CCCC is in the midst of a major strategic review.  If you’d like to interact with us as the review progresses, please visit the Strategic Review Engagement website.  I want to open source the strategic review by having as many non-board, non-staff people engage with us as possible.  In this blog, I am writing about how to do a strategic review.  On the engagement website, I am posting in real-time about how we did it at CCCC as a way of helping you see how to apply these suggestions.  That website also has the results of our strategic review, and I am most interested in any comments you would like to make about them.

Strategic Statements

Here are a few considerations for developing the three major strategic statements I’ve previously described (values, mission, vision) and some suggestions for how you can discern them in a God-honouring way that is faithful to your Christian identity.  Our draft strategic statements are available on the Strategic Review Engagement website.

Values

Values should be assessed on two levels.  First there are the biblical values that should be present in every Christian ministry and then there are the other values held by the people called to serve together in one particular ministry.

As an example of biblical values that might apply to your ministry, in The Church At Work I developed four biblical values related to relationships between ministries (the book’s subject):

• Love – In John 13:34-35 Jesus commanded his followers to love one another and Paul affirms it in Romans 12:10;
• Order – From Genesis to Revelation, we see that God is a God of order, not confusion.  Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians 14:40 and 12:16 is that “Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way….Live in harmony with one another;”
• Unity – Our God is one, and he is Lord of all.  Christ is not divided and neither should his church be divided (Ephesians 4:4-6 and 1 Corinthians 1:13); and
• Voluntary mutual submission – We see voluntary mutual submission modeled in the life of Jesus (who made himself a servant to his own followers) and made explicit by Paul (John 13:5-10 and Ephesians 5:21).

These values suggest a strategy of collaboration, consultation, and coordination with other ministries.  Your Bible study could lead to a different set of values that are significant to your ministry.  All biblical values apply to your ministry, but some are especially significant to your ministry’s work and should become your organizational values.  Whatever you do, don’t try to make every value an organizational value or you’ll just have a list of platitudes.  Every ministry is expected to be honest, so unless lack of honesty has been a problem for your ministry, don’t include it.

Values can also be developed by asking people associated with your ministry (past and present) what they think the corporate values are.  You might ask staff what would cause them to raise or lower their pride in being associated with your ministry as a way of discovering the ministry’s key values.  Here’s how I’ve asked about our CCCC values in the current survey:

We believe that before God has called CCCC to do something, he has called us first to be a Christian ministry. How we do our work is arguably more important in God’s eyes than the actual work we do. So before we get to God’s purpose for CCCC, we’re going to explore the Christian values that we live by.  As an example, I believe that we must demonstrate just as much care for the smallest ministry as we do for the largest.  Jesus paid attention to everyone, and so must we.

This is one question, but I will ask it several different ways to help you think about values from different angles:

- What values or aspects of CCCC would you NOT be willing to sacrifice for the sake of our mission and identity?

- What would you not give up regardless of what changes in society?

- What would you not give up even if we were penalized for holding those values, or were put at a disadvantage because of them?

- Which corporate values would you keep even if they produced no tangible benefit for CCCC?

 Here’s how we developed our values for CCCC in the current strategic review.

God’s Call

The starting place for discerning God’s purpose for your ministry is to ask how people came to be associated with your ministry, since God calls people, not organizations.  Ask them how your ministry fits their own personal call to ministry and their answers will provide clues to God’s intentions for the ministry.  This information provides insight and context as you develop the strategic statements.

But be careful how you ask about a personal call because not everyone has had that experience.  You don’t want them to feel devalued or second-class.   They are faithfully serving the Lord as much as someone who has experienced a specific call. Here’s how I asked it in the survey given to staff, directors and corporate members:

For most people, their association with CCCC began because they felt they had gifts to contribute to a Christian ministry that they cared about.  Some may have felt that their association fit well with a pre-existing call of God on their lives, or a call that was discerned when they discovered CCCC.  If you have a story to tell related to a sense of personal call to the ministry of CCCC, please share it.

I asked this question of the four senior leaders: myself (CEO since 2003), my predecessor Frank Luellau (the first employee and executive director from 1983 - 2003), Ken Dick, board chair from 1978 – 1985 (when it was mostly a working board), and our founder Ian Stanley (board chair 1972 – 1978).  I also asked all current staff, board and corporate members, and as many former board members as I could locate.

Here’s how we developed our  Statement of Call.

Mission

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Vision or mission?  Normally we expect to start with a goal (the vision) and then develop the mission that is the means of achieving the goal.  But when God calls people in the Bible, he calls them either to do a task (Paul to proclaim Christ to the gentiles – Acts 9:15) or to fulfill a role (eg. Jeremiah as a prophet Jer 1:5).  I can’t think of anyone called to fulfill a vision.

In practice, developing your mission and vision statements will likely be an iterative process.  You’ll start with mission and from that develop a vision for the future that will result.  But doing that future thinking will likely help you refine your mission.  Don’t get hung up on the order – just get it done!

I asked the mission question this way in our survey:

Here we get to the heart of what we are to do. To fulfill God’s vision and purpose for CCCC, what is our specific mission?  The following questions (from What to Ask the Person in the Mirror) will help us discern our mission:

- Why do you work or volunteer with CCCC? When you could invest your time elsewhere, why do you invest it here? What do you love about CCCC?

