If you've ever thought about starting a non-profit this TIMEs article is for you. I find it so interesting how many people want to change the world - and I love the fact there are so many trying to actually do it!
In her former job at the Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service, based in Baltimore, Jane Leu saw countless foreign professionals--bankers, lawyers, architects, computer experts--flee to the U.S. and become cabdrivers, nannies and security guards. "There was a real need to match these people with their skills," she says. But her employer's "mission was limited," she says, and management wouldn't budge. So Leu quit, and seven years ago she launched Upwardly Global, a nonprofit that helps white collar immigrants network, prepare résumés and search for a suitable job.
Leu, 37, was anything but alone in her frustration with how traditional nonprofits are run. Too many charities cling to an outmoded mission statement, are slow to give volunteers assignments that excite them and perhaps shun older helpers. After enough vexation, "people throw up their hands and just say they'll start their own," says Marc Freedman, founder of Civic Ventures, which helps retirees find rewarding work and volunteer opportunities.
The number of U.S.-based nonprofits has grown at twice the rate of for-profit ventures in recent years. And it's no coincidence this surge is happening as the huge and famously antiestablishment baby-boom generation starts to rattle another cage. You may be getting the itch too.
There is ample reason to forge ahead and do something good for your community or even the world. But first you should ask yourself three questions:
AM I CUT OUT FOR THIS?
Starting a nonprofit is like starting a business except you have to drum up donors, not investors. But today's donors are just as demanding. They want to see a business plan at the start and measurable results along the way. You will have to put in long hours with little or no pay to keep the enterprise afloat. Leu, who needed two years to get her first grant ($15,000), started out by spending 30 hours a week in her "survival job" as a bookkeeper and 30 more building Upwardly Global, which now has offices on both coasts and a staff of 15.
IS MY IDEA DIFFERENT?
With an estimated 2.8 million charities out there, your idea may already be in practice. Fund raising will be especially difficult if there's a "competitor" with a good track record who markets to your potential donors. Leu says she researched her service idea for several years, "germinating the solution and making sure no one else was doing it."
Passion won't make up for redundancy, warns Diana Aviv, ceo of Independent Sector, a trade group for nonprofits. "Unless you're truly filling a need, it's just self-indulgence," she says.
IS A START-UP NECESSARY?
You don't have to start something to make a difference. You may be able to work with a group targeting the same needs. "Putting in 10 hours a week is no small thing and shouldn't be minimized," says Howard Husock, director of the social entrepreneur program at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank that promotes civic innovation. You also may be able to do your own thing within an existing nonprofit with a related mission. This could speed your launch, reduce overhead and leave open the possibility of a spin-off down the road.
IF YOU ANSWERED YES, yes and yes, it's time to get going. To learn the basics of incorporating as a tax-exempt organization, drafting a business plan, raising funds and building a board of directors, go to nonprofitlaw.com and managementhelp.org To research existing nonprofits, start at guidestar.org and to find organizations that make donations, try foundationcenter.org
The nonprofit field is getting crowded, but people's needs are many. "It's not easy," Leu says of starting a charity. "But it's a life rich in purpose." Energetic new retirees may be especially suited to the challenge. They have skills and contacts--and, perhaps in the back of their mind, they're still humming Alvin Lee's '70s anthem I'd Love to Change the World.
These are not the people you expect to come to the rescue. Rock stars are designed to be shiny, shallow creatures, furloughed from reality for all time. Billionaires are even more removed, nestled atop fantastic wealth where they never again have to place their own calls or defrost dinner or fly commercial. So Bono spends several thousand dollars at a restaurant for a nice Pinot Noir, and Bill Gates, the great predator of the Internet age, has a trampoline room in his $100 million house. It makes you think that if these guys can decide to make it their mission to save the world, partner with people they would never otherwise meet, care about causes that are not sexy or dignified in the ways that celebrities normally require, then no one really has a good excuse anymore for just staying on the sidelines and watching.
