All nonprofits have one essential product: a changed human being.
—Peter F. Drucker
Many people are surprised to find out that for thirty-five years I have been working with nonprofit institutions—hospitals, schools, charitable organizations. They ask, “What do you do for them? Advise them on fund-raising?”
I reply, “No, I don’t know a thing about fund-raising. I teach them management.”
Thirty years ago, many nonprofits were contemptuous not only of the word management but even of the concept. They said, “We don’t need management. We don’t have a bottom line.” But now they all know that nonprofits need better management precisely because they don’t have the discipline of the conventional bottom line to measure effectiveness.
Better management for nonprofits, such as churches, begins with several keys.
Clarify your aim
Although nonprofits don’t have a conventional bottom line, they do need to know their aim. All nonprofits have one essential product: a changed human being. This is a different approach from business. In business, your goal is not to change the customer; it’s not to educate the customer; it’s to satisfy the customer. Whenever a business forgets that, it’s in trouble. When General Motors tried to tell us what cars we ought to drive, we began to drive Toyotas.
But nonprofits aim for change. Hospitals seek to change sick patients into healthy ones. Schools aim to change students into educated individuals. The church has a difficult problem in that the books are not kept on this side. (So far even Congress hasn’t been able to force an audit of those accounts.) But I would say the church’s aim is to make a difference in the way the parishioner lives, to change the parishioner’s values into God’s values.
I’ve been teaching now for almost sixty years. If I have had any success, it was the rare instances when I said something that really made a difference to a student. Those results are not easy to quantify. They don’t happen every day, not even every week, and maybe not even every month. But if a year goes by without it happening, I think I wasted a year, basically, as a teacher. In ministry, I surely would ask myself whether we make a difference, both in the way people live and above all in the vision of people.
It is essential for a local church to develop a unified, clear vision, and yet in nonprofits, you’re almost always dealing with a number of constituencies, each of which wants something different emphasized.
When you look at churches, the mission is clear. It comes straight out of the Gospels. Basically, you are to bring the gospel to all of mankind. Very clear. Very simple. Maybe the simplest mission. I’m not saying it’s the easiest, but it’s the simplest.
But in all nonprofit institutions the various constituencies see the specifics in sharply different ways. School boards and teachers and parents and students all see different purposes for the school system. Fifty years ago, the vision was clearer: the school’s purpose was to see that students learn. The school focused on skills—the ability to read, to do the multiplication table. In recent years, various constituencies began arguing about what learning means. It was broadened beyond skills to include traits (development of character, personality, social tasks), and as a result, the unifying focal point was lost. With so many goals to accomplish, you can’t function as effectively.
Maintain the common mission
Despite the conflicting visions any nonprofit faces, it has to be held together somehow. This is the pastor’s challenge with the church—to maintain the common mission. And if you don’t, well—one of the basic weaknesses of the mainline liberal church is that it hasn’t maintained the common vision. The leaders see the church as dedicated to social causes outside the church. But the congregation doesn’t see it that way. The result is confusion and ineffectiveness.
To arrive at a common vision for a particular local church you have to know when to say no. That’s particularly difficult for a church. But you have to admit some things are not your responsibility.
If you go to the American Lung Association and say, “Haven’t you seen those frightening statistics that 97 percent of all Americans have ingrown toenails? Why don’t you help cure ingrown toenails?” they’ll tell you, essentially, “Our interest stops above the neck and below the navel.” And even there, they are not interested in the heart or the esophagus. If it doesn’t have anything to do with the respiratory system, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go elsewhere.
Often people feel the church exists to take care of problems. And it’s terribly hard for the church to say no. Yet the effective ones say no. They know what their mission is, and they make no apologies for sticking to that.
I made myself terribly unpopular by saying recently, “I know the homeless have needs, and their plight bothers me too, but should your church really be in the shelter business?” It’s one thing to encourage trained laypeople to go into the community and perform various services; it’s another to see these functions as part of the church’s mission.
On the other hand, I’m not consistent. I have friends in a major Catholic archdiocese who run the only schools in which local innercity kids really learn. The public schools there are notoriously bad. And 94 percent of those kids are not Catholics and probably never will be. The archdiocese is strapped for money, and the parishes are screaming, “We need money to repair the church roof, and you put all our money into those schools for non-Catholics.” Yet I’ve been encouraging them to keep the schools open because I think that maybe this comes before repairing the roof.
Two factors made the difference for me in this situation: The need is there (without those schools, the outlook for those kids is pretty grim), but equally important, the church has proven its competence. The church has demonstrated its effectiveness in teaching young people.