- What would you like to tell your grandchildren or extended family about why you served at CCCC for such a long period of your life?

- What would you like CCCC to look like in ten years? What would you hope to say that it accomplished?

- What are the distinctive competencies of CCCC? What would the world lose if it did not exist?

- Do you think God had any specific intentions for how we would operate, or any conditions that he has set as boundaries? If so, please let us know what you think they are.

- We would like to know what your hopes and dreams are for the future of CCCC.  What are your aspirations for CCCC? What hopes and dreams do you have for it?

Here’s how we developed the draft mission statement for CCCC.

Vision

A vision statement always propels us towards the ideal.  It does not settle for anything less than the way it should be, in terms of our mission.  It should be aspirational, evocative and highly emotional.  Upon reading it, people should be inspired to join your cause (or at least say “That’s a great mission!”).

The vision needs to align both with whatever Scripture says that relates to your mission and vision, and also to your core values.  It needs to align with the activity of the Holy Spirit in this world.

In our survey, we asked about vision this way:

We believe that the Lord led Ian Stanley and his six friends to found CCCC for God’s own purposes. That means that we exist as part of the Christian ministry community in Canada and that there is some particular way the Lord intends us to help the church fulfill its mission.

Given that we are a support to frontline ministries, can you describe the difference that you think God created us to make?  Another way to think about this is, What is God’s vision for the state of Christian ministries in Canada that we will help him achieve?

What are you seeing that God is up to that affects CCCC?  What shifts or trends do you see in Christian ministry that might affect our strategy?

Again, you can read about how we developed our vision statement.

Written in stone?

While your strategic statements should serve you well for many years at a time, your ministry is a like a living organism that responds to the continuing work and leadership of the Holy Spirit.  Over time, aspects of your mission may be accomplished, so you move on to something else.  Also over time, your staff and board gain more insight into the possibilities for what might be, and the vision could become more detailed or more expansive.  A new or revised vision could cause a review of the mission, and the mission might be redefined, tightened up, or expanded to better fit the vision.

So don’t change your strategic statements every year, but do be willing to change them as circumstances warrant.  Next I’ll get into some other secondary matters related to your strategic statements, such as your Value Proposition and the Key Success Indicators.

The Strategic Statements

Every organization has a core ideology (its vision, mission and values) that is the underpinning for everything that it does.  This ideology is the driving force that inspires and propels the organization forward.  Vision explains why the organization exists (what it wants to accomplish), mission is its overarching strategy for accomplishing the vision, and values are the rules it lives by.

A hypothetical example will show the difference between vision and mission.  Two ministries might have the same vision: Local churches thriving under excellent leadership, but have very different missions because they have different strategies to grow excellent leadership.  One mission might to be provide excellent seminary training while the other ministry might be to provide coaching services or to publish church leadership books.

Three other items should be part of the strategic statement package:  the Tagline, the Value Proposition and the Key Success Indicators.

The tagline is a three to five word phrase that clearly positions your ministry for your audience.  It is what you want to be known for and evokes the first thought or feeling you want people to have when they hear your ministry’s name.

The value proposition:

• defines what you believe your ministry’s contribution to the church’s mission is, and is one of the justifications for your ministry’s existence as a separate entity,
• can be a key component of your fundraising, marketing and recruiting literature, and
• provides focus for strategy development.

The value proposition for a local church might answer the question, “With so many churches in your town, why should there be another one?”  For an independent agency, it could answer the question, “Why not merge with another ministry and save the duplicated overhead costs?”  Perhaps your methodology is different, or you have a denominational distinctive in theology or culture you want to maintain.  Perhaps it is the mix of what you do that is valuable.

People writing about strategy and marketing use the term ‘unique value proposition,’ but I’m not keen on using unique in a ministry environment where every church has the same mission and every other ministry is working on some part of that same mission.  I do, however, think you should be very clear about your ministry’s contribution to the church’s mission.  What makes you stand out from the crowd?

The value proposition needs to be defined before the programs are designed because it should have a key influence in designing your strategic initiatives and programs.

The success indicators:

• provide evidence that your ministry is moving forward with its mission,
• build a compelling case for support for your fundraising program, and
• ensure board and staff stay focused on mission as the priority, and not programs.  (It’s easy to get so wrapped up in programs that the mission they serve becomes just an after-thought.)

The success indicators need to be defined early in the strategic review because they will be used later to assess the effectiveness of your current strategies and programs.  In this regard, be especially careful that success indicators are set based on the strategic statements alone, because only the strategic statements define organizational success. 

You must fight the tendency to define success in terms of your programs. 

Some people have pet strategies and programs they want to ensure will survive the strategic review, and if you give them the opportunity they will craft these statements accordingly!  That would be the tail wagging the dog!  Whether or not a program is successful can only be determined in light of what constitutes organizational success.  (A program could be highly successful on its own and yet not contribute to an organization’s mission success.)

A Christian perspective

The source of a Christian ministry’s core ideology is the revelation of God through Scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible provides the context for all Christian ministry, so you must know it very well.  At least a few senior leaders on your team should have some formal theological education.  Scripture lays out the ideal future that God is leading us towards, the values he wants us to have, and the character traits that should guide us in all our work and relationships.

