Background

The Tax Court of Canada (TCC) considered a related issue in a 2020 decision, Ampratwum-Duah v. The Queen (Ampratwum). Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) reassessed a taxpayer who had claimed charitable donations during the 2005, 2006, and 2007 taxation years. That taxpayer was the religious leader of the charity during that time and signed off on his own donation receipts. In support of his case, the taxpayer’s only evidence of the donations were the receipts themselves; he did not provide any accompanying bank records, church records, or testimony from another official at the charity.

Decision

The TCC was unconvinced, and reminded the taxpayer of his obligation under the Income Tax Act (ITA): section 230, subsection (6) requires a taxpayer who serves a notice of objection or is a party to an appeal to the TCC to “retain every record, book of account, account and voucher necessary for dealing with the objection or appeal”.

In other words, the taxpayer needed to keep adequate records to determine his payable taxes, including claimed deductions, until his appeal was decided. He failed to do so because the only records he kept were the official donation receipts, signed by himself. The court held that, without any corroborating evidence, the taxpayer failed to comply with the record-keeping requirement in s. 230(6) of the ITA. It then held that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether the claimed donations had been made.

Application

Where does this leave the charity’s financial officer, or similarly authorized individual? It is possible the court could have found in favour of this taxpayer if he had provided bank records or compelling testimony from someone else at the charity with knowledge of donations. If an authorized individual decides to sign their own official donation receipts, they should keep adequate records from a variety of sources. However, best practice is to avoid that situation altogether by having another authorized individual sign their official donation receipts.

CCCC members can log in to the Knowledge Base for more information about keeping proper books and records. They are also welcome to contact our Member Support Team with their questions.

The post Who Issues The Treasurer’s Receipts? appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

The Milestone 360 Can Transform Your Ministry

In the years leading up to its 50th anniversary milestone, CCCC reflected on its past, assessed its present state, and planned its desired future. Let’s call this analysis a Milestone 360. A comparison of CCCC in 2010 to what it is today reveals an organization reinvigorated with new life and creativity—it is refreshed with new programs, platforms, strategies, and an expanded vision for what it wants to achieve.

Our founder and his ministry friends accomplished their dreams of what they could do with the resources they had. My predecessor did the same. And, after focusing on membership growth and organizational development, in 2011 it was time for the team and me to dream as well. Our founder had told me he was amazed that we had surpassed his vision for CCCC, so it felt like a new beginning for us. A well-timed sabbatical in 2011 led straight into the discovery process that I’m now calling the Milestone 360. We used the process to dream about how CCCC could make a much greater contribution to the success of Christian ministries. Our 50th anniversary was within a reasonable planning horizon and our goal was to set CCCC up for success over the next 50 years. A looming milestone, such as a 50th anniversary or completion of a major project, is a great reason to pause and prepare the ministry for what comes next. However, since this analysis can be done at any time, there’s no reason to not do it now. How might your ministry be transformed by the Milestone 360 analysis?

The first two posts in this Milestone 360 series looked back over a ministry’s history to determine what to preserve, what to revive, and what to leave behind. This post shifts to the present to look around and assess the ministry as it is today, starting with its corporate values.

Corporate Values are Corporate Decisions in Advance

Corporate values are all about the choices that confront ministries every day. Will you go this way or that way, do this or that? When you define your corporate values, you are at the same time deciding in advance the criteria that will be used to assess the many choices the ministry will face in the future. Of the hundreds of values that could be your corporate values, which ones will you feature as the most significant for your ministry for the foreseeable future?

Selecting your ministry’s corporate values is not a forever decision. Over time, you may find that other values should be featured as corporate values. The previous values will still be good and worthy to be held by the organization, but the issues facing you then may benefit from a different set of featured values. Every so often you need to answer the question, Are your corporate values still the ones to feature today? This post will help you answer that question. And, if you have not yet identified your corporate values, this post will help you choose the ones that will best serve your ministry.

Types of Corporate Values

There are several different starting places for finding values that could become your ministry’s corporate values. I’ve found it helpful to label those starting points because the labels provide an organized approach to developing a well-rounded set of corporate values.

You will note that I have not included cultural or team values in the list below. These values are often called corporate values, but they are inward looking rather than outward looking and they deal with individuals rather than the organization and its needs. CCCC has formally documented its cultural aspirations and its team values, but we don’t call them corporate values. Our corporate values are reserved for what the organization as a whole needs to accomplish its mission.

Christian Values

Christian values apply all the time to all Christians and apply to your ministry whether or not they are your corporate values. A particular Christian value becomes a corporate value when it is deemed so vital to mission success for the ministry that it is worthy of receiving special attention.

Because CCCC is an umbrella organization with members from across the Christian spectrum, we feel we have a duty to model Christian unity. So, we have a top-level corporate value of “Evangelical in identity, ecumenical in service.”

And because we are involved in the “business” side of ministry, we believe it is important that we remind everyone, including ourselves, of the spiritual and faith-based aspects of our work with a corporate value to “Present a strong Christian witness at all times.”

Guardrail Values

Guardrail values keep the ministry safe by preventing it from suffering again from past failures or unwanted experiences. Completing the phrase “Never again will we…” will help you discern these values.

For example, for a number of years people perceived CCCC as being a “watchdog” or “police officer” enforcing the rules within the Christian ministry sector. This was neither the reputation nor the role we wanted. (Accredited CCCC members voluntarily make themselves accountable for complying with our standards, which we do “enforce,” but we do so from the perspective of helping them come back into compliance with the standards they’ve chosen to meet.) We have a guardrail value to prevent CCCC being seen as a “watchdog” or “police officer” again: “We aspire to…serve our peers with the integrity and servant’s heart that are expected of a representative of Jesus Christ.” For a season, we had a tagline that positioned us as among our members, not over them: Advancing Ministry Together. Having fulfilled its purpose, we no longer use this tagline, but the value continues as a guardrail for us.