Saying no is tough, but it’s what makes for effective ministry in other areas. So beyond merely recognizing a need, the key question is “Can we make a real difference? Can we minister competently?”
Need and competence are preeminent, but we must also look to see if anyone else is already doing the job. There are many groups taking care of alcoholics. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with churches ministering to them, but to be blunt, that’s not a way most churches can make a unique contribution. And the homeless? As I looked at what this particular church was doing with the homeless, it struck me as no different from what several other organizations were offering. And the results in changed lives were zero or pretty close to it. At times we all have to say, “The need is there, but this ministry is not for us.”
The church is the only organization that is not entirely concerned with the kingdom of this earth. All the others are totally focused on this side. We’re the only one with another dimension. And for that reason, many good concerns around here are not our primary focus. Any organization can do only a certain number of things. The greatest danger for a successful organization is to take on things that don’t fit its personality.
Another danger for an organization is to be internally driven. The organization must not do just what it wants to do, but it needs to be “market driven”—adjusting to the needs of the customers. That applies not only to business but to churches. The church needs to be market driven. But it also needs to understand its purpose. The two things have to mesh.
If you’re only internally driven, you quickly become bureaucratic. You lose touch with people and lose your effectiveness. If you’re only market driven, you quickly become mercenary and totally opportunistic.
You need both. There’s nothing wrong with the Girl Scouts, but the church is not the Girl Scouts. There’s nothing wrong with the country club, but we aren’t a country club. We are a church. And we have certain things we value that are not of value to anybody else. That’s where we should focus.
Know thy strengths
The key question for a leader implementing direction in an organization is What can I do in this organization that nobody else can do?
Several questions emerge from that: What did the good Lord ordain me for? What are my strengths? What am I good at? Where have I seen results?
Few of us ask these questions because few of us even know how we perform. What am I good at? We don’t usually ask that question. We’ve been trained to notice our weaknesses, not our strengths.
Schools, of necessity, are remedial institutions. When teachers meet with parents, rarely do they say, “Your Johnny should do more writing. He’s so talented in writing.” No, more likely you’ll hear, “Johnny needs more work on his math. He’s a bit weak in that area.” As a result, few of us really know our strengths. The great teachers, and great leaders, recognize strengths and focus on them.
There are two simple ways to get an accurate reading about strengths and unique abilities. One is absolutely reliable but takes a little time. The other is about 65 percent reliable but immediate. The 65 percent reliable approach is to ask your secretary. (It’s not 100 percent reliable because the really good secretaries won’t tell you. That’s the secret of their control—they know and you don’t!) The absolutely reliable method is to think through what your key activities are, and every time you do something in a key activity, write down what you expect to happen. Nine months later look at what really happened. Within a year or two, you find out what your strengths are.
This method, of course, has a great link to church history. Historians continue to puzzle over one of the great mysteries: how to explain the sixteenth century. In 1560, two institutions dominated Europe, neither of which had existed twenty-five years earlier. The North was dominated by the Calvinist movement, the South by the Jesuit order.
In 1534, Loyola gathered the nucleus of his new order and took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In 1536, Calvin arrived in Geneva. Twenty-five years later, Europe had been changed. Nothing in the history of the world, not even the rise of Islam, can compare with the rapid growth and effectiveness of these institutions.
How do you explain it? Both were, by 1560, large institutions, each involving thousands of ordinary people, most of them working alone. Many worked under great pressure and danger, yet there were practically no defections. Very few bad apples. What was the secret?
Now we understand it. Both Calvin and Loyola taught a similar spiritual discipline: that whenever one does anything in a key activity (they were usually spiritual activities, but not entirely), one writes it down and so keeps track of what happens. This feedback, whether it’s a Calvinist examination of conscience, or the Jesuit spiritual exercise, is the way you quickly find out what you’re good at. And you find out what your bad habits are that inhibit the full yield.
Monitor your intentions, actions, and the results. Also monitor whether the results were the expected results. For instance, I may discover that when I put a person in charge of a particular ministry my batting average is very high. I see by this that when it comes to people decisions, I do well.
On the other hand, I may find that when I start a new program it usually flounders. And when I ask what I did wrong, very often I can identify the bad habit. It may be impatience: I insert myself in the activity and discourage the people delegated to lead it. If you pull up a radish every two weeks to see how it’s growing, it will not grow. Or, it may be the other way: I wait too long. I don’t build in checkpoints early enough. This timing can be readjusted.
