Insights on Philanthropy
by Fred Smith

Years ago I was part of an organization – Leadership Network – that convened senior pastors and staff of large churches.  While they were used to hearing from their peers they told us they wanted to hear from non-pastors about issues of management and leadership because the seminaries and conferences they attended did not address those issues for large churches.  We began to seed our conferences with management speakers, business professionals, secular authors and other “non-church” resources.  While the emphasis was still on church professionals learning from other church professionals about the “business” of the church, the introduction of outside resources was welcomed with enthusiasm. 

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog titled “Half-Time for Church Staff” reflecting on the growing trend of church staff to start their own non-profit organizations.  That started me thinking about why.  That question led me to start asking church staff who the influencers were in their lives and the conferences they were attending.  This is an oversimplification but the majority of them reported going to conferences like “Q”, “Catalyst”, “Fusion”, “Orange” and the Willow Creek Leadership Conferences.  When I looked at the speaker rosters (and attended the conferences) I realized the speakers are, with exceptions, men and women who are known as artists, writers, film makers, social justice leaders, think tank scholars, management consultants, pundits, journalists, and entrepreneurs.  They are not, typically, church staff or church leaders talking about church.  The roster does include pastors who have left the church to launch something new. They are “culture makers” (to use Andy Crouch’s phrase) who are creative and working outside institutions or starting their own. 

In other words, while we seeded those long ago conferences with a few outside resources, the outside resources have become the main voices informing and shaping church staff.  The professionals are no longer attending conferences for professionals to learn how to increase attendance and build an organization.  They are attending conferences that while they include the institutional church as one of the channels of culture, it is only one of several.  In some ways, the real action for ministry is “outside the walls” of the church.  Yes, this has been talked about for years by people in the various lay movements that have come and gone. I don’t think any of us could have predicted what might happen when the young leaders of the church are more interested and motivated by starting new organizations (not churches) with missions that are almost foreign to the senior staff and lay leadership of their churches.  The heroes of the young staff are not builders of large churches but explorers and entrepreneurs in arts, culture, film, commentary and social justice.  I’m curious how this plays out. 

One of the most pronounced trends in the non-profit world in the last ten years has been the number of men and women in business careers making a transition to the non-profit world. While most assumed there would be some differences in the way those two worlds operated, I think many discovered they had no preparation for how different they are! Making a lateral move from business leadership to non-profit leadership was more of a shock than they knew it would be and it has taken them years to make the adjustment. Many have not made the adjustment and chosen to go back into business or join boards. The two worlds have different rules, incentives, values and assumptions as well as different realities.

It is only recently that I have been noticing another shift. People on staff with churches are moving into the non-profit world by establishing their own 501(c)3 organizations. In the same way, they are learning that the traditional non-profit world is not the same as church. Most people would assume those worlds would be fairly similar but they are not and the differences are important.

Men and women on the staff of churches have had to learn not only about the cultural differences between churches (different language, values, incentives, etc.) but also the unique operating principles of each.  

First, church staff have typically never worked with boards. They might have been managed by a pastor or executive pastor but they have never faced the unique relationship between a governing board and an executive director. In fact, the legal requirements and expectations of a non-profit governing board are far more demanding than those of a most often distant deacon body or church committee.

Second, most churches have budgets and the operating budget provides the funding for the program. Staff are not responsible for raising their budget. In fact, they are discouraged from doing it as that competes with the overall operating budget of the church. While many staff have learned how to raise additional money for special projects from church members they have typically not been asked to raise a whole operating budget.

Third, church staff understand the politics and systems of their church. They understand the “ecosystem” of their congregation and the needs of that body. However, they have very little experience in understanding the complexities and needs of the larger community. By necessity, they have become expert in a well-defined organization but a community where many non-profits navigate and compete for support of all kinds is foreign to them and they do not factor in how much they will need to learn about that community.

I think this is a trend that will only increase – especially with younger staff who are uncomfortable being confined to one place and want to “make a difference” in the world. They recognize the church is not “the world” in which they want to spend their lives. They have different expectations and this is going to play out in interesting ways.