A Strategic Initiatives Fund for an Orthodox Christian Parish

Stewardship AdvocatesTM

What are Strategic Initiatives?

Strategic Initiatives (SI) are one or more finite-duration discretionary projects and programs, typically outside the parish’s day to day operational activities, designed to help the parish achieve heightened performance, increased growth or improved service as regards mission fulfillment. SI are often characterized by agile and rapid opportunism, innovation, and reasonable entrepreneurial risk-taking – perhaps a behavioral mode somewhat unusual for a contemporary Orthodox parish – but not at all unusual for the New Testament Church.

What is a Strategic Initiatives Fund?

A Strategic Initiatives Fund is a restricted account specifically dedicated to fund or partially fund sudden opportunities for parish development or for innovative and entrepreneurial new ideas, approaches, projects and programs to fulfil the mission of the parish. The Fund is not to be used to underwrite items in the operating budget of the parish but the fund may finance ways in which traditional ministries of the parish may be expanded or reconfigured for more effective mission fulfillment. Parishioners, ministries or organizations may apply for a grant from the Fund. Read on for more information.

Strategic Initiatives

• They are strategic because they express the intention of the parish leadership to exercise a choice for a preferred future

• They are strategic because they are aligned with mission fulfillment

• They are strategic because they look beyond immediate need to long term benefits

Strategic Initiatives

• They are initiatives because they define and encompass actionable goals and objectives

• They are initiatives because they seize opportunities

• They are initiatives because they are entrepreneurial and risk-taking for new projects and programs that spiritually transform community values and behavior

• They are initiatives because we pray for a meaningful return on investment (only occasionally measured in dollars) from an initial investment of time and money

Substantiating a Strategic Initiatives Program (1)

The authors of the New Testament did not write in Hebrew – the language of the culture which gave birth to Christianity; nor did they write in Latin, the language of the occupying military force; nor even in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. They wrote in Greek! Because it ensured a wide distribution of the gospel and general comprehension by many more hearers who could not read. Thankfully, they were entrepreneurial risk-takers with vision.

Substantiating a Strategic Initiatives Program (2)

St. Paul, though a Jew with extraordinarily impressive credentials regarding his Judaism, preached to the Gentiles and to the Jews in the markets, the forums, the synagogues, the towns, the cities, in boats, in prison, by letter and through messengers – basically anyway he could. He went into cities seeking converts where the message of the gospel had never been heard before. He preached where there was dangerous and threatening hostility. He traveled the Middle East, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Crete, Malta, Rome and he dreamed of going to “The Pillars of Hercules” – Gibraltar and Spain. He was entrepreneurial with a readiness to “…become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (I Corinthians 9:19)

• Newton’s 1st law, applied to a parish, states that a parish at rest (complacent, in maintenance mode) will remain at rest.

• Newton’s 2nd law states that a “force” is needed to accelerate a mass at rest, or in our case, launch a complacent parish into dynamic forward motion.

• Strategic Initiatives represent a viable force, tempered by judicious and wise implementation, that accelerates a parish into motion (action - new programs; growth - new members; improvement - better service; enrichment - spiritual development; thereby overcoming inertia and the all-too-common resistance to change.

Substantiating a Strategic Initiatives Program (3)

Examples of Possible Strategic Initiatives • Initiating a never before attempted evangelization program in the

parish to bring new and fallen away people to church by sending committee member to evangelical training seminars (radical thought, I know)

• A potentially very important piece of real estate contiguous with the present property suddenly comes on the market

• Several of the Orthodox churches in your city decide to get serious about ministry to college aged youth and discuss a full time coordinator or purchasing a house for OCF activities, etc.

• Retaining a second priest so that more time may be given to outreach, teaching, visiting, counseling, etc. – basically giving more dedicated time to spiritually developing the community.

• A well-publicized festival of Orthodox or near-Orthodox films sponsored by the parish for education, outreach, evangelization and re-branding of the parish beyond the festival and the boring annual media announcement of a different date for Easter

Where do Strategic Initiatives Come From? • The long-deferred dreams and aspirations of the priest

• The forward-thinking members of the parish council – those not wedded to hide-bound custom

• Ministry heads who hold responsibility for well-performing programs

• An existing long-term plan where objectives are free-floating items on a wish list

• Any parishioner with a viable, well thought-through idea that has a reasonable chance for good results

• Reading books on nonprofit development

• Visiting dynamic and successful churches to learn and then to apply what is possible to apply in an Orthodox environment.

• Scouring Stewardship Advocates Library – plenty of ideas there!

The whole idea is to create a parish culture where advancing Orthodoxy and fulfilling mission through innovation and risk-taking is welcomed and supported

Three Types of Parish Strategic Initiatives

• What a parish does manifests its default and de facto strategy even if done unthinkingly and unintentionally. This can be summed up by identifying the projects and programs in which it invests funds, personnel and energy

• Into this matrix may come three types of strategic initiatives:

1. Programs and projects that work in the parish for a specific segment of the parish (mostly, but not completely, these may consist of ramping up traditional and established ministries)

2. Overarching programs and projects that work on the parish as an organic entity with community-wide application (new technology, advanced education for the priest, leadership training, parish council development, surveys, planning, etc.

3. Working to transform the parish (retreats, pilgrimages, lectures, new property, heretofore non-existent programs)

Funding the Strategic Initiatives Program • Parish Council and finance committee must buy into the concept

• Needs to be a line item in the parish budget each and every year to ensure a continuous income stream – do not tie it to operational items

• Consider an annual fundraising event to increase the funds available – though it’s not the most effective way to raise money, a fundraising event keeps the SI program alive and in the consciousness of parishioners

• Personally approach the well to do, especially those entrepreneurial types that would immediate grasp the potential of such a program and ask them for an annual gift of $5,000 - $50,000, depending upon the size and giving horizons of the prospective donor and the capability of the funding community – even a couple of thousand dollars in the fund makes it work; but impact may be more limited

• Regularly report on success and results of the SI program to the parish to keep interest and continued funding high

Managing the Strategic Initiatives Grant-Making Process

• A sub-committee of the parish council handles the process

• Priest and parish council decide allocation of grants and investment of the funds with recommendations from sub-committee

• Grant proposal process with guidelines for filling out forms – no guarantee that the project will be funded but the better the proposal, the better the prospect of receiving a grant

• Description of the project, goals and objectives, budget, expected outcomes and results, personnel involved including qualifications, accountability, reporting procedures, research conducted, etc. Don’t make it too onerous but insist upon proper planning

• The plan for continued funding if the proposal is for an ongoing program after the initial grant? (Suggestions: if it proves viable then get it in the budget; it’s a project that makes its own money; recruit sponsors to fund it.)

For additional information related to Orthodox parish development on fundraising, strategic planning, leadership, management, etc., access the Stewardship Advocates Library. There you will find a variety of sample surveys, articles, Powerpoints, analytical tools, studies, templates, growth strategies and coaching on leadership and management.

Ordained in 1974; 38 years a priest; four parishes served; B.A., M.Div., plus 30 courses of study in nonprofit organizational development;12 years serving as Vice Chancellor of Advancement at St. Vladimir's Seminary; 16 years as consultant to well over 100 Orthodox parishes and organizations; author and editor of Good and Faithful Servant: Stewardship in the Orthodox Church. In 2012, at his own request, Anthony returned to the ranks of the laity in order to receive the sacrament of holy matrimony.

Anthony L. Scott

The Principal of Stewardship Advocates

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