ASI 2012: It's Time... To Be About Our Father's Business

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ASI 2012 Seminar: Business / Nonprofit

Paul Hunt

Leading with Purpose and Passion

What does it mean to lead with purpose and passion?

In Romans 12, 8, we're told in some versions to lead with all diligence, that's a King James version.

But there's other versions, and I actually like what it says here.

The leader, if you have the gift of leadership, should lead with what?

Leading with purpose presupposes 2 things, has 2 elements.

There's motive and secondly, there's intention.

Motive is the reason why you lead, the justification for leadership.

And the intention is the aim, the object, the target of your leadership.

And the reason to lead is really to impact lives for eternity, isn't that right?

It's the only reason we are putting ourselves in the position of attack, in the firing line, is that we are leading with the purpose of impacting lives for all eternity.

And that's the best thing that we could do.

It speaks about the mood in which you lead.

It's passion, it's fervor and enthusiasm.

It's a certain kind of zeal and vigor in leadership that we should have.

But the truth is, is that while we're under attack, our energy wanes, isn't that right?

Whether or not we're really doing the right thing.

Lord, did I really hear your voice when you said, go and do this.

But we are to lead with fervor and enthusiasm.

And this morning I want to share with you some leadership concepts to bring us back to passion and to bring us back to that fervor that God expects us to have.

Before we do that though, I'd like to just say a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we know that as we talk in a group like this, as we meet, It's not simply to come to get information, but it's also to get inspiration and insight that only comes from your Holy Spirit.

So Lord, speak to us in ways that are far beyond anything that I could say, and touch the hearts that are here, and bring encouragement to their soul, and strengthen us to do your work.

This is our prayer in the name of Jesus let everyone say amen.

I want us to look at 3 areas today we're going to look at 3 main areas the first 1 is keeping focus the second 1 is keeping heart And the third 1 is keeping sane.

Keeping focus is looking at God's way of leadership, understanding what leadership means from the Bible.

The second, keeping heart, is looking at God's way of success.

When we look at success in the way the world views it and we look at ourselves and our ministry, sometimes we get discouraged.

So I want us to keep heart by looking at God's way to understand success and also keeping sane, God's way with people.

How do we deal with, how do we address people in ministry?

Because truth be told, leadership is about people and without people there's no reason to lead.

Now if you're a student of leadership at all, if you read your Bible at all, you'll notice that every major leader in the Bible experienced failure.

Every major leader in the Bible experienced failure, significant loss.

Most of them were fired from their positions.

You only have to think of Abraham and Jacob and people like Joseph and Moses to think about being fired from their positions or being reassigned or getting it all wrong.

But they were all called by God, that's significant.

Some were misguided, they found themselves in deep trouble.

In fact, they went into hiding, they ran from mortal danger, and many were on the wrong side of the law.

Lost home, lost status, lost wealth, lost security.

And though, although greatly distressed, greatly flawed and troubled, they learned God's way of leadership And it took some hard knocks and some hard lessons to do that.

I want you to think about Luke chapter 9 and verse 3.

Jesus says this, and he says this in this context.

He's about to send out his disciples into ministry, into the field.

I want you to put yourself in that position.

He's sending you out as ASI members to do what he has called you to do.

And he says, take nothing for the journey, no walking stick, no bag, no bread, no money, not even an extra shirt.

Now, if you're going to send someone out into ministry or into a battlefield, why in the world would you tell them, take no walking stick, take no bag, take no food, take no money, and don't take even an extra set of clothes.

You see, when we walk with God, our baggage has to be left at home Because now that we walk with God, we look to Him to provide everything.

Didn't Jesus say, what the heathen worry about, you should never worry about.

And all these things, the bags and the money and the clothes, they will be added unto you and in a very powerful way speaking to the first leaders of the Christian church he says I don't want you to take stuff with you.

The baggage is best left at home I just want you to go and depend on me to provide for your needs on every level.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, we can't help others and lead our ministries when our hands are full holding onto our own stuff.

Now I want to pause there and I want you to think about that.

Attachments of pride and love of possessions and status, secret sin, whatever it is, it has to be let go.