Both CCCC examples of Christian corporate values, “Evangelical in identity” and “A strong Christian witness,” also serve as guardrail values. They protect us from mission drift.

Brand Values

Brand values are those values that tell people “We’re different and here’s how.” They set the expectations of those who engage with your ministry as supporters, staff, or beneficiaries about what they will experience. Review your brand guide to find what is particularly distinctive about your ministry and consider making that a corporate value because it is central to your ministry’s identity and reputation.

For example, a pillar of the CCCC brand is Caring, which we’ve defined as encompassing empathy, compassion, Christian spirituality, listening, encouraging, kindness, and being supportive. This pillar captured what we had been doing for years that built tremendous loyalty from our members. Our related corporate value is that we “serve all Christian ministries in Christian love and harmony.” We believe this is what makes membership in CCCC a relational rather than a transactional experience.

Strategic Values

Strategic values are values that your strategy requires. What values must your ministry hold fast to in order to successfully execute its strategy? Make each of those a corporate value.

For instance, CCCC provides information to its members about how to operate a charity so that it is an exemplary, healthy, and effective Christian ministry. We need to show our members how to apply our information by using that same information ourselves to be an exemplary, healthy, and effective Christian ministry. One of our corporate values is to be an “Exemplary model of a Christian ministry” because we aspire to practise what we preach.

Compass Values

Compass values are high-level values that don’t fit under the other value types. Compass values define who or what the ministry is and what it stands for. They keep the ministry on course with its identity and ethos.

CCCC wants to be a good citizen within the community of Christian ministries, so one of our corporate values is to “Demonstrate Christian unity by…always thinking of [other ministries’] welfare, being open to correction, and being ready to find a way forward that honours God.”

We also have a compass value to preserve our Christian identity: “We are Christ-centred and Spirit-led, helping ministries think theologically about all aspects of operating a Christian organization.”

Platitude Values

Platitude values are those that few, if any, people would disagree with. It’s what we mean when we say something is like “motherhood and apple pie.” Who can argue against it? Platitude values are worthy but uncontroversial values that your ministry has no trouble adhering to.

If your ministry has never had to struggle with honesty or integrity, don’t make them corporate values. Most people will assume honesty and integrity are a given, so stating them will make some wonder why you felt it necessary to highlight them. If, however, your ministry has had an experience with dishonesty or lack of integrity, then these are not platitude values for you; they are meaningful corporate values, at least for a time.

Platitudes often become corporate values when people don’t use the starting points listed above to discern a ministry’s corporate values. Instead, they consider in a general way what the corporate values should be rather than analysing what they need to be. One way to tell that you have a platitude for a corporate value is if you never refer to the value when making a decision.

Personal Values

Individuals associated with your ministry may personally hold strongly to some values they want to see adopted as corporate values. This is most likely to happen at the founding of the ministry, but personal preferences for particular values could be suggested at any time. There’s no reason to reject them out-of-hand as they no doubt are good values, but they should not become corporate values if they would be platitudes. Make sure suggested personal values fit one of the other types of values: Christian, Guardrail, Brand, Strategic, or Compass.

Updating Corporate Values

If your ministry already has corporate values, reflect on whether they are still the right values for today. Before you change them, though, consider this: previous leaders set them as corporate values for a reason. You need to understand why. Did they document how the values were chosen? What did your research about the ministry’s history reveal was going on when the values were adopted?

Current leadership can always change decisions made by previous leaders based on current circumstances, but since values are enduring, give serious consideration about what you are losing by deemphasizing the values you want to remove. To be clear, you are not disavowing the values your remove from your corporate values; you are just removing the emphasis on them. In doing so, what would you be walking away from that previous leaders thought was important? Why was it important? Why did they choose to feature that value and not another? Make sure you understand the history before you change a corporate value.

Though we don’t know when CCCC adopted its first corporate values, the 2002 strategic plan listed eight corporate values that had been in place for some years. In 2012, we updated the language for five of the values, and those values are still with us today because they are still relevant. The three values we dropped had all become platitudes since they are part of the very essence of CCCC today, in our strategy, programs, or way of life.

At the same time, we added two new values. One is about the place of the local church in the life of a believer. This was important as it is a key recommendation in my book, The Church at Work, and it was important that CCCC model it. The other new value was about continuous improvement. This was important at the time because we hadn’t kept up with changes in technology and how people use it. We also had a lot of infrastructure that needed updating. We’re doing much better now, but the value is still useful.

If you create or update corporate values, do a favour for future leadership by documenting why you chose to feature each value. This will help future leadership appreciate the reasons for the value and know if it is time to drop the value and replace it with another.

CCCC’s Corporate Values

1. Evangelical in identity, ecumenical in service

• We demonstrate Christian unity by serving all Christian ministries in Christian love and harmony, always
  • thinking of their welfare.
  • being open to correction.
  • being ready to find a way forward that honours God in keeping with the direction of the Holy Spirit as discerned by all parties involved.
• We are Christ-centred and Spirit-led, helping ministries think theologically about all aspects of operating a Christian organization.
• We recognize the biblically mandated special place of the local church in the life of the believer. We respect it as the primary gathering place of Christ’s followers, and we respect its denomination’s oversight.
• We present a strong Christian witness at all times.

2. Excellence in our work

• We aspire to excellence in all that we do, serving our peers with the integrity and servant’s heart that are expected of a representative of Jesus Christ.
• We commit to continuous improvement by
  • building our knowledge and expertise.
  • being an innovative provider of leading-edge services.
  • helping our staff become thought-leaders in their respective fields.

3. Exemplary model for Christian ministries

• The board and staff aspire to model faithfulness and excellence as a witness and an encouragement to other ministries.

You can read about the historical review we did and the consultation process we used to develop these corporate values here.