Some aspects of the ideal kingdom life may have more relevance to your mission than others, just as some values and traits may be more central to your mission than others.  So feel free to highlight those and make them prominent in the life and work of your ministry.  For example, God’s love for all humanity, his concern for the poor, or what he views as proper worship could each have greater significance in a ministry devoted to one of those issues.  Perhaps you have been quite isolationist as a ministry and you want to take special care to be more relational in the future.  Highlight that.

As you go through your strategic planning process, keep asking, “What in Scripture relates to this?  What do we know about God and his work that should inform how we think about this?”  These questions need to permeate every aspect of the strategy review process.

You must pay close attention to the Holy Spirit because he is the one who:

• calls us to a particular part of the mission,
• gives us a vision for what we can accomplish through our part of the mission, and
• guides us as we make decisions so that we can work faithfully as God’s agents.

It is critical that you are willing to be led by the Spirit, and are not just bringing your plans to God for his blessing.  If you don’t give the Spirit time to lead you, all you have is what the human mind can conceive.  I learned years ago that my mind is no match for God’s.  Give God space by practising the Christian disciplines of silence and solitude.  A great book to help you do this is Space for God.

Strategy making in the 4th Dimension

God has a specific purpose for your ministry, and to discern what it is I suggest that you consult with the directors and staff whom God has called to serve in your ministry, not just in the present, but in the past as well.  Churches should also consult with their members.

Why should you pay any attention to people who are no longer active in your ministry?  Because God spoke to them, and their voices must be heard.  I love this quote from G.K. Chesterton in which he talks of a democracy that crosses time and death:

Tradition may be defined as an extension of the [voting] franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils.

While the present board and staff can make strategic changes, they are not free to do so without due respect to the past. Are the old strategies outdated? Has the mission been accomplished? Are there new aspects to the mission that didn’t exist before? By all means, make the necessary changes, but don’t just arbitrarily think that you know better than your predecessors. That would be chronological arrogance!

To fully understand God’s purpose for your ministry today, do a chronological review of the strategic statements to see if there is a trajectory that ties them together. Is there an overarching common vision? Talk with the people who led the ministry over the years (if they are still available to you) or read their plans and other documents.

If there is a trajectory, look carefully at what changed between the versions and look for underlying trends. Perhaps there is movement from crisis intervention (shelters, food banks, etc.) to advocacy for systemic change to prevent poverty in the first place. Maybe your congregation is expanding its view of what church is all about. Most ministries will show some development over the years.  Try extending the trajectory forward to see where your ministry is headed.  Is this where you want to be?

Special attention must be given to the people whom God has placed in senior leadership because they acted in the capacity of stewards of the ministry and its mission, and presumably were placed in the senior leadership role by God for a reason. Each may have contributed to a different understanding of the mission while also adhering to the core ideology.  At this point, keep your focus on the the strategic statements and leave their strategies and programs, which are secondary and tertiary matters, for later.

In part two of this post I will give you specific practices and questions to help you discern your strategic statements.

“Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”  Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.”  And the LORD opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
2 Kings 6:16-17

It should be obvious – traditional strategic planning tools do not allow for kingdom insight.  If those tools are all we use, then we will not see what God wants us to see.  This was the point Jesus made when he challenged his followers:

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.  Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’?  Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.  Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.”
John 4:34-36

The deficiencies of traditional strategic planning

From a Christian perspective, traditional planning tools are out of alignment with the way God works.  A plan for harvesting would have waited four more months, but Jesus, who knows the true situation, says “Look up!!”  His urgent message is that the fields are ripe for harvesting at this very moment!  And while you are waiting for circumstances to dictate the right time to get to work, others are already earning their wages, like – right now!  Get a move on!

What strategic plan would ever have dared lead the Israelites out of Egypt only to corner them against a sea?  What strategic plan would have ever conceived of conquering Jericho as God intended to conquer it?  What strategic plan would have brought salvation to the world through a peasant born in a cave in what most people at the time thought was a backwater, no-account country?

The Bible declares that God is on a mission and is unstoppable as he works to fulfill it.  His strategic options are bounded only by his mission.  Circumstances are acknowledged and then blown away by a God who can do miracles.  As his earthly representatives, as God’s agents in mission, we can do no less than Paul who steadfastly pursued his call and relied on God to work things out however he would.  As I’ve written before, the world would be a different place today if the apostles had tried to write a strategic plan.

I love Paul’s attitude, his fixation on what God had called him to do.  While he’s writing about his personal growth here, I think we should all emulate his attitude when it comes to planning for our ministries:

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14

The primacy of our call

Traditional planning tools can be helpful, but they should not be the primary drivers of Christian ministry strategy.  While a business may look at its strengths and its environment, and decide to enter a new line of business that presents more opportunity and a greater financial return, a Christian ministry has a fixed mission that it cannot change until it has been accomplished.  Ministries can take account of their strengths and environments, but they don’t change their mission because of them.  Which comes first – the  limitations or the mission?  The mission, of course!

God has called churches to the full mission of the church and he has called specialized ministries to particular parts of the church’s mission.  A ministry does not have the freedom to do anything that circumstances allow, it must work on its assigned mission.  We are not free to say, as a business can, “What can we do with our people, our experience and our resources?”  We might clarify the mission from time to time and find fresh ways to state it, but the underlying mission remains the same.