Or, I may recognize that I haven’t tested the idea. Again and again I see people who don’t pilot, who go from the good idea straight into full-fledged operations. It’s always good to pilot. Start small, for example, on a small-group ministry or a community outreach program before launching a major church-wide emphasis.
Know thy organization
No matter what your personal strengths are, you have to know each key task for your organization and make sure someone is doing each one.
Growing churches can get into trouble in two ways. For instance, the pastor may be very good at preaching and pretty good at training, but there are two other major tasks in any organization: managing money, and managing people. Let’s say the pastor is not good at money matters—raising it, and planning its most effective use. In fact, his interest in preaching, not investing money, was one reason he chose seminary in the first place. And let’s say the pastor is not gifted in direct human contact but basically an intellectual and a communicator.
The temptation is to make one of two mistakes, either of which will kill or cripple the church. The pastor can assume, though not consciously, that what he does well and what he likes to do are the only things that matter. The other tasks just don’t get adequate attention. That’s the lesser mistake, because at least two important things still get done well.
The mistake that really kills the church is when the pastor is conscientious and says, “I know money is important. I know people contacts are important,” and he forces himself to do them. As a result he spends inordinate amounts of time on these things, does them poorly, and slights the things he is good at, and thus does them poorly, too. Within a few years, you have an ungodly mess on your hands.
The secret to ensuring the key areas are adequately covered is to sit down with your associates and board members individually—not in a group—and say, “Think through the major activities of this church. What things have to be done if this church is going to be effective?”
After you sit with those seven to nine people, look at the lists you’ve compiled. In most cases, you won’t have complete congruence, but there’s such substantial overlap that it’s really unanimous. There are usually few exceptions. But take the exceptions seriously—they may simply indicate that somebody misunderstands, but they may also represent a major opportunity or blind spot in the group’s thinking.
Then call a meeting of the group, share the list, and say, “The next step is for each of you to look at all the other people in this room. Put down the strengths of each person. Not your own. What is Joe good at? What is Mary’s strength?” Collect the lists and compare them privately.
Again, it’s amazing how much agreement there usually is. But any dissent is important. Because if six of us see Joe as being good with people, and three do not, we need to refine the question. It becomes, What do we mean by being good with people? How do we want people to be treated? You may need a recruiter, a trainer, a disciplinarian, or an encourager. Joe may be gracious, an excellent quality, but he can’t say no. Some people are pleasant; others are good with people. Those aren’t necessarily the same. So at times you have to be more precise about strengths.
Likewise, being “good with money” usually needs to be defined. Jack may be great keeping the books, but he has a tendency to forget the church doesn’t exist for the sake of finances. Now, you need someone to sound the alert when the books don’t balance. He should be able to say, “We don’t have the money given the current budget,” but he should not be the one to say, “This is the wrong thing to do.” The bookkeeper should be the hair shirt, not the policy maker, because he judges by different criteria.
After you’ve evaluated strengths and key activities, then you begin matching them up, making sure each activity is covered, and you’re beginning to build an effective team.
Pay attention to personnel
Part of the leader’s job is to set the spirit of the organization. That doesn’t mean simply to lay out policy and plans, but to exemplify them, to pay personal attention to the areas where the vision is being worked out.
When you look at well-run organizations, you see that the top people sit in on personnel decisions, even at fairly low levels. That’s where the key difference is made. In corporations, it can really annoy the personnel department when suddenly the big boss appears for a meeting to discuss the promotions to general supervisor.
Alfred P. Sloan, the man who built General Motors, sat in on personnel decisions down to lower middle management. Not every time, but enough so that you were not surprised when, for instance, he would show up unannounced in Tarrytown, New York, and say, “I happened to be in the neighborhood, and I understand you’re meeting to decide who is going to be master mechanic here.” Simply by sitting in, he focused attention on the task, and better decisions were made.
The key, I think, is the commitment to be available to people when they are receptive. There was an episode in the life of Martin Luther when he was in deep despair. He went to his Augustinian prior, who said, “Brother Martin, it is a sin to be in despair.”
For Martin, that was the important thing for the prior to say. What would have become of that young monk without that moment? The prior intellectually was surely his inferior, and probably spiritually, too, but he said the right word. He was available and used the moment of opportunity. It did not answer any of Martin’s spiritual and theological questions, but it totally changed him. It was an example of effective ministry.
When we manage ministry well, we make it possible to be at the right place, at the right time, fully available to those who need us most.
Copyright © 1997
