The Point

Here is a list of causes you can support via SHOPPING!

TOMS Shoes–For every pair you buy, they give away a pair to a child in a third world country!

Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee–very good coffee for all your caffeinated friends, and it’s helping to rebuild the African country of Rwanda, they have one of my favorite slogans… “Drink Coffee, Do Good.”

The Preemptive Love Coalition–Family who moved to Iraq to engage the locals and started Buy Shoes Save Lives, I have a pair, yes they are expensive, but unlike most shoes in that price range they aren’t made in factories in Bangladesh by kids, they are hand made in Iraq and the profits fund heart surgeries!

RED Campaign–The best organized effort to bring our consumption in line with a cause. You can buy everything from Converse and Armani, to an IPOD Product(RED), and a portion of your purchase price goes to fight AIDS in Africa. GAP has a good lineup of these items, and STARBUCKS is Joining the Campaign later this month!!!

Invisible Children–A movement to help kids in war torn Uganda and a couple pretty good films!

XXXChurch.com–The largest Christian Porn Site…you should check it out! And they have some pretty cool merchandise.

Jedidiah Clothing– Probably my favorite place to shop for T-Shirts…

Maggie’s Organics–If you wanna green up your wardrobe…

I hope you use this list…If you’re going to buy shoes or T-shirts this holiday season, might as well make a difference in the process!

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I’ll be doing these church related posts pretty regularly. As much to process my own thoughts and ideas on issues as anything, so if it doesn’t make sense, ignore and move on. If you have some additional experiences, advice, insight to add I’d love to hear it!

Today I’m thinking about Volunteers.

They are an important part of any ministry and for many they are the primary (even ONLY) people involved in the functioning of the church. I talk with about a dozen churches every week and see volunteer importance and focus all over the map.

On the one extreme you have the church that has zero to few volunteers because they rely on paid staff to do everything and on the other side you have the church with no paid staff where without volunteers there wouldn’t be chairs on Sunday. Obviously, most churches lie somewhere in between but the importance of a good volunteer base for the healthy and growing church is pretty high on the pyramid of must haves…

It’s important to have a good group of dedicated volunteers for a number of reasons…

First, volunteers are the best way to increase the bandwidth (I’ll be talking about bandwidth in a post very soon.), the church’s ability to do more, be it on Sundays or in their community. It’s one thing for the church staff to write a check to Habitat for Humanity, it’s an entirely different (better) experience for that same church to follow up the check with a volunteer build day.

Second, volunteers can provide fresh insight and new perspectives on what’s important in children’s ministry, at the front door, even on the stage. Of course, to gain this perspective you must create a venue for volunteers to share and capture this insight.

Third, volunteering is a natural step in the maturation and leadership development process. If your church has a goal of simply seeing as many people as possible come through the doors, you may develop a user mentality about volunteers and see them merely as a means to an end, but once you realize that the volunteer network is a natural part of the discipleship and maturation process this can change and both the experience and the volunteers will benefit.

We could go on for hours about all the important reasons to have volunteers, but to me, some of the most important are above. The best volunteers and volunteer systems provide for two way communication, growth, and improved experiences for all involved.

Imagine having only paid musicians, greeters, child care workers, speakers, bookkeepers, an entire “company” of people paid to stick around, not because of their passion for the ministry, but because its their job.

Next time we talk volunteers we’ll go into some steps you can take to set up a good volunteer system and how to manage, run, and grow it.

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Saw this yesterday and it’s solid!

What absolutely must go on your home page
Posted by katya on Tue, May 19, 2009

If you’re a nonprofit, here’s my list:

1. Something that tugs the heartstrings – an arresting image, a bold statement, the start of an incredible story

2. A 2-second statement that sums up who you are and what you do so that anyone glancing at the page gets it right away

3. Clear, intuitive navigation that is organized according to the brain of the people who come to your website and NOT your org chart

4. A quick case or link to a case for why you’re THE organization to support

5. A way to capture people whose interest has been captured (a great email signup that entices people to provide their email address)

6. A big donate button for people ready to give

7. A third-party endorsement (ratings from Charity Navigator or a testimonial from someone)

8. Something that shows where the money goes or links to information on where donations go (this can be part of #4)

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