Such is the nature of Bono's fame that just about everyone in the world wants to meet him--except for the richest man in the world, who thought it would be a waste of time. "World health is immensely complicated," says Gates, recalling that first encounter in 2002. "It doesn't really boil down to a 'Let's be nice' analysis. So I thought a meeting wouldn't be all that valuable."
It took about three minutes with Bono for Gates to change his mind. Bill and his wife Melinda, another computer nerd turned poverty warrior, love facts and data with a tenderness most people reserve for their children, and Bono was hurling metrics across the table as fast as they could keep up. "He was every bit the geek that we are," says Gates Foundation chief Patty Stonesifer, who helped broker that first summit. "He just happens to be a geek who is a fantastic musician."
And so another alliance was born: unlikely, unsentimental, hard nosed, clear eyed and dead set on driving poverty into history. The rocker's job is to be raucous, grab our attention. The engineers' job is to make things work.
TIMEs Magazine has an interesting collection of articles that pertain to Missions. This one was written all the way back in the 1930s where our Christian fathers were putting their heads together to figure out a way to make it a priority in the church.
"I think that what we have tried to do is this : we have tried to recognize that the work of God is the work of God, and that it is too holy to be touched and judged by our feeble intellects." -Dr. Hocking
Re-Thinking Missions
Monday, Nov. 28, 1932
That they were squaring off at the biggest Protestant question of a century doubtless did not occur at once to the little group of Baptist laymen who met with John D. Rockefeller Jr. in Manhattan one night in January 1930. They knew that in Christ's command. "Go ye therefore and teach all nations," lay the largest task of Christianity. Good businessmen, they and Mr. Rockefeller knew that gifts to missions had now fallen off alarmingly. People no longer thought missionizing the best way, as they thought it 30 years ago, to spend their charity-money. Most people did not know or care much about conditions in foreign mission fields. Mr. Rockefeller had called his Baptist friends together to hear Dr. John R. Mott, who had just journeyed around the world to look at missions. Out of Dr. Mott's talk grew a plan.
A Baptist committee of five was formed, headed by Engineer Albert Lyon Scott (Lockwood Greene Engineers Inc.). Because the subject seemed too big for five lone Baptists, an invitation was sent to the laymen of the Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopal, Methodist, Dutch Reformed and United Presbyterian churches. After a preliminary fact-finding study, an Appraisal Commission headed by Engineer Scott and Philosophy Professor William Ernest Hocking of Harvard, set out to tour the Orient for nine months, returned to the U. S. last summer, began releasing its report to the public last month (TIME, Oct. 31).
Last week the complete report was made public, in a volume called Re-Thinking Missions,* November choice of the Religious Book Club. Excerpts published in the Press had already caused mutterings. But Re-Thinking Missions proved to be well-knit, sincere, lucid, the work of 15 able men and women whose diversities of creeds and interests seemed to preclude collective bias. Thoughtful Protestants had withheld comment until the appearance of the complete report. They now agreed-whether or not they agreed with all the Commission's opinions -that it was a major milestone in the development of church doctrine, church organization both home and abroad. And slowly the realization grew that Re-Thinking Missions had as much significance for Protestantism at home as for Protestantism abroad. Must not a home-church as well as a mission preach a Way of Life rather than threaten hellfire? Should not churches unite against atheism and secularism? Is not economy and centralization as necessary at home as abroad?
Summarized thus are the Appraisal Commission's views:
"The aim of Christian missions [is] to seek with people of other lands a true knowledge and love of God, expressing in life and word what we have learned through Jesus Christ, and endeavoring to give effect to his spirit in the life of the world."