The post Looking Around: Corporate Values appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

At a young age, I discovered one of my family’s values – order and tidiness! I obviously on that day was not displaying our family value, which up until that time Mom may have presumed I had simply absorbed through association with my family, osmosis-like. Well, in the midst of something that was out of place or generally unkempt, I was told point-blank that our family values proper order and tidiness. Everything has its place, so put it there! And then my mom told me a story to reinforce the point. Her father had a spacious three car garage, and in the basement beneath the garage was a huge workshop full of benches, tools, drawers, and storage bins. She remembers her father working on a car and asking her to get a particular nut and bolt from the workshop for him. He told her exactly which drawer of which bench she should look in, and then within the drawer, precisely which of the 16 little cubicles held the desired object. Everything, every nut and bolt, was in exactly the right spot!

That story has stayed with me all these many years. Wouldn’t I like to be so neat, tidy, and orderly that I could tell you with precision exactly where something is! In fact, my wife is amazed that I can go into the basement and, most but not all of the time, find exactly what I’m looking for and be back upstairs in less than two or three minutes.

Such is the power of a story to transmit a value so that it sticks!

Corporate Values

If you did a spot check of all your staff, how many could recite your ministry’s values? They should be able to tell you exactly what they are without much thought, because they should be consciously thinking about them, making choices based on them, and generally living them out day-by-day.

Ensuring the corporate values are a part of daily life in a Christian ministry is one of the crucial strategies to prevent mission drift. As a ministry leader, it is your job to transmit your ministry’s values to your staff, volunteers, and supporters.

But if you are going to have corporate values (which of course you should), make sure they are your real values, the ones you are willing to suffer and sacrifice for because you believe so strongly in them. Don’t settle for motherhood values, the ones you think you should have.

The values you want are the ones that really matter. Your corporate values will either come out of your fundamental corporate identity or strategy, or they will be a response to a time in your ministry’s history when their absence caused a significant problem. Unless honesty has been a problem or is so integral to your ministry’s identity that it has to be a real focus, it is not a corporate value, it’s just a good value. Choose just the few crucial values that deeply matter to your ministry.

Transmitting Corporate Values

The two best ways to transmit your values are to model them yourself, and to tell stories about them. The two go together. Modelling values alone assumes people will pick up on the values osmosis-like, which may or may not happen (as I know from personal experience!). Telling stories alone will not have power unless the leader personally exemplifies them. Otherwise, they are just stories about someone else, usually long ago in corporate history. Telling stories (whether from history or current events) that are visibly supported by the leadership team’s actions today is a very powerful way to transmit your values.

A great resource for developing values-based stories is a book I’ve already told you about by Stephen Denning: The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative.

Crafting a Values Story

Denning has some very helpful tips for creating a powerful values-transmitting story:

• You can start with the corporate values and think about when someone did something that embodied those values, or you can think about crucial turning points in your ministry’s history and see what values were embodied in that moment.
• You can do the above either for the ministry as an organization, or if you want to connect the values to yourself to show how vital they are to you, you can do the above analysis using your own life.
• You don’t need a full-blown story. Review the parables that Jesus told. He told them in minimalist fashion. You don’t want to clutter up the story with so many details that people have to wait for you to tell them which details are important to your point. Only say what must be said to make your point.
  • My opening story contained just the  points that highlight the value of order and tidiness
    • a large space
    • someone who doesn’t know where something is being told by someone else exactly where it is with certainty from memory
    • a preamble connecting the reader with the story through me
    • evidence that the value has survived three generations, showing that Mom’s story was a powerful part of transmitting that value, thus validating the point of this post.
• A story with a twist will be much more powerful than a story that plays out as one would expect. Most, if not all, of the parables Jesus told had very unexpected twists. A Samaritan helping a Jew? A father demeaning his position (in that culture) by physically going towards his profligate son to welcome him?
  • Stories where the tables are turned are very memorable! If you can, build the unexpected in to your story. I told a true story up above, and it didn’t have a twist. But if you are creating a fictional story, such as Nathan did when he confronted David with his sin, you would certainly want to put a twist into it.
• You don’t have to spell everything out. It may be better not to even mention what the value is, but tell the story so that the audience is left thinking about it and then reasons out what the value is. Let them have the fun, and the reinforcing memory, of their own “Aha!” moment. So you could say, “Here’s what I’d like to hear about the service we provide. A person in need…” and then make up a story.
• You could tell a story about some other organization or person that exemplifies the value if you can’t find such a story in your own ministry.
• Finally, you could make up a story, as Jesus did with the Parables. “There was a woman who…” or something like that will start a great parable of your own.

So take your top few values, and try crafting some stories! Guaranteed they will make your staff meetings more interesting!

The post Transmitting Corporate Values appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Day two started with a great presentation from Lisa Kay Solomon of Innovation Studio. She says that scaling is about leading the design of better futures. Scaling includes designing the conditions within the organization that are needed for change.

Start the scaling process by defining the response you want to trigger in other people that will lead to mission success.

When it comes to your own staff, the people whom you want to be successful in their work every day, Lisa says that people who believe they’ve had a good day are more successful than those who don’t. And the most significant factor in judging whether or not you’ve had a good day is whether or not you feel you made progress that day. So leaders, design your organization and its work so that staff and volunteers can know they made progress every day. Her book, Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change describes how to do this.