This is a primary, just that the entry-level step into leadership with Christ is that we must relinquish who we are.

Understanding God's way of leadership points us to 2 stark realities.

You know, before I go into that, 1 of the reasons that God permits us to go through challenges and opposition as leaders is to free us from the things that dwarf our ministry.

Believe it or not, myself included, we all have blindsides.

We all have elements within our character that prevent us from growing and advancing as we leave.

And God permits only what we can take and only those things that will structure us and shape us and mold us in such a way as to be the most effective people we can be.

Because you can be efficient but not effective.

God wants us to be the most effective people that we can possibly be.

We often focus on IQ and skill development and targets and goals but God shapes our hearts to serve.

Because naturally, I'll tell you from personal experience, naturally I really don't want to serve.

That was God shaping my heart towards service.

You see the experience of leadership is to change you also.

We normally look at leadership as something outside of ourselves and apart from ourselves, it's something that we do.

But a leader is a person that you become.

And God intends that the leadership walk will shape you as you impact others for Jesus Christ.

God does not use us, ladies and gentlemen.

He cares about who you become as you lead in ministry.

Part of leading is allowing that experience, negative and positive, to do something to you.

And normally what happens, I can say, I can give you an example.

You know, as a pastor, as you stand by the door, people come along and they shake your hand and say, Pastor, that was a wonderful message.

Next person comes along and says, Pastor, that was a great message.

And another person comes along and says, Wonderful message.

Ken Turpen

Finding Donors and Dollars in a Down Economy

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity we have to be here today.

Not everybody can be here, but we view this as a blessing to be together and to talk about this subject.

Each of the ministries represented here in this room today, the individuals who are here, they're seeking to serve you and to bring people to the kingdom.

And we ask that you would bless our conversation today, that you would give me strength and energy and the wisdom to know how to present and to give the type of answers that are needed to make this truly a productive conversation.

Thank you for hearing and answering our prayers today.

These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

So, let's talk about a couple things before we get going, because they're kind of foundational to the discussion.

And somebody asked if this is some of the same stuff that they heard 2 years ago, and some of it's the same, but some of it's new.

But I want to share something to you that I learned from the very first book that I read on fundraising.

It's probably the very first book, in-depth book written on fundraising in the United States and it's a great book.

But Sy Seymour was kind of the father of philanthropy in the United States and in a lot of ways in terms of modern philanthropy and fundraising.

And 1 of the things that Sai Seymour talks about is how do you look at your universe of donors.

And what I wanted to share with you is these 3 numbers and I'd like you to remember them for the context of this conversation and that is I don't know if you can read this from all parts of the room but there's a 70, 23, and 7 and I put those numbers up they add up to a hundred but what I want you to remember is that 70% of your donors give out a habit okay they're they're just the way that they're wired I would say maybe Seventh-day Adventist that number tends to be a little bit higher because we grow up in such an institutional tithing and church attendance and we do things habitually just because we're Seventh-day Adventists.

Twenty-three percent of donors in the United States and around the world in general, they're emotional givers.

They don't give all the time, but they will give when they're called upon to give and if it emotionally tugs at their hearts.

It's- it tends to be visionary, but the word that I was looking specifically we won't go on forever looking it's strategic and It happens to be that most of the money that we're raising is going to happen to come from that 7%.

It's not that they are not regular givers, and it's not that they're not emotional either, but they tend to fall in this category of being a strategic donor because they want to see some real impact with their dollars.

They tend to be either businessmen or women.

And they want to know what your plan is and they want to see some big, hairy, audacious goals.

And so, you know, these are the people who the people are out there and that's where you need to kind of look.

And when you think about what you're doing for fundraising, think about what you're doing to reach these different groups.

And I would say most of us tend to work with the people who are giving out a habit.

And where we're messing up right now is we tend to not ever touch that 7% who are more strategic donors and that's where most of the gifts happen to be.

Most of the major gifts and planned gifts come from people who are doing strategic giving.

So let's talk about why are some organizations strong when others reduce services and close their doors.

Why do some nonprofits tend to fly real high and others are always on the cusp of closing?