At CCCC, our strength is in our staff and if we look at opportunities and strengths we might discover that we could do more good by serving the poor and funding it with grants.  Maybe there’s a lot of government funding for that activity.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that as worthy as that cause would be, it’s not the cause God has called us to.  We have been called to serve the church in Canada by providing our expertise to churches and agencies.

A ministry’s strategic planning is not based on leveraging assets but on solving a problem.  The problem is that people need to know God and experience his love.  How do we bring people to Christ?  How do we create more justice in the world?  These are problems that Christian ministries are called to solve.  The appropriate strategic planning model for Christian ministry is the same model used by many relief and development ministries, the theory of change/logic model.

A suggested strategic planning process for Christian ministries

I mentioned in a previous post, Is your ministry near its “Best before” date?, that CCCC is beginning a comprehensive strategic review.  I’ll be blogging that experience in real time, so as we complete major sections I’ll be reporting what we’ve done so you can see what I think a good Christian strategic planning process should look like.  The major structure will be:

• A group discernment process to be clear on what we understand God’s call to CCCC to be.  The output will be a set of strategic statements.
• The mission statement (or End statement in Carver policy governance terms) can be considered the statement of the problem that CCCC has been called to solve.
• A theory of change will be developed which makes explicit what we believe about how we can solve the problem.  For example, our implied theory of change to-date is that most of the problem can be fixed by education and awareness, which is why we have the conference, the Bulletin, regional seminars and so on.  Is that a valid theory of change?  The strategic review will probe that question.
• Once you have a theory of change, then you can build a logic model to show what you are going to do to solve the problem, what you need in order to do that, what you expect to happen as a result of your work and then what you think the consequences will be further down the road (hopefully the problem is solved!).
• Once you have the logic model you can develop the strategic initiatives that will ultimately be incorporated into your annual action plans.
• Next you can address the business model that will deliver on your plans.  This includes organizational structure, revenue model, and other operational aspects of making the core ministry happen.
• Lastly, you compare what you have designed for the future with what you have today.  You check to see if the organization is ready to move forward as is, or if some changes need to be made to align today’s organization with the one that will take you into the future.

Where do the traditional planning tools fit in?  The environmental scan can be helpful in gaining understanding of the problem and ensuring that the theory of change is comprehensive.  It can also help with the development of the strategic initiatives.   But all of this is only in a supporting role.

The scan may say the problem solving task will be more or less difficult, but it shouldn’t change the task itself.  It will likely surface a list of things you should be praying about and asking God to intervene in the situation on your behalf.

The SWOT analysis can be helpful at two places: 1) the SW part (strengths/weaknesses) is useful when you are checking organizational readiness and the OT part (Opportunities/Threats) is helpful when developing the strategic initiatives.

Remember though, that God works through our weaknesses and God is our defender, so weaknesses and threats should not be deterrents!

Be wise

Jesus did commend people who used their brains and the best of human wisdom (for example, the unrighteous steward in Luke 16) and he challenged his followers to do for him what they would do for themselves (eg., think ahead and count the cost before following him just as they would when building a tower or going to war – Luke 14:27-33) , so we shouldn’t be derelict and switch off our minds when planning for our ministries.

But if you reduce your plans to what you think you can do with human wisdom and strength, you’ve left no room for God to do what only he can do, and I suspect that when you can do it yourself, God lets you do it yourself!  But if you want to partner with God, then make a plan big enough that God has room to manoeuvre and do his thing.

I think this is a rather contrarian view of strategic planning, although there is support for it in the literature, so it may have challenged you.  I invite you to interact with this post in the comments.

I’ll make my case with these observations:

• In sales training, you learn to make two sales.  The first sale is to convince the prospect they need what you are selling.  Once convinced, then you sell them on why they should buy your specific offering.  A lot of fundraising appeals only deal with the first ‘sale’.  We say “People are starving, people are lost without Christ, and we’re there to make a difference! There is a great NEED and you can HELP!”  We might even show pictures of those poor, suffering people.  That might be enough to induce some ‘guilt’ donations, but this strategy alone will not get you where you want to go.  It only raises awareness of the issue.  Yes, you must build awareness, and yes, pictures help to tell a story, but don’t be content with just that for your fundraising strategy.
• A basic attempt at the second sale is to impress people in some way about your ministry, such as how many meals you served or how many people made decisions for Christ (“One hundred and forty-two billion people converted”).  This is the McDonald’s or statistical approach, and it at least shows that your ministry is busy.  A reputational approach distinguishes yourself based on longevity (“Since 1285 we’ve been…”) or size (“The solar system’s largest…”).  These approaches can work well enough because many people are too lazy to make their own decisions, and so rely on the crowd to make a decision for them.  Their assumption is, if you are that old or that big or did that much, then obviously others must think you are worthy of support and that’s good enough for them.  But is this the best we can do?  I don’t think so.  It’s fine to have some pride in the size and history of your ministry, and I throw around statistics too, but I think the case for support needs to go beyond all that.
• A more sophisticated approach is the business approach (which is all the current rage).  Fundraising appeals talk about cost effectiveness (“130% of your donation goes to good works because we found a way to make money on our overhead!”), leverage (“For every dollar you give, the government will add another one hundred and thirty-three…”), efficiency (“We can innoculate 8,531 people per hour at our one doctor clinic”), and return on investment (“For every dollar you invest, 300 people will…”).  Measurements such as these are fine, and they are useful to a degree, but I question how applicable they are as the final selection criteria between ministries, especially those that are focused on evangelism and individual change.  I know you can measure pretty well anything, but how do you account for seeds that are planted in a student one year by a Christian worker at a university, and the marketplace ministry that ultimately leads the graduate to the Lord ten years later on?  Is one more worthy of support because they get to count the decision?  A business approach requires results, and the results sometimes are quite separate from the intervention.  This approach also devalues the effort that goes into getting results.  Who would attempt the impossible if only the result counts?  Would you turn a project or a person away because they might bring your numbers down?  Or we can be highly efficient in dealing with people, and to keep the efficiency levels high we give up the capacity to spend time and really love a person by caring for them, listening to them and simply being there for them.  The essence of Christianity is relationship, and a business approach doesn’t account for that.  Again, there is great value in this approach, but it’s not the best way to choose between ministries.