The key points are:

1. Create conditions for discovery. Exploring always involves risk of failure, but the key is to fail productively. Others have said that when you fall, “Fall forward.” Encourage curiosity, zest and optimism among your staff. Have strong ideas to give clear direction, but hold them loosely to encourage creative thinking. Have fun exploring. If everything has been reduced to a Powerpoint presentation, she says little can go wrong, but then little can go right too. Risk exploration.
2. Be an ‘otherish’ giver. Collaborate and set your partner up for success. Engage others outside the organization to think and imagine with you.
3. Think visually. This really helps you to break away from linear thinking and it is much more creative. Dan Roam has two great goods about thinking visually: The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures and Blah Blah Blah: What to Do when Words Don’t Work. She also recommends Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers because you can’t scale anything if your don’t know its business model. I have this book and it is outstanding! And yes, charities have business models just as much as for profits do!
4. Act like a television or movie producer. They are the people who steward the vision for the show and make sure that it gets produced. You need to ensure that everyone is creatively working on the vision. Don’t let the organization drift away from what you are trying to achieve!! Sometimes we get bogged down in process and perfectionism and lose “the fire”. We lose urgency. Keep the organization stoked, active and committed.
5. Create a culture of hope. This will help everyone get through the tough work of scaling up.
6. Move beyond the “Yeah, but” people. They need to develop a more adaptive way of thinking. They are stuck in a rigid perspective and can’t see past their reservations. So when you hear “Yeah but”, ask “So how can…?”

Some Lessons on Scaling That Were Shared

Michael Smith of the Social Innovation Fund shared some lessons he’s learned over the years about scaling up.

• One in eight American NFPs (Not for Profits) spend no money on evaluation, and more than 50% have no theory of change. Their typical success measures are either simply a story about a person who was a success for one of their programs (was that person the only one?) or a statistic about the number of people served (yes, but did anything actually change for them?). Evaluate results! A template for how to do evaluations (a step-by-step guide) is available for free.
• If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.
• The three ingredients for scaling are: 1) collaboration, 2) a fierce sense of urgency, and 3) plans for sustainability.
• A really hard, demanding mission. A mission that is hard to figure out how to do is better than an easy mission you already know how to do. Aim high, think big!
• You must know what the system is that you are working within. What are all the parts? How do they relate to each other? You must bring all parts into alignment with your desired end result. A great book to help you define systems is The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization. This is another one I have and it is well worth reading for several reasons.

Collective Impact

Lalitha Vaidyanathan of FSG spoke about getting results at scale. She defined collective impact as having the commitment of actors from different system subsectors holding a common agenda to solve a problem at scale. To build collective impact, you must first know within what system(s) you are working. If you were to work with others across this system, who would be involved and what work would you be doing together?

Here are the elements for effective collective impact:

• Five conditions for collective impact
  • A common agenda
  • Shared measurements (for learning and accountability)
  • Mutually reinforcing activities (no duplicate effort)
  • Continuous communication
  • Backbone support. The backbone is the people who are dedicated to making the group work effectively.
• The mindset and disposition for collective impact
  • Shift from technical solutions to adaptive solutions.
  • Shift from focus on evidence to focus on evidence and relationships
  • Shift from looking for the silver bullet to using silver buckshot
  • Shift from taking credit to sharing credit. Ask “Who can we blame the good results on?”
  • Be willing to take risks. Nothing happens by staying safe.
• Structure everything for collective impact
  • The old way of structuring has predetermined solutions to implement.
  • The new way of structuring has predetermined rules of interaction from which the solution will emerge.
  • Be intentional about impact and uncertain about solution

Conclusion

This two-day conference really was all about working with others in a spirit of open-handed generosity to get a common mission accomplished. The key concept woven through everything was creativity. I really liked something that was said at the end of the day:

Imagination is a preview of life’s coming attractions!

The post Stanford Day 2 – Scaling Nonprofits appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

And that raises an interesting question: Which is more important – growing your ministry or growing your impact? The first is internally focused while the second is externally focused. If your goal is to grow a large ministry because you want to lead a large ministry, I’d suggest you take a hard look at your motivation.

• If you could achieve much greater mission impact but with no growth and even less visibility than you have today, would you do it?
• Is leadership driving you or is your mission driving you?

Here’s what I learned on Day One.

Achieving Transformative Scale

Jeff Bradach of The Bridgespan Group gave us nine pathways to scaling up for impact.

1. Distribute through existing platforms. You don’t have to build everything yourself. Many other organizations have developed assets you can use to get your messages and programs out in public. Think about cooperation and collaboration. Or at least think about using them as a supplier.
2. Recruit and train other organizations. This goes beyond simply using someone else’s platform. Here you actually give them a packaged program that they can then run (and even adapt) themselves.
3. Unbundle and scale for impact. Perhaps it is too challenging to think about scaling up everything you do. Why not take a complex program and break it down into pieces that are easier to scale? Scaling a small thing is better than not scaling at all.
4. Leverage technology. Research shows that for profit companies spend double the amount on technology than what nonprofits do. Social media, apps and other technologies can greatly broaden your audience.
5. Strengthen the field. Find ways to lift the performance of all the players in your field. What can you do that would enable others who are working on the same mission (or closely related aspects of it) to do better? For example, could you develop shared measurements of mission performance? That way, everyone can try their own methods, but have a basis for comparing results and seeing what works best.
6. Examine the ‘system’ you are all working within. Could you change a critical part of it so that everyone wins? Jeff said that bad systems trump good programs every time! Change the system and maybe your programs will work better.
7. Influence policy change and you’ll change the playing field.
8. Consider for profit models. If you can, minimize your reliance on donations and grants. A good example is the micro-credit sector that has become a viable, standalone business.
9. Change the attitudes, behaviours and norms that work against mission success. Are there negative communal habits that should be changed? Smoking and drunk driving are two examples where bad habits became socially unacceptable.

Jeff reminded us of a few important strategies not to forget while scaling up:

• Keep replicating what’s working. Don’t just do new things.
• Cost matters. Innovate to drive costs down (but not at the cost of effectiveness)
• Money matters. You need large capital for new capabilities, so rethink your funding model and see where you could generate additional revenue
• Constituent engagement matters. Sometimes we rely on experts instead of grassroots wisdom. Instead of either/or, think both/and

 Building networks and movements for social impact

Heather McLeod Grant of Open Impact said that the best nonprofits work outside of themselves, engaging business, government and other nonprofits with their cause. Here’s her definition of scaling:

Scaling is a leader building an organization that can build a network to grow a movement.