Missions, says the book, must cooperate with non-Christian systems of religion. When missionaries go into teaching, medicine, literature et al., their standards must be higher than those of secular groups. Missionary personnel must be of higher calibre, on the whole, than at present, "even at the risk of curtailing the number of missionaries sent out." There must be concentration of workers in the Orient, with unity among the various Christian sects (which is no new recommendation-unity has long been sought, and achieved in such organizations as the 16-denominational Church of Christ in China). Abroad, responsibility must be transferred from missionaries to natives. At home, all Protestant missionary boards should in the Commission's opinion be consolidated in a single administrative unit.
This week we took the youth group on a mission trip to Atlanta, Georgia.
While there, we learned about how Atlanta is now the #1 city in the US for child sex trafficking, #13 in the world.
"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners...to bestow on them a crown a beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." Isaiah 61:1-3
THE PROBLEM: - 30% of shelter youth and 70% of street youth are victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
- The average age of entry into prostitution is 12-14 years old.
- 100,000-300,000 children in the United States are at risk for commercial sexual exploitation at anytime.
- 75% of minors exploited through prostitution are controlled by a pimp.
THE STRATEGY: - Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking victims require PROTECTION including secured safe homes and tailored services that rescue and restore while removing the child from the control of the trafficker/pimp.
- Strong legislation that criminalizes traffickers and buyers while protecting victims, together with PROSECUTION resulting in convictions with appropriate sentences is critical.
- PREVENTION includes proper victim identification enhanced by public awareness and training of those who interact with the vulnerable population of domestic minor sex trafficking victims.
What is being done about it?
"Girls who have been labeled as "throwaways" now have a chance to get a fresh start at life thanks to Covenant House in Atlanta. Young women who have runaway from home or just otherwise find themselves living on the street can take part in Covenant House's Independent Living Program and have a chance to live on their own. 19 year old Joanna Joseph is now living in her own apartment and is in college pursuing her nursing degree after living on the streets of Atlanta from the age of 18. Some girls find themselves on the street after being put out of their homes. Sex traffickers target these young ladies and most often they end up being trafficked within the first 48 hours of being on the street. Joanna, thankfully, is an exception, as are many girls who enter Covenant House. She has gone through therapy, including Anger Management and is well on her way to full restoration."
Our Chicago MAI office recently took a IWU tour down to Brazil this past month - take a look at their stories!
AMAZON TOUR: IWU
Saturday, Feb. 28th: My first recollection of Saturday morning began early with shouts of rain and guys scrambling around each other, hopping over scattered luggage, and ducking under Brazilian handmade hammocks trying to shut out an almost nightly Amazon downpour. The adventurous souls who were formerly sleeping on the bow of the boat with nothing between them and the clouds, quickly found a make-shift spot to complete their night of rest, protected from the rain. As I laid there trying to get back to sleep, the boat steadily moving down the Amazon towards the Atlantic, the hammocks began to swing in unison with the rocking of the boat-picking up as the wind began to bring on larger waves. It would be an early morning...
We pulled up to Sao Sebestaio just as the sun was sinking over the horizon. It couldn't have been more perfect timing. As we cruised up onto the shore we could see children right up on the grass overlooking the river playing soccer. Everyone on the boat was excited and many jumped off as soon as they could to join the kids in their game. I knew this was going to be a great trip. We are here to share Christ, and we get to play soccer while we do it-what could be better? To God be the glory, great things He has done. Jesse Bassett - #13
Monday, March 2nd: At 10:00 am, all three groups met at the city jail to experience another once in a lifetime opportunity. The seniors from this past year, the IWU coaches, and the missionary leaders played a 7v7 game against the inmates. Although all the inmates were in their 30's and older, they were very talented and defeated us 7 to 4. However, at halftime we were able to take part in a win that means much more than a simple soccer game. It was a win for the kingdom of God! For the first time in my entire life, the Lord used me to bring THREE people, THREE inmates into His kingdom. PRAISE THE LORD! Travis Brady #11
Every minister needs a PrayerGuard. (People who back them up in prayer as
they work to promote the Gospel.)
