does not. A background check has no opinion about a business you started.
What the first recovery cohort showed
The Johnson City Recovery Center hosted the first Avante for Recovery cohort. Six participants. Every one finished.
Tanner joined because he knew engines and did not know where to start. He launched a small engine repair business in week three. By demo day he was cash flow positive, had a three month waiting list, and was asking how to scale.
“Having this experience, this class, it’s life changing, and I’m just so grateful.”
Tanner, Johnson City Recovery Center cohort
Something happened in that room we did not plan for. Nearly every participant said they wanted to hire other people in recovery. Businesses started by people in recovery become workplaces that welcome people in recovery. That is the part that compounds, and it is why we are expanding this instead of filing the pilot away.
Who we are doing it with
STRONG ACC
A collective impact coalition of more than 400 partner organizations across 23 counties in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee.
Johnson City Recovery Center
Host of the first Avante for Recovery cohort.
People Inc Financial Services
Serving Southwest Virginia.
UVA Wise Hatch
Delivery partner in Dickenson County, Virginia.
[OPTIONAL PULL QUOTE: a recovery center director or program manager. Two or three sentences on what changed for their participants and what it took from their staff. Name, title, organization. Delete this module if you do not get one.]
Cost
Let’s talk about what it costs.
An Avante license runs less than most organizations expect and covers unlimited cohorts, so the cost per participant drops every time you run it.
The more useful thing to know is that most of our recovery partners are not paying full freight. We work with grant funders, coalitions, health departments, and regional partners to subsidize licenses for recovery settings, and finding that money is part of what we do with you, not something you have to solve before you call.
If budget is the reason you have not reached out, that is exactly the conversation to have.
Success
A year from now.
- Your staff run cohorts without us in the room.
- Participants leave with revenue, not just a resume.
- Some of them are hiring other people out of your program.
- You have survey data and business outcomes you can hand a funder without apologizing for them.
- Recovery in your center connects to income, and income is what makes recovery stick.
Or next year looks like this year.
Another group finishes strong, walks out into the same job market, and takes what they can get. Some hold. Some do not. And the thing that would have changed the math was six weeks long the whole time.
For Funders and Coalitions
Funding a pathway, not a pilot.
If you fund recovery services or workforce development in this region, you are usually being asked to underwrite something unproven in a population that is hard to serve. This is the other case. The program has years of delivery behind it, measured competency gains, and a completion record. What your money buys is putting it where it has not been at scale yet.
The outputs are countable
Cohorts delivered, participants served, completion rates, competency gains, businesses started, and licensed partner organizations that keep running after the grant period ends.
The design point is durability
We license and train the partner organization so the capacity stays local. A funded cohort is not a service you paid for once. It is a capability the community keeps.
Current scope of work under active funding includes [SUMMARIZE: cohort and county targets, for example 10 cohorts across Southwest Virginia in 2027, minimum 4 inside recovery organizations, 100 participants across at least 6 counties, 4 to 6 partner organizations licensed and independently staffed].
FAQ
Questions we get.
Do participants need a business idea to start?
No. Week one assumes they do not. Some arrive with an idea, some find one, and some finish with skills they use somewhere else. All three are fine outcomes.
Who teaches it?
Your staff. We train them, and we co-facilitate the first cohort with them. Facilitator training is included in the license.
How many recovery centers are running this?
We are early and will not pretend otherwise. The recovery version launched with the Johnson City Recovery Center and is expanding through STRONG ACC and People Inc across Southwest Virginia. The underlying program has been delivered for years across 10 counties, so what is new is the setting, not the curriculum or the people teaching you to run it.
How far along in recovery should someone be?
Far enough to commit to six weeks. Partners typically enroll people who are stable and looking at what comes next. We will work through screening with you on the call.
How big is a cohort?
Small to start. Six to twelve works well in a recovery setting. Your license covers unlimited cohorts, so there is no reason to overload the first one.
Do we have to be in Tennessee or Virginia?
No. That is where we built it and where our partners are. The license is available anywhere.
What if a participant does not want to own a business?
They still leave with financial literacy, customer research skills, and the experience of standing in front of a room and being taken seriously.
How long from first call to first cohort?
[X weeks. Fill in a real number.]
Book a Discovery Call
Thirty minutes. Pick a time.
We ask about your population, your staff, and your building. You ask us anything. If Avante is not a fit for where you are right now, we will say so.
Your next cohort is already in the building.
The people who need this are the ones sitting in your program right now. Thirty minutes tells you whether Avante fits.