NFPs (Not For Profits) often stifle movements by saying “Here’s all that could go wrong.” If we don’t support movements of creativity, we will be sidelined as irrelevant organizations.

Design Thinking and Rapid Innovation

David Viotti, CEO of Smallify, talked about how to attack a really big goal. To smallify something is to get to the root cause of a challenge and then take quick action. It is to break something down to a small piece that can be worked on.

To smallify is to make small bets with relatively low risk and an affordable loss if it doesn’t work out. The attitude needs to be, “What can we do this Monday?” Do something, anything, NOW!!

Viotti gave five tools for rapid innovation:

1. Experiment more and fear less. Don’t wait for the perfect idea, just start testing and don’t be afraid it might go wrong. You’ll learn something and move forward.
2. Empathize and show up. Approach the challenge from other perspectives. Talk to people and discover what they think about. Be an actor – do something – and not just an observer.
3. Generate and say “Yes”. Be creative and be open to trying new things out. Think of options. “How could we…” is a great question.
4. When you are up against constraints, take them as gifts. They force you to be more creative, and that’s always good.
5. Your mindset is a choice. Do you believe that intelligence is fixed? If you do, then you will give up more easily and achieve less. If you believe that intelligence grows, then you will embrace challenge and achieve more. Choose to believe that intelligence grows. Every time you try something, you learn something, and then you are closer to achieving your goal.

Viotti taught us “the innovator’s bow.” Say “I am [name] and I have failed.” Then take a bow. Well done! You did something even if it didn’t work. That’s better than sitting around and doing nothing.

He also warned us that people who say, “Let me play the Devil’s advocate” are really saying, “Let me kill your idea!” Turn the “Yes but” answers to “Yes and”. Ask “So how can we do it?”

Scaling up Excellence

Bob Sutton of Stanford University said that when you have a pocket of excellence, the challenge is how to spread excellence from the few to the many without “screwing it up.”

Scaling isn’t just about the numbers, numerical growth and so forth. It really is about spreading a mindset – getting people to get on board with a new way of getting real world impact. Organizations that spread excellence have people who feel they own the organization, and the organization owns them. They share a mutual accountability for each person living up to the ideal and getting the job done well.

Scaling isn’t about getting more resources to do more. It’s about doing more with less. You start by cutting out all the ineffective things – those things you do only because everyone else does them.

Scaling is about getting others to help you accomplish your mission. That means that you will have to address the issue of whether you will enforce a cookie-cutter approach or allow for local variation on a theme. Allowing variation may encourage better employee engagement or it might lead to delusions of uniqueness. Some people want to change a program just so that they have exercised some control over it. Variation because of real variations in the local areas are quite okay, but don’t let people reinvent what doesn’t need to be reinvented.

How to Spread Excellence

• Start by firing up contagious emotions first. Trying to enlist people by making a rational case for their work just doesn’t work. Get their emotions in high gear over your cause!
• Then guide people to do the desired tangible behaviours. Get them active, doing what needs to be done right away. Research shows that strong beliefs are created and maintained based on what we do, not what we are told or what we say. Action builds commitment to the mission. Leaders need to live the mindset they want staff and volunteers to have, not just talk about it. Excessive talk and thinking keeps us from doing what we know and believe we should do.
• As organizations get larger, you need more structure and process. Many people think this means having a bureaucracy, but the purpose of hierarchy is to defeat bureaucracy and organize people to work together effectively.
• Keep teams small. Once a team gets to about six people, it starts to have problems. If it has more than ten members, the system gets clogged.
• Cascade excellence by putting people with the right mindset in positions to influence those who don’t.
• Start with a small team of diverse people, so when they go back to their own diverse groups, ideas will spread faster.
• When it comes to attitudes and performance, bad is stronger than good. Bob says “one jerk cuts performance by 40%,” so get rid of the bad fast!
• When you can say “We don’t have time to do it the way we should,” you are doing great scaling. The point isn’t to wait for perfect conditions and processes, but to do something now and make progress. However, balance this by remembering that sometimes the best advice is just to stand there and do nothing but think about it. You’ll have to decide when stopping to reflect is the right thing to do.
• There will be times when scaling will not be enjoyable. The staff may start to lose their happiness about working on the mission. Disney knows that its guests are least happy when they are actually in the park. Anticipating and remembering the park experience are when they are happiest. That’s why Disney makes sure you know where the best places are to take pictures and why they provide photo ops with their characters. When your staff is unhappy, talk up both the past and the future. We are going from somewhere to somewhere. Let’s remember the progress already made and anticipate achieving the vision.
• Scaling up is a manageable mess. It isn’t neat and tidy. So clean up the best you can and keep muddling forward!

I highly recommend Bob’s book: Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling For Less.

That’s it for the first day.

God bless!

The post At Stanford University: Scaling Nonprofits appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

The book’s authors say that where the Bible gives us freedom to choose (which is what a lot church life involves – decorating, worship style, programs, ways and means of doing things and so on), this is where we have the opportunity to further develop a Christlike character – learning how to live with people who see things differently from us!

The focus of the book is Acts 15 in which we find the apostolic leadership team wrestling with one of the most divisive issues of all, the admission of gentiles into the church. Authors Tara Barthel and David Edling provide a thoroughly biblical approach to resolving conflict using a model developed from the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.

Barthel and Edling are both associated with Peacemaker Ministries, an organization that I highly respect. I’ve not had any personal dealings with them yet, but based on reputation and their approach to conflict resolution I don’t hesitate to recommend them. In fact, they are the organization that my contract with CCCC says we will use if a conflict arises between myself and CCCC.