Donations tend to have an impact on it as well because in nonprofit organizations the donations can make up the difference between what your mission and and your vision is and where you want to go as an organization because I've been working with some private schools lately and it's really interesting that most private schools are designed to lose money.

They sell their tuition at a rate that doesn't pay for all their expenses.

And so it automatically throws them into a situation where they're having to raise scholarship dollars or raise money for capital needs.

They never charge what it costs to educate the children.

So 1 of the reasons I believe that there's such a huge problem is that the people tend to give to visionary organizations and we tend to be anything but visionary.

We tend to think that people are going to give to us because We have lots of needs and the fact that you have needs with your nonprofit organization is not The biggest reason why people are going to give And that's why you'll see people characterize, you know, what they're doing is that they desperately need your help or we're going to close our doors.

And this is really flawed thinking because people are not going to give to you if you appear to be needy or if there's a slight possibility that you might close your doors, then they're not going to give you their money because there's a lot of other organizations that are out there that are fundraising and they're not talking about needs, they're talking about how they're succeeding and how they're fulfilling mission.

And 1 of the things I would tell you that in all your language that you're talking out in the public or with your donors or in any groups or whatever, talk about what it is that you're doing well and what you're doing to make a difference in the world.

And then if you want to have some private discussions with a particular donors about what the needs are of the organization, you always have to characterize those within the context of how those needs are a part of fulfilling the mission of the organization.

You have to marry the needs with the mission and the vision.

And too often, we talk about how bad things are and how desperate we need the support.

1 of my alma mater sent me a letter 1 time, and they wanted me to give to help rebuild the pool house at the swimming complex.

And they actually were audacious enough to send a picture along with it of a hole in the roof.

So, you know, and it's not that we can't, mind you, it's not that we can't talk about what our needs are.

In other words, They could send out a letter talking about how we're needing to do renovations in the pool complex.

But I'd be more inspired by seeing pictures of students taking classes in the swimming pool or students in general instead of a picture of a hole in the roof.

The donors really don't care to see that the prior funds weren't managed correctly or that people weren't supporting the organization in the past and for that reason there's a hole in the roof.

So, think about, you know, what you're doing and try to be visionary.

And remember, this is a text that I found that I thought was appropriate to the subject, and that is where there is no vision, a people perish.

And I had a couple others that were talking about vision.

Henry David Thoreau said, I would give all the wealth of the world and all the deeds of all the heroes for 1 true vision.

So if you're a leader in your organization, remember that as you approach donors and others in the community to talk about what your organization is doing, try to be very visionary in talking about what you're doing to make a difference.

And then Theodore Roosevelt said, far better is it to dare mighty things to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure and to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the great twilight that knows no not victory nor defeat you know our donors don't expect us to be perfect either.

But if we're going to succeed, we have to have some lofty goals in mind and people will tend to give to things that tend to be more lofty than urbane.

What's happening with giving in the United States?

Well last year giving was up 4% up to $298 billion.

We've had a recession over the last few years obviously you know that the high of giving in the last few years was 307 billion dollars.

So it's it's starting to go back up but if you would look at a chart on giving you would see that over the last 40 years in the United States giving is basically gone up every single year for the last 40 years until 2008 and then we had a drop because of that time in the recession that we have.

So and it's going to come back up But remember that the people who are the most wealthy in this country, even though they got hurt in the stock market, their money is generally is back right where it was before.

The stock market's back up and they're doing fine.

Most gifts are given to religion, about 32%.

That includes your organizations, it includes churches.

Most people, that's where they like to give.

Any of those who are here with schools are really in a wonderful position because people like to give to children and they love to give to religion and they love to give to education.

And so you have the perfect scenario there when you're representing any type of a school.

International causes, it was up 8% plus increases in environmental and animal organizations.

And you should know that individuals give 88% of all the gifts.

1 of the questions I tend to get from people is, the first question is, is that they say, I want to raise money and I want to know how to get money from all the businesses in town.

Have you ever heard of the term quid pro quo?

Well, I will tell you that unless you have a personal relationship with the business owner, okay, so that's no longer a business gift.

But unless you have that personal relationship and you're truly approaching a business, they tend to give all their gifts out of which budget?

