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Halloween 2008 – Trunk or Treat

Main Photo Gallery Here

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Link Love from Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog

Fun to get a little link love from somebody I read all the time…

Katya Andresen deserves a read.

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Next Generation Leaders, Are You Preparing Them?

This is a really interesting read on the status of the next generation of non-profit leaders. They don’t want to be over-worked underpaid CEOs. They want impact and value from their jobs and want to be compensated fairly. What are we all doing  to prepare the next generation of leaders?

It’s worth skimming and asking yourself some questions.

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It's About People, Not Policies. Create Margin.

Policies are frames that you put around people when you want them to act a certain way. Policies create the acceptable range of motion. the extent to which you will say Yes, and the boundaries where you must say no.

Think about it for a minute. If you’re anything like me, you love setting the broad frame under which everything else must operate. Haven’t we all gotten a little caught up in creating policies…especially the idealistic communications people.  I like to have:

• policies about deadlines.
• policies about content.
• Policies about who can update the website.
• Policies about why your ministry can’t have a logo of it’s own. 
• Policies about which logo to use and whether or not to make it the biggest thing on the page.

While it’s ideal to think that people will be good at adhering to the frames we set for them, the reality is that People, not Policies are the reason we all do ministry.

Something I’m learning to do now that I haven’t done well in the past is creating margin.

Here’s some ways I’m trying to bring margin into my role at the church:

1. Take time for conversations. Without engaging with people to learn what drives their passion for ministry I make a lot of assumptions about them. And then I manipulate them. Conversations lead to understanding. Understanding leads to mutual respect. I don’t manipulate people I respect. Take time for conversations and really try to know the heart of the person your working with.
2. Create Yeses out of No’s. I use to think I could keep up by doing every little communications need that people had. I needed to brand it and make it professional. I couldn’t keep up, but I still get the requests. I’ve been trying to learn the art of saying, “I know I can’t physically do this for you and still get home and see my wife and kids at a decent hour, but here’s how I can empower you to do it for yourself…No I can’t, but yes you can.”
3. Provide context, make exceptions once, then define the lines. I often get asked to put stuff in the bulletin or announcements past the deadline. I really don’t want to take on your late planning as my problem. But I will if it can be used as a one-time opportunity to share with you how being late affects the process. If you know that somebody ends up working on Saturday to compensate for your late action and they’re missing their time with their family to make sure your info gets out to the community, that context will make them think differently in the future.  

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Scrunch and Crunch: Fall Kids' Photos 2008

I love Fall. I love imagining I’m a kid again.

Check out the rest of the kids’ photo gallery here…

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Thanks.

My friends at the Sanctuary CDC are very thankful that many of you have become new supporters of the work they do. Numbers aren’t completely in yet from the challenge I put out to my readers last week, but it sounds like there was a really incredible response. If you have the chance to leave a comment to let us know that you’re on board with the work of the Sanctuary CDC, I’d love to hear about it.

And for those of you reading this on Facebook, you are awesome! You are the core!

Thanks from me, and my friends at the Sanctuary CDC.
We’re all excited about the work being done in North Minneapolis to restore people’s Christ-centered identity, to empower young people to not just “get out of the ghetto,” but to be young leaders who will shape this community into the future. And we’re excited about the ever-increasing web of connections between organizations who want to help this community live out its full potential.

Thank you.
Your gifts have been amazing.

If you haven’t yet had the opportunity, I encourage you to skip two lattes this month. Or pass on the Jamba Juice with protein boost a few times. Or bring your lunch for a week instead of eating out. Do these things and make a small donation to the Sanctuary CDC. These people are living out their passion to make a difference in the lives of others.

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This week in Prefab: Modular Dwellings

Edgar Blazona is a San Francisco based-product designer with a truly prefabulous side project.

He designs things that are modern.
Clean.
Simple.
Cost-Effectively.

Everything that modern prefab should be.

Essentially, his line of modern prefab dwellings (modulardwellings.com) are boxes. The boxes start from the simplest 2×4 frames to more polished versions of steel and glass. 

Buy one. Snap it together in a few days in your back yard. 

I would love to have a version of the MD144. Essentially a 12×12 room with a wall of glass. It would make the perfect backyard bungalow guest room.

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The Place I Love Where the People are Making a Difference.

So most of you know I work for the Sanctuary Covenant Church in the area of communications, design, IT, retail, etc…

I love my church. But there’s another place I love too.

The church gets people in the door, into relationship, and moving forward every day. This other place goes out the door, into the community and is affecting change in people’s lives every day, people who may never step foot in a church.

Stories are changing…

from unemployed to maintaining stable jobs.
from lost teenager to positive role model.
from the student no one cares about, to someone cares enough to spend time with me every week.
from middle school girls who believe what rap videos say is beautiful, to believing with their whole heart that beauty is found in the core of who they are.

I love the Sanctuary CDC.

When I think about the church,
When I think about what will change the neighborhood I live in,
When I think about where I want to invest my time and resources,

The Sanctuary CDC is the place I’ve come to love where the people are making a difference.

Do you think you would give to a girl finding her inner beauty?
Or to a dad with a criminal record who wants to turn his life around and become the bread-winner for his children?
Or the single mom, who wants to support her family in honest work.

I’m asking people who read my blog to make a one time donation of at least $10 to the Sanctuary CDC. Or, If you’re local and believe in it, set up a monthly gift like my family did.

I’d like my friends at the CDC to know in the “power of we,” the power of the social network and the potential of an idealistic generation to live out the change we believe in.

It’s super easy and only takes 3 minutes to:

Thanks,
Jeremy