Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

Are you aware that Mission Increase Foundation offers free, personal phone consulting services to ministries who attend, in parallel, our free workshops?  This offering is designed to provide customized, real-time counsel, coaching, and encouragement to help ministries implement Transformational Giving (TG) concepts into their development programs – and gain valuable skills and knowledge in the process!

Most people – in the nonprofit sector or not - are amazed at this unique offering.  What stumps me is that prompting some ministries to schedule these free consulting calls can feel just like pulling teeth!

Frequently ministries cite they are too busy to allocate one hour of time – every other month – to a consulting call.  Day-to-day tasks loom large, I know, but ministries are often unable to see the forest for the trees.  MIF consulting calls pull organizations up and from the lengthy To Do lists so they might focus instead on long-term strategy and ‘the bigger picture’.   These calls also provide accountability for ministry leaders – to get things done or consider doing things differently.

I was thinking about this fact the other day as I leafed through a ‘Pullout Supplement’ (code language: advertising) in the October 7 edition of The Chronicle of Philanthropy.   

A short article titled ‘As the Consulting Field Expands, Nonprofits Face a Wealth of Options’ prompted me to reflect – and ask some questions below - on facts about the sector and the trend towards consulting services:

• Nonprofit consulting firms are experiencing a boom in 2010 as charity leaders need urgent help securing more funding and managing smaller staffs.

Does your ministry need urgent help securing more funding?  Do you need help getting more done today with a smaller staff than ever before?  Do you engage and inspire volunteers to do the ministry work alongside you?  Do you interact with staff, volunteers, givers, and clients in a way that glorifies the Lord and yields fruit for His Kingdom?

• Nonprofit consulting has seen ‘a huge boom in demand for their services over the past decade, in part because of the accompanying boom in new nonprofit organizations – and increasing pressure from donors, government, and the public to show results in exchange for support.’

Do you feel pressure from donors, the public, and/or the government to show impact in exchange for support?  Are you building in-house expertise that differentiates you from the thousands (yes) of non-profits in your community?  Do you effectively communicate about your cause, your mission, and the future of your cause?  Are you training your board and volunteers to do this?

• The average consulting contract for groups like CompassPoint ranges from $10,000 to $40,000 and is higher for some of the for-profit corporate-management firms.’

Given the bad economy, do you have this kind of funding available to outsource project work?

Action Required: Regardless of how you answered these questions, we at MIF urge you to schedule a free phone consultation with your MIF Giving and Training Officer after every workshop.  While our hope is that the coaching sessions will lend to implementation of TG workshop concepts, calls may focus on other pressing ministry needs and issues as well.

Our desire is for you to build in-house skills to grow your ministry and equip volunteer champions to do ministry work alongside you - so you don’t have to pay the big bucks to nonprofit consultants to do the work instead.  And, don’t forget, there is always time to pray with you during a call as sometimes that may be the biggest need or support of all.