Even Paul needed a PrayerGuard:
"Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we ask you to pray for us. Pray that the Lord's message will spread rapidly and be honored wherever it goes, just as when it came to you." -2Thes. 3:1
The Problem
The problem is, people are busy, and they can forget I need their prayers.
When they do remember, they often don't know how/what to pray.
The Solution
PrayerGuard has designed a way to help keep prayers coming. By providing short specific topics for prayer, and sending automatic reminders, they help busy people remember prayer needs. By encouraging scripture-based praying, they are empowering people to pray with boldness and faith.
What is it?
PrayerGuard is an online prayer session for Missionaries, Pastors and others who serve. It helps focus prayer by targeting dozens of short topics with scripture and sample prayers. Each prayer session includes 3 short topics which rotate to cover all prayer needs.
I was reading in Joel tonight and it got me thinking about our economy,
and all the people out there that are taking a beating from it all.
This passage encouraged me and I wanted to share it with everyone:
Don't be afraid, my people. Be glad now and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things.
Don't be afraid, you animals of the field, for the wilderness pastures will soon be green. The trees will again be filled with fruit; fig trees and grapevines will be loaded down once more. Rejoice, you people of Jerusalem! Rejoice in the Lord your God! For the rain he sends demonstrates his faithfulness. Once more the autumn rains will come,
as well as the rains of spring.
Joel 2:21-23
I hope that encourages you to REJOICE! Look at all the wonderful things that God is preparing for you and let us know what you're rejoicing about in this season. Staying positive is one of my greatest weaknesses - but I have plenty of reasons to rejoice!
Family! Friends! Time! Home! Generosity!
Praying for you all as you wait for the rains to come...
This was the first time I had the privledge of meeting most of the staff and what a great time we had together
casting a vision for our 2009 season.
One thing we got to do during the retreat was Skype our missionaries that are currently out in the field.
A repeated need that our missionaries voiced was the feelings of being forgotten both prayerfully and financially by
their friends, family, and churches. So in honor, here is a short bio for three of them - take a minute to remember
them and their prayer requests...
Tom and Olena Merchant: Ukraine
Tom Merchant, veteran of MAI's tours to the Soviet Union in 1991, moved to Moscow in 1999 after interning with the Chicago office.Tom married Olenka whom he met in Ukraine and they relocated to begin ministering in Ukraine in 2003. His prayer requests are for good ministry opportunities during the EuroCup to share the gospel effectively as well as financial needs.
The West Family: Thailand
The Wests have served with MAI for
over 15 years and are currently in partnership with SIM/Sports
Friends. They are privileged to come alongside churches and
church planting organizations to help equip and empower churches to use sports
to impact the Thai people. Prayer requests are for deep relationships to form with the Thai and that the Thai people will begin to trust them and open up to them. Also for their two young children to make quick friends.
Steve and Suzie Mattocks: CzechRepublic
In 2001 Steve and Suzie Mattocks began ministering in the southwestern province of Bohemia in conjunction with the Elim church, and have just returned to the states for their furlough. Their prayer requests are re-entry hardships adjusting to american culture and financial needs.
If you know other missionaries abroad take a minute today and remember them in prayer, send a note, an email, make a phone call, a donation - to let them know you support and care about them!
I've recently began taking courses in Advertising and Graphic Design and one of the main things we ask ourselves each day is, "What is it that people care about?"
It's easy for me to answer for myself what I want to care about, but if I was in a court of law and my life was the evidence what would the verdict be? What do I care about?
"By the time you graduate from high school, statistics say you will have watched more than sixteen thousand hours of television. You will have spent fourteen thousand hours in an educational institution. And if you go to church for just two hours a week, you will have spent under two thousand hours getting spiritual help." -from The Divine Mentor by Wayne Cordeiro
If its our time that is the proof about what we really care about, what I seemingly care about is not what I truly want to care about.
Take some time today to care about something you want to care about.
