Slowing Down

I’m not a particularly patient person. I tend to run full-throttle at whatever I do and do whatever it takes to make it happen as quickly as possible. As an example, I turned in my dissertation almost exactly 4 years after beginning my PhD studies and graduated in a total of 9 semesters. So sometimes my impatience and get-it-done spirit is a good thing, and sometimes it drives me and those who have to work with me completely nuts. I can be a bit of a freight train–get on board or get out of the way. This is a tendency I need to overcome (or at least temper) because I’m beginning to see that the process of getting the NPO from conception to program delivery is going to take a lot longer than I originally thought.

In my ideal world, we would have a pilot program up and running in January and be able to submit funding proposals for something in the summer. Given that November is just around the corner, I don’t have a name or a brand or a board member or even another volunteer besides myself, I’m guessing this timeline needs to be revised. And why rush it? Slowing down gives me more time to read, research, build support, make good choices about people and programs and resources. It also acknowledges the reality that I have another couple of jobs that I’m doing while trying to get the NPO off the ground and that there’s only so much I can do. This may seem painfully obvious to everyone else, but is actually a major ephiphany for me.

Naming and Branding

My coaching group call last week focused on articulating the purpose of the nonprofit and naming and branding it in a way that reflects the purpose. Our assignment for next time is to present the purpose and brand to the group for feedback. Thinking about how to accomplish this assignment has raised a few issues in my mind.

First, our NPO is going to be an umbrella organization for at least three types of projects. The first, and the one I am working on starting now, will focus on education for underachieving students. The second project, not yet underway, will be focused on launching entrepreneurial businesses that provide job training and business experience to help people move out of poverty. These two projects have a similar enough purpose–breaking the cycle of poverty. The third project is a bit of a different animal. It will be an internship program for recent college graduates who are considering vocational ministry.  There may also be a fourth program, but that’s just a twinkle in my eye at this point and may not be something that I could move on for several years. We’ll just keep that one in the sock drawer for now.

I’ve been thinking over the past week about what the three projects have in common. All are focused on forward progress, helping people move ahead, take another step on their life journey and arrive at a different place than they probably would have if their path had not crossed ours. The umbrella nonprofit will need to be named in a way that reflects this–I’ve been thinking about something along the lines of Propel or Accelerate or Emerge. But then I also need to name and brand the education program that will be starting most immediately. I’d say it’s a 9 out of 10 chance that we’ll end up doing a reading program, so I’ve been building a list of names like Read On or Read Ahead or Page Up or Next Page.

There are some cool naming tools that I’ll link to here for those of you who like to play with words:
www.my-tool.com/word-domain/word-picker
www.morewords.com
www.wordlab.com
www.rhymezone.com

As a brief side note, I’ve discovered that there may be some funding implications that arise from the multi-focal nature of the NPO. Some foundations specify that an organization must be focused almost completely on their area of interest in order to receive funding. So a foundation that gives grants in education sometimes will say that if your organization does education but also other unrelated things, you aren’t eligible. I don’t think it will end up being a huge hurdle, especially at first when education is our only program, but something to keep in mind.

Starting a needs assessment

One of the first tasks in starting a nonprofit to serve the community is to research what needs people have that are currently unmet by government entities and other NPOs. Typically, the needs assessment focuses on a particular geographic area within the city that contains the target population that the NPO will serve. Focusing on one neighborhood or area of the city narrows the scope of the work to a manageable size for a new organization and allows you to more easily see the impact your programs are making.

The problem for me is that Christ Church doesn’t really have a geographic focus. We worship in a rented facility and office in a different area of the city. Neither location is anything close to permanent and the church is searching for a larger worship space that can accommodate our growth. The church leadership feels called to impact the city of Austin as a whole. But a needs assessment of the entire city is far beyond the scope of the time and money I have to invest.

So my thought is that instead of picking a neighborhood somewhat arbitrarily, I would focus the needs assessment on a particular area of need. The obvious choice for me is education, since that’s where I have the most expertise and the best community connections. I also know that Austin’s public schools have significant unmet needs, so finding a suitable area of impact won’t be difficult.

At first this approach seemed questionable to me because it doesn’t represent the “pure” research approach of coming into the community with a blank slate and listening to stakeholders to find out what needs are most pressing to them. But after some discussion with others, I feel pretty confident that it makes the most sense as a place to start. Drawing on my existing relationships in the schools will expedite the needs assessment process and allow us to begin making an impact more quickly. We will still approach the school district in a needs assessment mindset, seeking to learn from administrators, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders what their needs are and what services and programs would be most beneficial to them.

How I got here

My path to becoming a social entrepenuer began at a seminar I attended at the 2008 Exponential Conference in Orland0 (a conference on church planting). At the time I was mid-way through a one-year assignment to lead the launch of AIM Church Planting for the Anglican Mission in the Americas. The seminar was led by David Mills of Compassion by Design. He described a model of church planting where the planter starts a separate nonprofit organization to meet community needs as a part of the church planting process. I found the model intriguing and shared it with some others in my organization, but really wasn’t in a place to do anything more with the idea at the time.

Yet it stayed with me, and when it was time for me to move on from AIM, I thought about pursuing it. Another opportunity came along very quickly to work on another very compelling project, so I set the NPO idea aside again in my “maybe one day” pile. Another nine months went by and again I was at a crossroads–it was time for me to find a new pastoral assignment. I began contemplating finding a church that was interested in starting a nonprofit with me while also exploring other opportunities in various places around the country.

In the midst of that process, I had lunch with Cliff Warner, senior pastor at Christ Church right here in Austin. I didn’t know Cliff very well, but I sensed he had a heart for social justice and would at least be a little interested in the idea. So I shared it with him, and he told me he’d started a nonprofit at a church in El Paso where he’d served some years ago. It was part of his vision to do the same at Christ Church, but the timing hadn’t been right yet and he didn’t want to force it. Many conversations and a couple months later, I joined the staff at Christ Church with starting a nonprofit as my primary responsibility.

I’m heading into my third week at Christ Church, getting to know the congregation and beginning to make connections in the city to get the process of starting the nonprofit underway. I also re-connected with David Mills and have joined one of his coaching groups. My hope for this blog is that I can use it to chronicle my process in a way that will make it easier for others who want to do the same. Over the next months, I’ll share the steps I’m taking, the obstacles I’m coming up against, how I get past/around them, and the lessons I’m learning.