Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

If your board is challenging you to expand your ministry’s grant writing efforts, take two and a half minutes to view this Chronicle of Philanthropy video of grant makers speaking to some of the common mistakes made by grant applicants.

The insights shared in the video emphasize the reality that the work you do before you start writing grants is actually more important than the proposal itself. Yes, the process of creating a qualified short list of funders is vital. But even before you begin the grant seeking process, ask yourself this all-important question: Does my ministry have a fundable project?

Grant makers are interested in funding initiatives that have a likelihood of long-term success and impact! Here are some questions to help you test if your project is fundable:

1. Does it advance your ministry’s core mission? Too many organizations ‘chase dollars’ by creating programs that lack alignment with their mission. This is called ‘mission drift’ and funders will have little interest in supporting such projects.
2. Is there appropriate support from your board and staff for the proposed program? “Go for it, if you can find the money” doesn’t constitute appropriate support, by the way.
3. Do you have the staffing and expertise to complete the project?
4. Are you able to demonstrate a reasonable plan to sustain the project after the grant money is gone?
5. Is your project substantively different from other similar projects/programs in the community? If so, what niche will it fill?
6. Have you explored opportunities for collaboration with other agencies doing similar work in your community? Collaboration on projects sends a sends a strong, positive message to grant makers, according to this Chronicle of Philanthropy article.
7. When do you need the money? If the answer is now or in the next couple of months, grant writing is not your best source. Given grant deadlines and foundation board schedules, assume it will take 9-12 months for a foundation decision, and perhaps longer until the grant check is cut.

Your ministry is most likely to receive foundation grants when you develop fundable programs. Big ideas can breed new programs and initiatives, but they also need to have the likelihood of success and measurable impact.

If you’ve learned from past grant seeking mistakes, feel free to post your comments or learnings.

As we come to the end of the workshop series on Strategic Planning, I was moved by the number of people that talked about the personal application of strategic planning and how the workshop material prompted them to reflect on their personal lack of vision and planning.

Not to be too hard on them, as I can’t say I have a personal vision statement or detailed plan myself. But I was glad to see them make this connection and get excited about developing their own personal or family vision and a specific plan to move them toward that vision.

What is your vision for your family? Have you stopped to ask the Lord to give you His vision for you and your loved ones? Setting the time aside to be in prayer about this and waiting on the Lord is a key factor in discerning where the Lord is wanting to take you. And not just one time, but multiple times over the course of several days or weeks.

Proverbs tells us in 3:5-6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heat and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." A familiar verse that tells us to seek God for the direction of our lives and he will [direct our path]. Don’t we really want God’s plan for our lives, regardless of what that might look like? I trust that you do.

I can envision a big Christmas tree in a room full of relatives enjoying each other’s company and conversation, laughing together, sharing the gift of Christ and our gifts to each other, and grandkids running around with excitement. And of course a big table full of delicious holiday foods lovingly prepared by all. What I really want at the end of my life is a family who loves the Lord and loves each other.

So, close your eyes and lean back and picture that place where God is calling your family. Might it be running a local ministry, a family business, on the mission field in a foreign land, a family who is excited about being together or . . . ? Allow God to fill in the blank and watch Him work in amazing ways to bring you to that special place.

Greetings! For my next several posts I've asked various ministry leaders to blog about their experience connected with the Mission Increase Foundation (MIF). I talk about MIF all the time so I thought you might be interested to hear the perspective of others. One note... It is important that you understand that these posts are not about the specific work of MIF, but are about the specific work of God through MIF. Big difference in my mind because it's always about Him! We're just glad to be along for the ride!

This post is from Gordon West, President of Kidz-At-Heart, International. Take it away, Gordon...!

KidZ At Heart International began in 2003 as an independent missions agency. Like others who have posted their stories on MIF’s blog, my wife and I were faced with the sudden, life-changing transition from being employees with a “secure” paycheck to CEO’s living life as faith-based missionaries, counting on God and the gifts of generous givers to pay the bills!