There is a better way to ‘compete.’  A donation is not a guilt offering or a business transaction.  It is an act of worship.  Every donation represents a donor who is voluntarily participating in the mission of God.  We must not reduce fundraising to ‘selling’ our ministries to donors.  The corporate model of revenue generation and all that goes with it is simply not the appropriate model for Christian ministry.  We are not selling.  We are not begging.  We are actively working on God’s mission and inviting others to help us as we do.  So with so many ministries sharing similar missions, what is an appropriate way to ask for support?

When I receive an appeal for a donation my first question is, “I understand the need, but what do you think the problem really is?” and my second is, “What is your methodology?”  I then look for the answers.  I’m tired of giving money to fund methods of questionable value that address only the superficial aspects of the problem.  I want real change.  Lasting change.

I think the invitation to support should be pretty straight-forward.  Explain your logic model.  That’s it.  That is the best way to ‘compete’ with other Christian ministries.  It doesn’t say you are better than everyone else.  It simply says, “Here’s how we see the problem or opportunity, these are the values and assumptions we base our strategy on, and this is the theory of change we use to design our programs and services.”  Donors are now free to compare your logic model with another, and see which one is most compelling for them.  The logic model gets down to the real, substantive differences between ministries.  Is this a healthy way to differentiate yourself from others?  I think so, because all you are doing is describing how you will change things, and inviting those who agree with that strategy to support you.

I think God allows for legitimate diversity of opinion as to methodology and priority.  For example, Christians can be found in virtually all political camps, so they may have very different proposals for solving the world’s problems. Trickle down economic policies are one way to address poverty, while income redistribution through the tax system is a very different way.  Christians may legitimately disagree on these points.  If opinion is divided, the local church or denomination may not be able to address the issue directly because their open membership covers a wide range of opinions.  However, its members could consider the competing solutions offered by Christian agencies and each member choose the solution that seems best to them.  One person may be big on mass evangelism events while another supports one-on-one approaches.  The same goal, but different methods.

If giving is an act of worship, then it should be done intelligently.  That is simply good stewardship.  Providing information about your logic model shows respect for your donors and their stewardship of God’s resources.  Rather than simplifying your giving opportunity, make it more complex by explaining the logic behind your ministry.  Your donors will have greater confidence in your ministry, they will be better educated about the real issues, and well-equipped to tell others about your ministry.

Some people will decide your model is not their cup of tea, and some may not be interested in your logic model but will continue as transactional or habitual donors.  But others will now be far more engaged with your ministry because of their deep understanding of it.  They will become your missionary fundraisers as they share their enthusiasm for your ministry.

Here are statements that might be used when explaining your logic model:

• Our mission is…
• Our values include … which means that our programs are designed…
• The root issues underlying our mission are… so we…
• We assume that… and therefore we…
• We believe that if we can…then the lasting impact will be…
• We realize we are only part of the solution, so we…
• Once our work with an individual or community is done, we believe they will…
• To ensure sustainability, we…
• We define success as…
• The indicators of success are…
• Change will occur because we…

Most ministries probably do not have an explicit logic model, but every ministry has an assumed one that can be uncovered by asking yourself “Why do we do it this way?”  ”Why do we believe this will work and not that?”

I’m putting this ‘out there’ as food for thought.  It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition, but it is a suggestion for how to communicate with a segment of the Christian public who want this sort of information.  Jump in with your thoughts!

For more suggestions on this topic, I’ve written about the unhealthy aspects of competition between ministries and about logic models.  I still intend to write about performance measurement, theory of change and reporting to donors.  Time!  Who’s ever got enough?

By the way, 8 days and I’m on my way.

So how do you tell a story well?  There are lots of books that promise to let you in on the secret.  If you check Amazon for storytelling books, you’ll find just under 20,000 of them!  I haven’t read them all; in fact I think I’ve just read one.  The good news is that after reading just this one, I felt no need to read anything else.  Often the first book whets your appetite and then you read others to go deeper, or to get a fuller understanding.  The book I read left me feeling I knew enough and what more could be said?

