The Big(ger) Plan: Big Plan Holdings Expands Reach In 2023, Diversifying Nashville As A Global Cosmopolitan De...

Photo Credit: Britt Hart Photography

Haute Living: Tell our readers what’s in store for Big Plan Holdings (BPH) in 2023?

Tara Joseph: In 2023, our goal is to build out our brand and our culture. We are a small, unique business that’s running a very large company and we will continue to build that out.

We have a variety of investments that we’ve made over the last couple of years in different verticals within the Big Plan Holdings (BPH) family office and we are planning for some of those to come to maturity and for them to start to evolve into other opportunities.

We have new philanthropic events on the way, also, We are going to build out our “Cannabis Live Chats” and educate people across the cannabis industry in the process. Just recently, we were awarded a new cannabis license in the state of New Jersey. So, we’re very excited about that! We also plan to open a few bars in downtown Nashville, which we will keep your readers in the loop about.

Sydni Joseph: We are continuing to expand the Big Plan Holdings network well beyond Nashville’s borders. We are traveling extensively in 2023, and while on the road to destinations like New York City and Los Angeles, we are looking to make new connections to add to those which we have established in Nashville and Chicago.

We are also looking to expand overseas. We’re headed to London at some point this year as well, for our music publishing business, Edgehill Music Publishing.

This is an important part of expanding our brand and continuing to find potential partners and spreading awareness about BPH and its initiatives; we’ll do that as much as we possibly can this year.

Sophie Joseph: The Joseph Family Foundation is the philanthropic wing of Big Plan Holdings. In 2023, its main goal is to continue to be a force for change and for good in the arenas of Education, Living Aid (those seeking housing opportunities), Health and Wellness, and working in the sphere of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

In October of 2022, we held our 2^nd Annual Kiss Breast Cancer Goodbye Benefit Concert in which we raised funds alongside superstar country music sensations for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. On January 27th we held a Casino Night in Nashville, Tennessee benefiting the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) as we raised awareness about climate displacement and climate migration. These are just two of the many programs we run through our philanthropic arm.

Haute Living: You mentioned Edgehill Music Publishing. You recently opened a new studio to great fanfare. What are the next steps for Edgehill in 2023?

Tara: Our next step is to continue to build out our roster at Edgehill Music Publishing.

Right now, our biggest goal is to start bringing in more women; preferably, a woman producer in the music space, because we are pretty man-heavy right now!

We’re open as far as genres go, but what we’ve been trying to work on specifically is bridging the gap so that all genres – not just country music – are accepted.

Nashville is primarily associated with its country music scene, of course. Edgehill can bridge the gap for other genres such as R&B, hip hop, and pop. These artists usually go to Atlanta and Los Angeles. When they come to Nashville, they don’t have very much room as far as creativity goes, because they feel like they’re going into a space that’s very specific and selective toward country music.

Our goal is to continue to bridge that gap so aspiring artists and the public know that Nashville has a plethora of very talented people, across all genres of music.

Haute Living: Can you tell us a little bit about the American Paint experience and what that entails in 2023?

Sydni Joseph: American Paint is our hat customization company housed in Nashville, Tennessee. Our focus there, in part, is on private events and private pop-up experiences.

We’re able to tailor to parties as small as five to eight, all the way up to the one that we hosted in mid-January with close to 200 people. We provide every guest with a one-of-a-kind experience, designing and customizing their hat from start to finish with our esteemed designers.

Jennifer Wayne, who happens to be John Wayne’s granddaughter, and Tyler Minor, who is a successful celebrity designer and stylist in Nashville, are both partners on our team. They work alongside one of our lead hat designers, Eddie, and together, they’re just incredible.

In 2023, we are bringing the event experience to the forefront. We’re also allowing people to book private appointments if they want that one-on-one guaranteed time with designers to have that personal design experience with American Paint.

This year with American Paint, we are also focusing on attracting more of the male demographic. Right now, we see a very large presence of females who brand affiliate, which is amazing, but hats are unisex. So, we’re trying to find the right approach to make sure that men feel comfortable and that it’s a safe space for them to design and create in addition to the women in their lives.

Haute Living: BPH has an affiliation with Milk & Honey. How did that partnership come about and what does it entail?

Joshua Joseph:  BPH has been involved previously in partnering with a couple of former NFL players in the cannabis sector with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in mind. That attracted us to focus on professional sports from a branding, marketing, and investment standpoint.

We started exploring a possible alignment with a professional NFL agency several months back, which is on the back burner for the moment, but this opportunity with Milk & Honey, the launch of Milk & Honey Baseball headquartered out of Nashville, presented itself and we felt that it’s a great opportunity for us to invest.