In our case, we had been associates on several pastoral staffs over two decades. As a children’s pastor, I was well aware of budgets, missions offerings, various non-profits the church supported, and the necessity of the offering being “good” this week, but I never had to deal with what made all of that work.

Until now.

Our unique mission, equipping people to reach and teach kids for Christ within their own culture, provided few role models as we formed the organization. In many ways, we felt we had to discover every facet on our own, but none so much as in the area of fundraising. Even as our board and staff grew in numbers, we discovered that our team was “shooting in the dark” when it came to funding the vision. We attended conferences, tried a variety of approaches, even spent some much-needed dollars on a consultant, but it was as though we were twisting in the wind expending time and resources on this idea but with few tangible results.

Then I heard about a group in Southern California that offered free training in effective fundraising methods. Just as I decided to commit one day each month to commute from Phoenix, I got an invitation from Jonathan Roe to join the newly established MIF group in Phoenix. We rejoiced and recognized this as a much-needed gift from God. (Later, we even discovered that the majority of our staff members in our virtual office live in three of the eight Mission Increase cities! We get to (virtually) attend training as a team!)

After attending MIF workshops for the past several years, we now have a confidence (most of the time!) about fundraising and, therefore, our future. Members of both our board and staff have grown significantly in their belief about our organization’s ability to secure the funds required. Most have increased both their personal giving habits and their direct involvement in the fundraising process.

Perhaps the two biggest discoveries for us in the past few years have been these. First, God has provided clear principles that guide us in fundraising. In fact, biblical fundraising is truly not much different than the principles of evangelism and discipleship that our team of pastors already understood and applied to just about every other area of ministry! This philosophy fits our team.

Second, fundraising is much more fun and creative than the “one-size-fits-all” plan we had been searching for! Of course, we still have miles to go in applying and mastering principles we’ve learned at workshops shared months ago, but we’ve gained more freedom to be “us” even as we’ve seen God bless the ministry while we’re in the learning process:

• We’ve gained tools for reconnecting with lapsed donors and a few have returned!
• We’ve held two benefit desserts and seen many new faces who now share the cause!
• We’ve seen generous givers become major donors, and major donors give even more!
• In this time of economic downturn in the past few years, our staff team has more than tripled and we’ve been able to double our ministry budget. (New leaders have joined the KidZ cause as faith-based staffers, because they know we have tools and skills to assist them as they raise their own financial support.)
• And so much more!

Thank you, God, for Mission Increase and for all you have done in our midst! What we have learned and experienced over the past few years has proven Hudson Taylor right when he said: “God’s work, done God’s way, will never lack God’s supply.”

I’ve been noodling on some thoughts shared in this blog posting from Dan Busby, President of the Evangelical Council For Financial Accountability (ECFA).  Given that his topic of discernment is also a key element of the May strategic planning workshop offered by Mission Increase Foundation , I found Busby’s insights on spiritual discernment to be timely.

Among other authors, Busby quotes Ruth Haley Barton, author of Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, who writes:

‘Discernment presents unique challenges in contemporary Western culture, because it requires us to move beyond our reliance on cognition and intellectual hard work to a place of deep listening and response to the Spirit of God within us and among us.’

He also quotes R.C. Sproul, author of The Lost Art of Discernment, who writes:

‘Discernment involves thinking in a specifically Christian way about each issue. At the same time, our hearts have to be engaged in devotion to Christ. Then, and only then, will we find ourselves in tune with the mind of God and be able to make good judgments and appraisals, because to the believer is promised the presence of the Holy Spirit.’

Do you find yourself wondering – as I do – about moving ‘beyond our reliance on cognition and intellectual hard work’ and ‘thinking in a specifically Christian way about each issue,’ when it comes to discernment??   As Busby points out, we as leaders of Christ-centered organizations have so many decisions to make in our ever-changing environments and yet we often fail to consider spiritual discernment as we make ministry decisions, large and small.