And so a business owner is not in the business of giving away money.

A business owner is in the business of making money.

So they don't give it away unless they see that it's going to benefit them.

And they don't mind giving them, you know, they're altruistic in many regards, but you know, you've got to know a businessman, the way he measures success in life happens to be how he runs his business and whether he makes a profit or not.

And if he makes that profit, I mean it feels good and they feel successful.

And a lot of times it's really not even about the money.

They really don't care about the money in a lot of ways.

I mean it's a measurement device, but these people, their values are not based always on what that money is.

How many of you have read the book called The Millionaire Next Door?

Okay, if you haven't read The Millionaire next door, you should read that.

Mark LaVanture

Patty LaVanture

Growing a Sustainable Ministry

The focus this morning is how we can grow a sustainable ministry.

And we believe that any kind of a business can be a ministry.

And our particular ministry is a non-profit corporation, But the principles that we're going to be sharing, we believe, can be incorporated in a non-profit or for-profit corporation.

So first, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what we do at our ministry, and then Mark will delve more into the principles.

So we want to welcome you to Oak Haven, that's our ministry, and when you would come in, this is the sign you would see, we're a ministry that is the home of Emanuel Institution.

This is the sign that you're going to see when you come in and we're the home of Country Life Natural Foods and we also have Emmanuel institute there which is the evangelism school that's operated by the Michigan Conference.

We like to begin each day with prayer and this is what you're going to see as you come in, lots of trees.

The ministry was actually purchased around 1960, 1, 200 acres and most of that property is wooded.

When God provided this property, the lumber on the property was actually worth more than what was actually paid for.

You can see some of the young people here.

Country life is a big focus of our ministry because it's the business that funds the ministry and in itself it is a ministry.

We believe that every employee to some degree is a missionary and every department is an outreach and this is the vision that we try to impart to the workers.

If you would come to the store, this would be your entrance.

When you come into the store, you can order any 1 of our 1500 products from the warehouse and there's actually even more products than that on the shelves in the store.

These are just a couple of pictures because we don't have time to go into a lot of that but you will be greeted by our friendly store staff And what's beautiful about the store is it's on the front lines of ministry and our store staff know that it's okay to take time to pray with the people that come in.

A lot of them come for counsel, for someone to pray with them.

Of course, they give out lots of tracts, literature.

There's a literature rack right in the foyer as they come in.

And this is Sherry, back in our packaging room.

Sherry's a real blessing in a lot of ways.

And you can see her bagging up some of our bulk products into smaller sizes.

So you can get large sizes or small sizes of the many natural foods that we carry.

You can see here, this is where we're making granola.

Even though we do repackage and distribute a number of items, we also manufacture a number of products as well.

Granolas, trail mixes, burger mix, cookie mix, there's 1 more mix, burger cookie waffle mix.

And this is some of the equipment, just a couple of pictures that you can see of our factory.

And of course, most of you are familiar with the little sample packets that you get at ASI and these go to a lot of events.

People actually order them for their own events and this is our factory staff Doug the second to the left is our factory manager and he's awesome.

And our factory staff, they're very mission-minded.

The other day I was in there and I said, hey, are you guys still putting those tracks in the five-pound boxes?

And they said, well, we would if we had more.

So I went over to Faith Hall, brought a whole case down there and they're ready to put them in the packages.

So we're getting the word out in every way shape and form even in the factory.

Of course the guys in the warehouse don't have as much opportunity but if it weren't for them we wouldn't have any products to offer to the community.

We have 25, 000 square feet of warehouse space and you can see 1 of the guys who is now in the seminary to be a pastor.

A lot of the workers go on to do all kinds of ministries after they have spent time at Oak Haven and these are the guys that work back in the warehouse.

Once in a while we get a visit from the FDA inspectors, men in the white suits on the left, we never know when they're coming.

They show up unannounced, but the certified organic inspectors, they do give us advance notice.

We have a fleet of 7 trucks plus 3 more of our distributors that deliver in about 15 states.

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ASI 2012 Seminar: Business / Nonprofit

Leading with Purpose and Passion

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