Usefulness

I have no issues or concerns at all with the book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and everything they wrote makes absolute sense to me. I found myself repeatedly appreciating the biblical-theological approach they took. There is no adapting secular concepts here. Everything is based on scripture. However, some of the techniques could easily be used in a secular environment, so Christians who work in the marketplace could apply a number of the ideas to resolve workplace conflicts. And of course, the same model can be used in a non-local church ministry. In a Christian agency the relationship between people is different, since they are working together and paid by the ministry, but if you want to solve conflict the best way, by all parties coming to voluntary agreement, you wouldn’t want to rely on an employer-employee relationship, or a leader’s authority. So the process described in this book really can apply in any type of ministry.

In this review I’ll just highlight some of the key points that I thought were particularly noteworthy.

What Does God Want?

So often, when there are differing views, I want to dive right in with an analysis of the various positions to see which one is right. Barthel and Edling believe that strategy won’t lead to lasting peace. Their alternative approach is so obvious that I found myself saying again and again “But of course!”, and yet problem-solving is so ingrained within us as leaders that the better way doesn’t occur to us naturally. Or maybe it does to you, and it will to me when I get more spiritually mature!

The “Of course” is to ask what God wants to do in this conflict. A good thesis statement for the book would be the authors’ assertion that “Group conflicts between Christians are resolved when everyone’s desires and agendas align with God’s desires and agendas.” They write, “We are unaware of any church that has successfully resolved its church-wide conflicts without first going back to the basics of what the gospel message is, its implications for life and faith, and God’s statement of purpose and mission for his church…The purpose of discussion when seeking peace is to regain God’s perspective for the church.”

Their recommendation is that everyone focus their attention on the good, on what is pure and lovely. This is not just a pious sentiment, but a powerful technique to draw people together to a common cause. At every step of the way, the book presents very practical application suggestions. Focusing on God, and what everyone holds in common, puts some perspective to the issues that divide, and makes it more likely those issues can be successfully resolved.

Getting to the Real Issues

The most powerful technique they describe is one that I’ve used very successfully myself. To reconcile opposing positions you must get beneath the presenting issues to uncover the goals and values of the people involved. People think that when the presenting issues are resolved, conflict will go away, but the real issues that cause conflict in the first place are heart issues, and resolving presenting issues won’t affect a heart issue — it just creates a pause before the same heart issues erupt with another presenting issue. For a permanent solution, you must take the presenting issues and then start digging to get at the heart issues that lie beneath them. Heart issues are the reasons why one person prefers A and another prefers B. The root issue could be fear, desire or an ingrained idol. Presenting issues are the ‘what’ of the conflict, while heart issues will get you to the ‘why’ of the conflict.

When writing my dissertation (which was reworked into the book The Church At Work: A manual for excellent church-agency relations), I outlined the positions of several authors who seemed to be at loggerheads with each other (ie., they held apparently irreconcilable positions). On the extremes, Jerry White was all for independent Christian agencies (parachurches) while Orlando Costas was opposed to any ministry taking place outside the church (ie., outside of a denomination or local church). It doesn’t get more stark than that. Yet all the authors had given clues to their goals and values as they made their arguments, and by analyzing those I was able to come up with a model that satisfied all their criteria. Several of the living authors read my work and said they agreed that my model was acceptable to them. When I defended my thesis, the Reader said he really enjoyed how I knit all their goals and values together and reconciled them all. He said, “It felt as if I were sitting at the kitchen table listening to all these authors talk with each other!” Getting to goals and values is the way to reconcile apparently irreconcilable positions.

Barthel and Edling say that while many questions could be asked during conflict resolution, the best questions are the questions that “provoke heart engagement regarding core beliefs and motivations….The best question shuts the mouth of opponents graciously because it leads to changed thinking and believing. It also leads to meaningful solutions because it goes to the heart of the matter.”

So, don’t let the presenting issues distract you from the real issues. Get out the shovel and start digging!

Focus on What God Is Doing

No matter what the difficulty in the church, no matter how hopeless the situation seems to be, the authors remind us that God is still at work. Progress towards a resolution is made easier when everyone shifts their focus from the conflict to what God is doing and to your church’s mission.

But more particularly, in the midst of conflict God is still working on us. Your inclination is likely to focus on the opposition, but the authors suggest that we should instead be looking to see what God is doing in us:

When seeking to redeem church conflicts, the goal of any discussion is not merely to communicate in such a way that the other side understands our perspectives and convictions. This is important but it is not of first importance. To redeem your church’s conflict, the goal of any discussion you have ought to be the aha moment when you understand clearly what your heart motivations are and what God calls you to do and say in order to live according to his Word; then you conform your attitudes, words, and actions to God’s requirements. Yes, you may also have an opportunity to help others do the same, but regardless of their responses, you can grow in your sanctification.

Failure of Leadership

From a leadership perspective, the authors find a significant factor in church conflict is a failure of leadership. How did the congregation ever get to the point where it could have such division within it? Could it be that we are not teaching our congregations what they need to hear? Perhaps we have succumbed to the secular idea that every person is his or her own master and that individual freedom trumps the community’s interests. As Christians, church members must subordinate what they want to what God wants. This is what the authors say must be taught by pastors: “God calls spiritual leaders to lead his people into the place where all interests of man are subservient to God’s interests (see Phil 2:1-4).”

Leaders tend to be unwilling to deal with conflict when it arises. In many of the cases the authors have been involved in, they say the issues should have been dealt with long before they blew up into a full-scale church-splitting conflict. They highlight the importance of membership vows and how they give church leadership the right to exercise church discipline over the members. While the particular vows of your church may be different, they mention one case in which members had agreed to guard the peace, purity and unity of the church. They were able to get a breakthrough in the crisis by reminding people of these vows, and then get them working on how to restore peace, purity and unity to the church. Pastors need to confront conflict as soon as it becomes evident. It is a lot easier to solve the problem at that point than after positions have hardened and things have been said that are later regretted.