Many of the storytelling books I considered reading are quite generic.  They might tell you how to tell stories that you could use around a campfire, or with your kids or friends, but will these books help you at work?  I picked one that was written specifically for organizational leaders, and the table of contents includes the kind of stories that I, as a leader, want to tell.

In The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative, Stephen Denning walks you through the different kinds of stories that organizational leaders use, tells you when you should use each type, and shows how you craft a story to suit its particular purpose.  Here’s just a brief summary of the story types:

• Sparking action stories help bring about change;
• Communicating who you are stories build trust in a leader;
• Communicating who the organization is stories establish your brand, building trust in the organization;
• Transmitting values stories help ingrain the corporate values so that people understand “how things are done around here;”
• Fostering collaboration stories develop a shared perspective among group members;
• Taming the grapevine stories work with the flow of office gossip to present an accurate understanding of what the gossip is about;
• Sharing knowledge stories spread knowledge about what works and does not work among staff; and
• Leading people into the future stories prepare people for change.

As an example of when you might tell stories, when I came to CCCC I was a complete outsider.  People naturally want to know who the new ‘boss’ is, and they want to know the person well enough that they can predict what the person wants from staff.  This book wasn’t published then, but I know now there is a name for the type of stories I told.  I shared a number of “Communicating who you are” stories about key points of transition in my life, about critical incidents that formed my approach to leadership and so on.  These stories were one way of conveying to the team my values, my beliefs about leadership, the culture I’d like us to have, and how I make decisions.  I’ve told lots of stories since then, particularly “transmitting your values stories” to staff (for emphasizing our team values), and “communicating who the organization is” stories to external audiences.

You’ll discover that stories are usually quite short and to the point.  Some people may think of them more as anecdotes than stories.  I really found it helpful that Denning gives examples of everything he talks about, so you can always get an idea of how to apply his ideas.  And for every type of story, he provides a template so you quickly know how to create it.

I think Denning’s book is great, and if you want to learn how to tell stories, this is the book for you.

Christian Horizons is fighting to retain its Christian identity by appealing a ruling of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal that forces them to get rid of it if they want to continue to serve the public.  As I sat in a courtroom listening to the arguments, I was deeply impressed by the pervasiveness of Christian faith at every level of this organization.  The Tribunal argued that Christian faith, while it might motivate Christian Horizons’ employees, was not needed to simply feed people and care for their personal needs.  Christian Horizons countered, and the judges appeared to accept, that their Christian faith informed every decision they made and the manner in which they provided care.  They are not doing good deeds that anyone might do; they are doing Christian deeds for which they need to retain their Christian identity.  An external threat has endangered the faith-based identity of Christian Horizons, but history shows the greater danger usually comes from within the ministry.  If you think it couldn’t happen to you, think again.

Churches, denominations and evangelism ministries have a clearly religious mission and are less likely to lose their Christian identity, but even they face the possibility they could lose their particular heritage from dangers within.  If you think that would never happen, read a phenomenal PhD dissertation that analyzed the transformation of the United Church of Canada from its evangelical roots into the most liberal church in the country.  Kevin Flatt, the author, had full access to the official records (including personal papers) of the UCC archives and to the surviving leaders who led the UCC through the last stages of this tranformation.  Fascinating reading! And one of the key findings relates to the importance of words and their meanings.  The changes at the United Church originated at the top and involved very carefully-crafted messages with intended double-meanings.  Don’t ever think that words have no power!  They do.

Ministries that focus on extending God’s love to the world through compassion and development work that is also done from a secular perspective face a much higher risk of losing their Christian identity, because superficially at least, it appears faith is nothing more than a motivator for the good works the ministry does.  These ministries must be vigilant to ensure their Christian identity and mission are retained and continue to shape their programs and services.  This is a lesson we have learned from the experiences of several Christian ministries that are no longer Christian.

Two college/seminary presidents recently recommended a book to me, Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions.  It is an analysis of how most Christian higher education institutions lost their Christian identity, and how Calvin College, Wheaton College, University of Notre Dame, St. Olaf College, Valparaiso University and Baylor University kept it.  There are a lot of factors related particularly to education, but the main factor that applies to us all is that the Christian colleges and universities that keep their Christian identity alive and vibrant do so by imprinting their stories on students and faculty, so that they know they are part of an ongoing narrative.  They have a communal memory of their Christian vision and ethos (the ‘way of life’) that is kept alive by leaders who frequently tell detailed accounts of their story, and who interpret its meaning for the circumstances they face in the present day.

Many of the Christian universities and colleges that became secular did not intend to do so, it just happened gradually because their leaders did not recognize the long term consequences of the many decisions they  made about education philosophy, the role of religion in education, and the content of their communal life.  Surprisingly, leaders of Christian higher education institutions were not able to adequately articulate the theology of their identity and mission.

I have to say something here.  My dissertation research included a survey of 100 agency leaders that is relevant to this finding.  It showed that about one-half of the senior leaders of Christian non-church ministries have had no formal theological training.  So if you haven’t had a course in theology, I suggest that you do some continuing education to strengthen your ability to provide theological leadership to your ministry.

