Sean Rowe is the Bishop of the Diocese of Northwestern PA and Bishop Provisional of the Diocese of Bethlehem. He recently made a provocative statement during a discussion hosted by the TREC Task Force of the Episcopal Church: Bishop Rowe said, simply and bluntly:
“The Episcopal Church is over-led and under-managed.”
Originally I scoffed at that comment (if anything, I thought we were under-led and micro-managed), but I have come to repent of that assessment. My assessment today is that both effective trained leadership and effective trained management – working together – are needed in the church more than ever.
Since Bishop Sean made his remark, lots of people both inside and outside the church have responded to his provocative statement. Most of those responses are far more insightful than anything I can offer here. I am, however, going to reflect on how Bishop Rowe’s statement relates to vision casting and fund raising, and the role of both leadership and management ministries in the church to successfully carry out vision and fund raising efforts.
I summarize my thoughts on Vision and Implementation as follows:
1) It is the task of the Leadership team of a congregation/Diocese to cast a passionate, compelling and understandable Vision and to broadly outline what resources (time, talent, treasure) will needed to accomplish that vision.
2) It is the task of a Management team (either already in place or assembled for the task) to first understand the vision as articulated, and then to solicit the necessary resources ( gifts of time, talent and treasure) needed to implement the articulated vision. The Management team that carries out these tasks is usually designated as a Fund-Raising or Resource-Raising Team.
Here’s a bit more detail:
In order for the vision to become a reality, the Leadership team must articulate the vision in such a way that it will be clearly understood and embraced by those who will be asked to commit their own resources to the implementation of the vision. The Management (Fund-Raising) team will in turn coordinate the solicitation of those resources that will be applied to making the vision a reality. In many cases, a given individual may find themselves serving on both the Leadership and the Fund-Raising teams.
In a successful endeavor, both the Leadership team and the Management (Fund-Raising or Resource-Raising) team must be equipped with the skill sets needed to accomplish their part in making the vision a reality.
This development of skill sets is where vision and fund-raising counsel (such as Evans/Davis) proves invaluable.
First, when the Leadership team develops a vision, it is always wise to ask if that vision is understandable to anyone who may be called upon to provide the resources needed. Too often, that articulated vision is only comprehensible and compelling to the Leadership team! Helping the Leadership team to form, articulate and communicate a compelling vision is part of our mission at Evans/Davis. Are the resources needed too much or too little to implement the vision? What is the potential within the circle of donors to achieve the acquisition of those resources, and under what time frame? Again, Evans/Davis has the skills necessary to provide guidance for answering those questions.
Secondly, there is a specific set of skills that are required by the Management (Fund-Raising) team to successfully solicit the resources needed. Does the Fund-Raising team have the necessary skill set, or do they need to be trained in the skills needed? I can’t emphasize this enough: if the team responsible for successfully soliciting the resources does not have the skill set needed, this critical aspect of the vision implementation will fail. The skill set necessary to conduct a successful fund-raising campaign is a skill set that Evans/Davis is able to share with our clients.
Again, I’m trying to be brief here, and I will have much more to say in future newsletters, but in summary, a successful Vision and Fund-Raising effort in our congregations involves the Leadership team clearly articulating a compelling vision and describing the resources needed to turn that vision into a reality. The solicitation of the resources needed to bring that vision to a reality is carried out by a Management (Fund-Raising) team that has been trained to clearly communicate that compelling vision to others and to successfully solicit and gather those resources. These are not skill sets learned in seminaries or in the business lives of most people, but they are skill sets that can be taught to those who wish to acquire them. Evans/Davis stands ready to help your congregation acquire these skill sets and provide overall direction, leadership and management to turn your vision into reality.
Rev. David Bailey