We’re the only investor group in Milk & Honey Baseball and this will continue to bring us to the nexus where cannabis, sports, music, and entertainment intersect. We felt it was a perfect fit and a perfect partnership. They’re also in the music and entertainment space like we are, so there’s a very nice alignment from that perspective.

At this juncture, a handful of professional baseball players have been signed and we’re looking to build this out in a big way.

Tara Joseph: There are a lot of crossover interests between the sports industry and the music industry, whether it is ballplayers marrying musicians or concerts at venues like Fenway and Wrigley Field. This gives us the chance to work with both and bring them together.

Haute Living: Also on the philanthropic side, can you please tell us about The Amulet Society, its steer, and what you’re looking forward to in 2023…?

Tara: Our goal is always to address the question ‘how can we bring women from all facets of life together’?

The Amulet Society strives to empower women, make them feel comfortable, and give them a safe space. We want every woman to feel like they have a sisterhood.

Right now, we have about four events planned in the Nashville area coming up. We have a theme for each of them and women can come out and just get to know each other.

From there, we hope those women continue to build relationships with each other. Because the whole goal is to get women together, support each other, and find out how coming together and networking can evolve.

On top of it, we hope mentorships develop for the younger women. We want to give them the chance to meet with many people from various industries.

The Amulet Society is also a vehicle for philanthropy and service projects.

Ultimately, we want those relationships to continue. If we can make a difference in a few women’s lives and help them to make and build new friendships, then we’ve made a big difference.

Haute Living: Big Plan Holdings oversees such a diverse portfolio from American Paint to its investments in Milk & Honey Baseball. Are there commonalities that speak to the brand? What are the key themes that you think resonate?

Tara: The common theme is that we’re a very give-back-oriented family. What fills us with joy is being able to give ourselves and put ourselves in situations where we can help others.

Whether this means investing in something, a project or someone, not just monetarily, but being able to project ourselves out there and be able to give our team to whatever that investment is, to be able to help facilitate growth – that is a mission that resonates business to business under the BPH umbrella.

If you look at our publishing company, we’re clearly investing in people. We ask ourselves, ‘…how can we help facilitate, grow, and watch different artists grow their respective careers’?

If you look at our philanthropic side, The Joseph Family Foundation, it’s the same concept. How can we be able to invest ourselves in different organizations to be impactful? If you look at the Amulet Society, it’s about women coming together.

It’s the same with our ventures in the cannabis industry, another resonant facet – empowerment and upliftment in the name of social equity. How can we create a safe space for minorities and women to come into the cannabis industry, for example, where they never felt like they had a space to invest before?

Josh Joseph: On the investment side, you still have to make money. While investments can be well-thought-out and well-curated to help people without question, maintaining and growing bottom-line profit is still paramount.

The different businesses that we’re involved with and the different private investments that we put together are not stocks and bonds. They’re investments that folks can make based on relationships that we have had for many years, new relationships we have, and heavily curated opportunities that fall into several different categories.

Those categories are real estate, cannabis, music and entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, and hospitality. They’re now professional sports, as well.

So again, though heavily curated, they’re investment opportunities that are diversified yet come together in some sort of way, shape, and form, and crossover in relationships at very high levels that we have been able to be very fortunate to put together in our world.

We then provide those opportunities as diversified investments, alternative investments, to people that are close to us.

Our network is continuing to grow over the many years of doing business and we’ve been able to provide opportunities to a whole bunch of folks. We’ll continue to do so in 2023.

Sydni Joseph: I think one cool differentiating piece of Big Plan Holdings is that it’s not focused on stocks or bonds – It’s more alternative. We do projects and pick up opportunities and get involved in investments that we are all collectively passionate about.

With those categories and industries that we’re involved in, I believe that we’ve found our stride in things that pique our interest and the people in our network we can lean on for certain things and who can lean on us for certain things. Having it be more passion-driven and interest-driven is unique to Big Plan Holdings and allows us to put our best foot forward and make strategic investments that will, not only be good for the business and be good for our network of people but also keep us tuned in and keeps us learning every day.

We are fortunate in that sense – Especially with so much of our team made up of younger people, fresh out of college, or, in their early to mid-30s, and I feel like there’s a lot of room for growth and a lot of room for people to continue to seek out unique opportunities that interest them and bring them to the table.

Because there’s not one set line of criteria; it’s kind of more, ‘if you are interested and you could see this being strategic for the business and the people around us, which could be cool to introduce to those in our circle, let’s dive in and let’s explore it and see if it’s a good fit’.

Written in partnership with Big Plan Holdings.