Now back to the book’s research.  The presidents lacked the theological resources and therefore slowly but increasingly accommodated the surrounding culture and lost their distinctiveness.  The faith of the founders became nothing more than their motivation for founding the school.  Pietism was another important factor in the secularization of Christian schools because it led to the separation of personal faith and religious practices from the intellectual and professional work of the institution.  Without well-developed theological resources to draw upon, the leaders accepted the secular idea that faith is personal and that it should not intrude into public life.

To keep the Christian identity strong, it must be made concrete in the vision, ethos and employee selection criteria.  All of the research in this book is encapsulated in the author’s statement that the Christian tradition must be the organizing principle for the identity and mission of the institution and that the Christian story as a “comprehensive, unsurpassable, and central account of reality must be held strongly and confidently enough to shape the life of the [institution] decisively in all its facets.”

The senior staff person is crucial in setting the overall direction of the organization and is therefore crucial to the protection of the ministry’s Christian identity and its transmission to a new generation.  He or she must believe that the Christian account of life and reality is publicly relevant to all facets of the organization’s life.  Leaders are responsible for articulating a compelling vision of their ministry’s identity and mission to the board, staff and other stakeholders.  The leader is not just the senior pastor, superintendent or executive director, the leader is also the ministry’s Chief Keeper of the Story, who needs to be a storyteller par excellence.

Strategic statements such as vision and mission statements are like the theological formulations found in Romans and the so-called ‘teaching’ books of the Bible.  They are explicit statements of doctrine.  But all scripture is for edification and teaching, and that includes the narrative parts of scripture as well.  The creation account, the history of Israel and the ministry of Jesus are recorded in scripture because they have just as much theology crafted into them as Paul wrote in Romans, but it is implicit rather than explicit in most cases.  Narrative and declaration go together to teach us about God.  And your ministry narrative and strategic statements go together to teach us about your ministry.  The narrative puts life to the declarations.

So document the stories that illustrate your ministry’s mission, vision, culture and values.  Through stories, show how the Christian faith has shaped every aspect of the ministry.

I see it as my responsibility to keep the stories of CCCC alive and meaningful to a new generation of ministry leaders and staff.  My hope is that the Christian identity and ethos of CCCC will live on as others keep the stories in circulation and become part of the CCCC story themselves.  I rarely (if ever) tell a story just for the sake of telling a story.  There is always a point I want to get across.  Sometimes I might explain the point explicitly, but that usually takes the fun out of it for the listener.  Most often I tell the story and trust that the listener will figure out its point on their own.

So now you know how important your ministry’s stories are.  How do you craft and tell your strategic stories?  I’ll cover that in another post when I review a great book on creating stories for the work world.

Here are some final thoughts on the experience:

• What an opportunity to meet the most interesting people!
  • I think I met almost everyone.  There were 157 attendees and we met each other at two receptions and all the meals.  We came from all over the world, including Kyrgyzstan, and covered the full range of nonprofit work.  Some were brand new to their CEO positions and some were “long in the tooth.”
  • We were divided into two sections, so I got to know these people much better through our classroom discussions.
  • We lived in groups of eight, and the seven other people in my living group are amazing people.  I got to know their work, their challenges and their paths to where they are now.  We shared advice and encouragement.  Every one of them is an inspiration to me!  My world has expanded by making such good friends through this shared experience.
• The HBS faculty and support staff executed a flawless experience for us.  This was a prime example of a team that has thought through the student experience from every conceivable angle and carefully crafted the entire experience we would have with them.  From dorm rooms to food to potential rain (they gave us HBS umbrellas) to website postings, it was absolutely flawless.  If they said something would be posted, it was posted within the hour.  If we said we’d like a sortable database of participants, it was up the next day.  The Social Enterprise group at HBS has it nailed to perfection.  What a model for us all.  Although, for example, I already think through the experience our annual conference participants will have, they have challenged me to take this to a new level of thoroughness so that they will have an amazing experience with us.
• At the last moments of the class, just when we thought they had nothing more to give us, they gave everyone a DVD of a lecture (the only lecture we’ll have from this week) and a free book Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector by the HBS faculty.  BUY IT!!  It’s $91 in Canada, but I’m sure it will be worth every penny.  (Or you can attend the course and hope they give it away for free again.)  Then they gave us a free one year subscription to the Harvard Business Review.  The value just keeps adding up!!!!
• I have work to do now.
  • I already knew mission statements are important, but now I see just how important they are, and also how useful they are.  I think that my own organization’s mission statement needs to be rethought in terms of end result and the claims that it makes.  Once that’s done, then we need to develop a theory of change that forms the logic model for how we design our programs and services.  Then we need to work through what programs and services are needed to fulfill the mission.  Perhaps we’ll find opportunities and perhaps we’ll find unnecessary work that we can stop.  Then we can build the dashboard to monitor how effective we are at every step in the logic model.  This is what will take my charity to the next level of performance and effectiveness.
  • I also need a Statement Zero.  This tool was so powerful.  It answers the question I blogged about a few days ago: What do you do?  In the closing class, about twenty of us were asked to give our Statement Zero.  It was so inspirational to hear what everyone said.  The format is “We are (organization name) and we (what you do).”  Here’s one just posted by George Roter of Engineers Without Borders Canada:  We are Engineers Without Borders, and we are creating a movement of engineers who will contribute to a life of dignity and opportunity for the next generation of Africans by addressing the root causes of systemic injustice and extreme poverty.  My best attempt right now for my organization is We are the Canadian Council of Christian Charities and we are strengthening the ability of Christian ministries to fulfill their missions by providing advice and services to their leaders and support functions.  I’m sure we’ll end up with something energizing and compelling.
• The most inspirational moment was actually two moments.
  • The final case was about an eye surgery hospital in India (Aravind Hospital) that was the dream of a 58 year old retired opthamalogist.  His hospital is seven times more efficient than other eye hospitals and it has become the world’s best hospital for eye surgery.  I can’t even begin to get into the amazing things Dr. Venkataswamy did to put together a hospital that has 40% paying patients, 60% free patients and that makes a surplus every year of 50%, which is plowed back into the hospital.  Just to emphasize, that 50% margin is after paying the cost of all the free surgeries!  This was our concluding case and let’s just say he had a clear mission, clear logic model and applied continuous improvement to achieve his high standards.  It was an amazing testimony to what can be done when we set our minds to it.
  • Then “Dutch” Leonard closed the week with the story of the construction of the Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier National Park, Montana.  Not only was that an incredible story of doing something against all odds, but then to top it off he said that someone had written a song about the building of the road and that it really applied just as much to the work of nonprofits as it does to the history of this road.  We thought he was going to read us the words to the song, but without any accompaniment, he bravely sang the song to us.  This was a genuine, heartfelt tribute by the faculty to the good work we are all doing and it spoke volumes to the sincerity of the commitment of the business faculty to nonprofit work.  I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house!  The song is by David Walburn.

