Christianity Today: Leaps of Faith: What business execs are learning as they lead Christian nonprofits
Having worked in both for-profit and nonprofit ventures, and having served on the board for several nonprofit corporations, I think this article hits several issues squarely on the head.
At the same time, many baby boomers are looking to move from "success to significance," a phrase coined by Bob Buford, author of Halftime. Like Bill Gates, who recently decided to work full-time at his foundation, many Christians hope to put their business skills and resources to work in the charitable world.
But it's no easy transition, says Laura Nash, formerly a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and coauthor of Church on Sunday, Work on Monday. Businesspeople are accustomed to a world where everything is measurable, from results to bottom-line profits. In the nonprofit or church world, results are harder to measure, says Nash. Any mention of business terms like efficiency or customer service prompts suspicion.
There's a stereotypical assumption among Christians in the nonprofit world that capitalism means greed or selfishness, and "therefore has got to be bad," says Nash, founder and managing partner of Piper Cove Asset Management LLC. Using goals to measure progress—standard practice in the business world—is seen as "cold-blooded and materialistic."
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Many nonprofits are in the "business of intangibles," says Stearns. That makes measuring their effectiveness tricky.
One major difference between the nonprofit world and the business world is how they view money. In the for-profit world, money is both a means and an end. To figure out whether a for-profit business is doing well, Stearns notes, all you have to do is look at financial statements.
But financial statements don't tell the whole story for nonprofits, where money is a means and the mission is the end. For example, suppose World Vision lowers its overhead by 10 percent. That sounds good, Stearns acknowledges. But what does it really mean?
"That doesn't mean we are helping any more kids, or that we are any more effective in the field," he says. "That means we are sending more money—but where is the money going?"
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In Good to Great, Collins argued that the first step to building a great organization is "getting the right people on the bus." His research backed up the idea that an organization's people are its greatest assets.
But that's not always the reality—at least in the way staff members are treated—at Christian nonprofits and churches, says Sammy Mah, CEO of World Relief. His first task was to work on compensation and staff evaluation.
"What I find here is a missionary mentality: that people need to be suffering for the Lord, that everyone has to be at the ragged edge, overworked and underpaid," Mah told CT. "But I can't see how that honors God."
Drawing on his business experience, Mah says that he's helping World Relief to think long-term about its programs and staffing. That means preparing staff members for positions they'll hold in the future. "If people are our greatest asset, then we ought to be cultivating them."
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Sometimes business leaders come into the nonprofit world with a bias—they think the nonprofit world is an easier place to work than the corporate world.
Stearns characterizes that bias in this way: "I know all the answers, because I played in the big leagues. This is the way it's going to be, and I'm going to change everything."
That attitude is a recipe for failure.
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