I highly recommend this book to you.

“Book has been provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available now at your favourite bookseller.”

The post Redeeming Church Conflict appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Now there came a day when, in the court of the King, His heavenly subjects were before Him and Satan was found to be among them again. The crowd murmured against him, but Satan, though defeated, had not yet reached the end of his time. And seeking to spread his misery, he approached the King. “What brings you here, O wicked one?” the King exclaimed.

So it was that Satan brought forth his carefully crafted claim. “You, who know everything, know exactly what I have seen. You claim perfection and omnipotence. You claim that through the Death and Resurrection…” And here the impious creature lost his composure as he seemed to choke on the words.  “…you claim all has been made right. But you are neither perfect nor all-powerful because you tolerate imperfection. I have found a ministry of yours that has failed its purpose.  Hear now the case I make.”

The King gave permission for the case to be presented.

Satan spoke, saying, “Surely an organization staffed entirely by your underlings would have unparalleled success because all have been made new in your image and all have one purpose and all would have access to the mighty power that you claim to possess and, in fact, to have given to them. Yet that is not the case. [Insert your ministry’s name here] has failed to achieve its mission and fulfill its vision. There is still much that it has failed to do. Its failure is, in fact, a sign of the tenuousness of your reign and proves your dominion over the earth is provisional at best!”

Hearing this, the King called forth one of His elders and said, “Let us review together what has been written in the Book of Deeds about this ministry. Go and bring the book here to the assembly that we may establish the facts.” And so the history of the ministry was reviewed that judgment might be made upon it. The elder returned, and standing on the dais at the side of his King, he placed the book on the podium, opened it, looked up at the assembly and then began to read…

=======================================================

Insert here details of your ministry’s

• mandate from God (its mission),
• distinctive values,
• vision,
• major successes,
• major failures or shortcomings,
• a brief narrative of the epic stories that have become part of your ministry’s lore – its “myths and heroes,” and
• major challenges  yet to be conquered.

Insert also anything else you would like to include in God’s permanent record of your ministry’s life.

=======================================================

The elder finished reading the entry in the Book of Deeds, closed the book and sat down. Having heard the record of the ministry’s history, the assembly turned its eyes to the King and awaited His judgment.

The King did not consider long.

“Satan, you continue to misunderstand the times. Your definition of success is not Mine. You judge by externals because that is all you can discern. I judge by the heart. The issue to be judged in this case is, given their present level of maturity and understanding, are My people who work in this ministry doing their best to discern and obey My will?”

The King stood to His feet, gathered His robes around Him and announced for all the congregation of heaven to hear, “Just as My kingdom has been established in fact and is also being established in experience, so also this ministry has been established and is being established. Like an acorn that grows into a mighty oak tree, this ministry is growing and progressively fulfilling its mission and vision as its staff remains faithful to My call and open to discerning My continuing guidance. On that basis I declare that [insert your ministry’s name here] is successfully fulfilling its purpose.”

As the assembly bowed to worship the King and marvel at His wisdom, no one noticed Satan withdraw from the assembly, defeated yet again and realizing ever more fully the awful finality of his cosmic defeat at the Cross.

=======================================================

Storytelling

Leaders are storytellers, so you should learn how to create your own stories. Practice writing stories, even if you never use them exactly as written, because you will use stories in your speeches, interviews, newsletters, orientation sessions and fundraising appeals, not to mention writing posts for your blog. The story you tell will reinforce your ministry’s goals, values, and its way of life every time you tell it, so you want to craft it in a way that is interesting and memorable, that touches people emotionally and taps into their own aspirations.

Writing a Story

Your ministry’s story is a big story, so if writing narrative is new to you, you might start with a much simpler assignment and just craft a story about something that happened to you, such as I did when I discovered ink on my face. It took only a few minutes to write the basic story about how the ink got on my face, but it took another two-and-a-half hours to craft it into the version that was posted.

That was time spent thinking about how to set the scene for maximum humour, how to create empathy for me, and how to bring the reader to suspect what was happening without my saying anything. I wanted my readers to squirm a bit and be very glad that the story is about me and not them!  I was thinking about the rhythm of sentences, and using paragraph breaks to focus the reader’s attention and provide some pacing that highlighted the moment of horror. I changed it from the past tense to the present tense, to further involve the reader in an unfolding calamity and I used imagery that should be pre-existing in most readers’ minds, so they could better imagine exactly how it was. The application point took time as well. And then further time was spent stripping the story of every unnecessary detail and honing it into as few words as possible.

Uses for Stories

A good story takes time to develop, but then it is useful in so many ways. The ink story will be a great one for me to tell (in the right circumstances of course) because it shows I am a fallible human (an equalizer with my audience), willing to poke fun at myself (not pretentious) and I think it builds rapport with people who have vicariously shared an experience with me. You can use stories to position yourself with your audience too.

I crafted the heavenly court story as an assignment for my doctorate program in which we had to creatively tell the story of our ministries. I did not intend to actually use the story anywhere, but writing it was good practice in creating an attention-grabbing opening, a plot-line, a building of tension towards a crisis point and then a resolution that satisfies the listener (or in other situations, a call to action). And, since I have a practice of getting three uses minimum out of everything I write to justify the time spent writing something, I’ve just got my second use by using it in this post! Now if I can only find one more place to use this heavenly story, I’ll be happy!

Ghost Writers?

Some people have others write their material. I don’t know their circumstances, but for me I write everything that has my name on it because a) I want to be honest, and b) I want a personal connection with you. Except for technical writing, I deliberately insert my personality into my writing so you can get to know me better. What you read are my real sentiments, not what somebody else thinks will be most effective. I want you to hear my voice, not a ghost-writer’s. And I think most leaders would want the same. So it is worthwhile learning to write well.