  I must give abundent and effusive thanks to my board for sending me on this most amazing educational experience!

Your mission statement is actually a claim.  Whatever it is, that is what you claim you are working on.  Some mission statements are auditable results claims, meaning that you can measure the results (results are always outside of your ministry) and prove that you are progressively fulfilling your mission by making a change in the external world.

Other mission statements make aspirational claims (such as the prevention of teen pregnancy mission statement).  These claims can’t be proven.  Either you can’t measure them or you can’t make a causal connection between your work and the real world result.  So how do you satisfy your board and your funders that you are making progress?  Fortunately for you, no problem!

What you need when you can’t measure is a really good theory of change.  Whatever you believe about the cause and effect related to the problem you are trying to solve is your theory of change.  The easiest way to think through and show your theory is to use a logic model.  You may not have a theory of change handy, but every organization has at least an implicit theory of change. 

If you don’t know where to start, you could look at your current programs and major initiatives.  When you designed them, you had some belief about what needed to happen to make the change you want to see.  So now you need to document the linkage between your activities and the final impact you want to have on the world and give that to your board and funders.  You could also go back to the philosophy held by the founders of your ministry.  What did they say they believed about the problem?  What have you said you believe about the problem?

If the theory is well-articulated and makes intuitive sense, you should measure what you can, get what anecdotal evidence you can, and then rely on the theory of change as an agreement with the board and funders that if you are working within the theory of change, it can be accepted that you are contributing to the problem’s solution.

When the case was finished, we had worked out their theory of change based on their statements and discovered that almost none of their programs contributed to the change they wanted to make.  In other words, they said one thing, but then tackled the problem from a completely different angle.

That was the opening question at my Harvard Business School course on Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management.  How many times a day do you get asked this question?  I had already answered it at least 20 times today as I met the other students in the class.  As part of the registration process we had all described what our charities do, and now the prof had gone through our answers and preselected who he wanted to ask this question of, “What do you do?”  Most of the people answered with a description of their services or programs.

You’ll remember the story often told of a person walking by a construction site and asking three workers what they are doing.  One says, “I’m cementing these stones together.”  Another says, “I’m building a wall.”  And the third says, “I’m building a cathedral!”  The story is always told with the point that the correct answer is the third one.

The surprising thing I learned today was that you need several answers to the question “What do you do?” because the answer depends on who’s asking.  It turns out that all three answers from the construction site are quite okay.  Here’s how you decide how to describe what you do.

Start with a logic model, which shows how you move from inputs to activities to outputs to outcomes to impacts.  This chain, stretching from inputs to impacts, has some characteristics as you move along it:

• You move from the present into the future
• The descriptions at each stage become less concrete and more abstract
• It becomes more difficult to measure the effects of what you are doing
• It becomes much harder to prove that you had a causal effect on whatever it is that you can measure, and on a positive note
• What you say becomes more motivational and inspirational.

The key point the professor made was that before answering the question, “What do you do?”, you must decide where you want to be in the logic chain with the person asking the question.

• An activity-based answer might suffice for a potential supplier trying to understand how they can help you.
• A donor might want an outcomes-based answer because they want to have some way of evaluating what their donation accomplished.  While they want to impact society, most donors cannot wait a few generations to see what the impact will be.  Even if they did wait, how can they (or you) know whether your charity had a causal linkage to the results?
• A potential employee, however, by choosing to work in a ministry, is devoting his or her life to doing what they can to contribute to changing the world.  They will be highly motivated by a impacts-based answer.  Just as donors do, employees want to know that what they are doing is making a difference, but their commitment to the cause is based on the impact that working for you will have on the world.

So, you might think about at least a few different answers to the question, “What do you do?”