This is why I’m particularly excited about MIF’s approach to strategic planning, including how to discern God’s vision for your ministry.  Did you catch that?  God birthed our ministries and therefore we should look to Him to understand His plan for our ministry – and to regularly affirm that we are on the right path to achieving that plan. 

·    Imagine asking your strategic planning group members to kick off the planning process with a two week ‘challenge’ to pray, fast, and reflect in writing on God’s plans for your ministry? 

·     Imagine that this ‘challenge’, with a six person team, would yield 21 hours of prayer (15 minutes daily for two weeks), 12 days of fasting (one day per week for two weeks), and 12 pages of written reflection (one page per person per week).  How do you think such spiritual discernment might impact the strategic planning process?

‘Wow, this is radical!’ said one workshop attendee, in wide-eyed amazement, as she considered this approach.  Her fellow attendees were nodding their heads in agreement.  ‘But this is the approach of countless people in the Bible who carried out God’s plans,’ she said in her next breath.  The room grew quiet as we paused to consider this statement.

As Busby concludes, he reminds us that the Bible calls ministry leaders to regularly pursue discernment.   Are you practicing spiritual discernment in your ministry decision-making?  What about your co-leaders?  If not, there’s still time to attend a Mission Increase strategic planning workshop this month to learn more. 

I was reading a recent blog by Al Mohler called “Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: David Brooks and the Limits of Sociology.”  It’s a fascinating look at what differentiates a growing church from a declining one and a stronger faith from from a weaker one.  

A particularly interesting reference is a book by Dean M. Kelley called “Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion.” Kelley found that churches that were growing most were the ones who made serious demands on their members in terms of both belief and behavior.  This is contrary to how churches thought (and many still think!) about how to “succeed.”  

Churches sought to be viewed in a positive light, maintain “a good image in the world,” and draw people in. They believed they needed to “be reasonable, rational, courteous, responsible, restrained, and receptive to the outside criticism.”   What Kelley found though, was that this strategy is “a recipe for the failure of the religious enterprise, and arises from a mistaken view of what success in religion is and how it should be fostered and measured.”

Another more recent look at this phenomena was by David Brooks who said that rigorous theology “provides believers with a map of reality,” “allows believers to examine the world intellectually as well as emotionally,” “helps people avoid mindless conformity,“ and “delves into mysteries in ways that are beyond most of us.”

All this runs contrary to how we think, which is: if we make things easier and more flexible more people will be jump on board; if we make things harder and more stringent people will be less likely to participate and engage.

Here’s our wake-up call - this is not so!

Why does this matter?  Because we need to ask ourselves, how are WE, ministries and extensions of the church, interacting with people to transform them by and through their involvement in our cause?

Are we afraid to make rigorous demands on those who join up, be it through giving or volunteering, because we think they’ll turn away as fast as they came?  Do we fear we’ll turn people off, or offend, or be seen as intrusive if we suggest a mutual commitment to learning, experiencing and knowing the cause at a level that can’t help but change our heart, mind and soul? 

Truth is, you WILL scare some people off by doing these things, but those are people who don’t like to stick around long anyway!  As an arm of the church, it isn’t about just getting the gift, or that one-time volunteer when you’re in a pickle, it’s about calling Christians to put away their old self and put on their new man; calling our champions to look outward, putting the interests of others first.  It’s about training Christians to ultimately own a cause that is central to God’s purposes as outlined in scripture.

This kind of spiritual maturity and growth of the body doesn’t come without a struggle!  But, oh is it worth it!  If we really start to think about how to develop hard-core champions who will fight for the cause, own the cause, and grow in their faith walk through the cause, then we will stop fearing that we are a “burden” to our champions and approach the rigors of learning and transformation in a way that, well, actually transforms someone.