Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

At Mission Increase Foundation, we advocate a model of ministry in which the nonprofit invites and coaches people to do the ministry.  Not give money to and offer prayers on behalf of the nonprofit so they can do it, but to do it themselves.   

This model can be very appealing, as nonprofit leaders dream of equipping Owners to bring ever increasing numbers of people from their spheres of influence to participate with the cause. 

This is indeed the goal, but we shouldn't kid ourselves about the work required to attain it, and once attained, to maintain it.  And we need to reckon from the beginning that our champions will make mistakes, and will need to be encouraged, challenged, inspired and coached at all stages of the process.

When I worked at a large rescue mission years ago, one of the transformational activities we engaged in was mobilizing bands of volunteers to share a Thanksgiving meal with homeless people, in the places that homeless people normally ate their meals.  So this included at the mission, but also the streets outside the mission, parks, single room occupancy hotels, other nonprofits, meeting halls, etc.—just about any place that would have us in the Skid Row section of downtown.

As you can imagine, this was a massive logistical undertaking, as we served more than 10,000 meals in a single day, in a dozen different locations.  We needed the volunteers to take ownership, as there was no way for the staff to do the work.  We were stretched to our limits even overseeing what the volunteers were doing.

As a fundraiser, I was excited because one of the volunteer groups I arranged was a group of donors who I had worked with to raise more than $10,000 for the event.  I expected 20 volunteers, so I assigned them to serve dinners at a nearby nonprofit with a small dining facility, where they would serve around 150 homeless people.

But on the day of the event, nothing with this group went according to plan.  Rather than 20 volunteers, they rented a bus and brought 50 instead.  And rather than 150 homeless people we expected, only 60 showed up at the location.  Worse still, the food was 90 minutes late.  My anxiety was not relieved by the fact that everything at the other 11 locations was going swimmingly.  “My” volunteer group kept calling me every five minutes on my cell phone demanding to know what I was doing to solve their problems.  They were upset—really, really upset-- and couldn’t seem to grasp the enormity of the challenge we were collectively addressing (successfully) that day.  They could only see the hungry people at their location, and the volunteers they’d brought along who didn’t feel like they were given enough to do.

In hindsight, I failed them in a few ways.

First, I did not calibrate their expectations appropriately.  The reality of inner-city ministry is that things go haywire from time to time.  In fact, haywire is pretty much the normal state of affairs, and patience, flexibility, a sense of adventure and creative problem-solving are highly-prized attributes for those who engage in inner-city ministry.  Everything running smoothly and without a hitch is the goal, but one very rarely achieved.  These were successful, wealthy people who lived in a world where the trains always ran on time, and I hadn’t oriented them to what they were getting into.

Also, I should have communicated ahead of time the potential consequences of bringing too many volunteers.  In their exuberance, they recruited too many, and it spoiled their experience.  They felt entitled in part because our communication had, to that point, been almost entirely transactional.  They raised $10,000 for the event, so they believed that, in exchange, they could bring as many volunteers as they wanted, and that we would stop everything to accommodate them once they arrived.  I don’t blame them entirely for this attitude, because it’s one we, as a traditional, transactional development department, created and reinforced in a thousand little ways in our communications and fundraising appeals.

And finally, I expected too much of them in believing that they could see their participation as part of a greater movement.  I should have understood that what was important to them as participants was not the great things the mission was accomplishing all across Skid Row that day.  They didn’t care about the 9,040 homeless people that were being served at the other 11 locations.  They cared about the people in the room they were in, their particular experience as participants.

Unfortunately, there is no Hollywood ending to this story.  I apologized and tried to encourage them, but they were upset and left believing they had been failed by our organization. And, despite my best efforts, they didn't return.

The opportunity for all of us is to take stock of what it will really mean for our organizations to transition into the kinds of organizations that mobilizes people into action.