Partnership
Here’s some tough talk:
“All nonprofit leaders – presidents and CEOs, board members, and funders (my emphasis) must let go of conventional wisdom and shift their focus from organization-level goals to network-level impacts. Nonprofit leaders should put the pursuit of their missions - not the growth of their organizations – back at the center of all of their organizations’ activities. They should identify their organizations’ unique competencies and actively seek partnerships with other organizations that will help them serve their missions more efficiently and effectively. They should look to both complementary and competing organizations as potential partners.”
That’s from last year’s Spring Stanford Social Innovation Review.
I sure wish there was some of that kind of talk from a similarly authoritative source within the evangelical community. Imagine what might happen if CEOs, trustees, and funders of global evangelical mission and evangelism actually came to grips with the implications of this! Imagine what might happen in strategies to reach unreached people if every ministry adopted this stance!
First, of course, there would have to be a huge shift in basic awareness – looking at the wider world and the big context of ministry rather than the myopic world of our ‘own thing.’
Then, we’d have to ask, “Where do we actually fit in?” Or, “What’s our unique contribution?”
We might ask, “Is anyone else doing the same thing we are or close to it?” (Never mind “Have we ever really researched this question and would we be ready to sit down and talk with those people?”)
Finally, we might then be forced to ask the ‘so what’ question; “What are the implications of these things?”
That’s what the Stanford Social Innovation Review is talking about: Mission, not individual organizational performance. Networks (and partnerships) become a natural byproduct of that kind of thinking. Of all work, the demands of reaching the unreached call for this kind of collaboration. Frankly, it’s the Scripture base line for assessment. But are we ready?
What do you think?
Related content: The Glue of Partnership
But it doesn’t take long to notice those efforts that stand out from the crowd. They are the nonprofits and ministry groups that cast their gaze externally. They are so committed to realizing their goal that they pursue it through actively connecting with partner organizations where that partnership advances their cause. Their cause is more important to them than their organization.