Getting Started

If you want to become a better writer, you can read all you want about how to write, but you only actually become a better writer by writing, so why not try your hand at creating an opening and conclusion for a story about your ministry? At least try to write a really good opening sentence. And please share the opening line or paragraph of your story so we can all get our creative juices flowing. Be daring and share!

I took an open enrollment university course about fifteen years ago on how to write fiction. It was very helpful in learning the elements of a good story. I got a lot of practice doing the assignments in that course. By the way, the absolute best book I’ve ever read on writing well is called, funnily enough, On Writing Well! Part One alone (just 48 pages long) is enough to fix virtually every bad writing mistake most people make. That book will help with the content of your writing. For help with grammar and formatting, I’m sure you are familiar with the standard reference book, The Elements of Style.

Have fun crafting your story and please post your opener!

The post Satan vs. [Insert Ministry Name Here] appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Learn How to Tell Stories

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.

The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling

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.

The post The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

The Real Risk of Losing Christian Identity

A number of years ago, Christian Horizons was fighting to retain its Christian identity by appealing a ruling of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal that forced them to get rid of it if they wanted 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 that their Christian faith informed every decision they made and the manner in which they provided care. They were not doing good deeds that anyone might do; they were doing Christian deeds for which they needed to retain their Christian identity.

An external threat 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 transformation. 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 can also be 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.

Stories Protect Identity

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 many 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 necessary 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.”

Leader as Storyteller

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 give you a resource for that in another post when I review a great book on creating stories for the work world.

The post Storytelling: The Key to Retaining Your Ministry’s Christian Identity appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

“God wanted us to come here to help children, we are convinced of that,” Laura Silsby, one of 10 Americans accused of trafficking Haitian children, said Monday through the bars of a jail cell.  “Our hearts were in the right place.”

A short-term mission team went to Haiti to rescue children and instead wound up in jail suspected of child trafficking. This is a horror story for any mission team. Nine of the ten team members were subsequently released, but they are still facing charges. Laura Silsby, however, is still in jail as well as still facing charges, and all are in need of prayer support. But we also need to learn from this fiasco. These good-hearted people were apparently very naive, and the fact that they got as far as they did is, in my opinion, the result of a leadership failure that I’ll explain in a moment. I don’t know this situation firsthand, so I’m basing all of my comments on published news reports. Even if some of the details or assumptions later turn out not to be correct, there are lots of other examples that could be used and the point of this post remains valid.

There are conflicting reports about what their intentions were, but what is clear is that two churches did this project on their own [the report has been removed from their website] and with no apparent expertise. According to the NY Times article linked to above, “the group is not registered as an adoption agency in Idaho and does not appear to be registered as a federal nonprofit. The group also did not appear on a list of accredited international adoption agencies on the Web site of the State Department.”

Without the help of either a Christian agency or a denominational mission department, either of which could have provided badly needed expertise in the complexities related to emergency relief, child welfare and adoption, the success or failure of this project depended upon the quality of leadership these two churches could provide. Unfortunately, the leadership apparently was not up to the task in this instance.

Leaders Are Responsible!

Leaders are responsible for organizational achievement of their respective missions from start to finish. They need to ensure quality control, risk management, applicable standards and regulations, and all other factors related to organizational success are taken into account when launching a new endeavour. Such planning is thoroughly biblical, as Jesus explicitly assumed that good planning would take place before acting on good intentions (Luke 14:28-32). It is irresponsible for leaders to send people out without doing their homework.

Good Planning Questions

Planning must include two aspects which were apparently missed by the churches:

• an objective organizational assessment that assesses the ministry’s expertise to do the project, and
• a due diligence investigation to discover the project’s risks and obtain full knowledge of everything that is required to complete the project successfully.

Based on the news stories, the organizational assessment would have shown that the churches had motivated people and lots of money, but no apparent expertise (other than the expertise of the team leader, which appears to have been accepted at face value). Due diligence would have uncovered the need to work with the Haitian government and to be properly accredited as an adoption agency.

Having Resources is Dangerous

Having the people and the money to do a project is a potentially dangerous scenario because once you have the resources to act on your own, it is quite tempting to just go ahead and do it and not bother with a reality check. When you can do it yourself, it is all the more important to validate your assumptions and plans.

Validating Plans

Validation requires at least some external input, because on your own you don’t know what you don’t know. You need to protect yourself from overestimating your competence and capabilities (otherwise known as hubris). Outsiders see things more objectively and their experience will be different from yours, so they add different perspectives to yours and identify issues that you may have overlooked. “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed” (Prov 15:22).

Validation for new and existing programs can include:

• External secondary research (books/journals, seminars/conferences)
• Primary research (program reviews, surveys, pilot projects)
• Consultation with experts/consultants or with other ministries in your field asking for their critique and suggestions
• Mentally walking through the entire project and fact-checking each part of the plan
• Doing a joint project with an experienced ministry as a learning experience
• Reviewing similar programs run by others

Ministries can also take advantage of many forums that facilitate more intentional inter-ministry cooperation and sharing of specialized information. Here is just a sampling of the many umbrella organizations that bring ministries together:

• The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s roundtables for many types of specialized ministries
• Canadian Christian Relief & Development Association
• CrossGlobal Link (for mission-sending agencies)
• Christian Higher Education Canada
• and of course, the Canadian Centre for Christian Charities!

Conclusion

I wonder how many ministries have wasted precious resources because they rushed into a program or mission trip without understanding the complexities of an issue? How many have acted in a way that left experts who have laboured for years scratching their heads over their doings? How many have made the problem worse because of their misguided efforts? How much more could be done well simply by asking other ministries or experts for advice or help, or by getting behind an initiative that someone else already has in place?

Good intentions are great, but on their own they can be dangerous. Good intentions do not always result in good deeds. Leaders must take good intentions and add planning and organizational support to transform good intentions into good deeds with good results.

The post The Danger of Good Intentions appeared first on CCCC Blogs.