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Asking the Right Questions

 

Are you asking the right questions?

The art of asking the right question is one that few people have.  Most do not even realize they need to have that ability.  If you are not asking the right questions you will not get at all the facts.  The lack of good information leads to faulty decisions and costly mistakes.  The value is in the question.  Understanding that concept will change how you look at everything.

Often churches and Christian ministries when faced with great decisions ask the wrong questions.  This is particularly true when it comes to choosing a stewardship partner.  It is not that churches and Christian ministries are not asking questions.  They ask an abundance of questions.  They often however ask the wrong questions that lead them down an incorrect decision path.  This leads to either a poor selection of a partner or unrealistic expectations.  Either one could cost you.  So in this edition of The Stewardship Coach we are going to focus on Asking the Right Questions. 

We will list the question that you should be asking in highlighted blue.  After that we will list how many incorrectly ask the question.  As you move into the time of choosing a stewardship partner make sure you are asking the right questions.

What are the right questions?

1. Will you have enough time for us? “How many visits will you make?”  That is usually how the question is asked.  Some churches are trying to compute the cost of the contract by the number of visits the consultant makes to arrive at the value.  That is incorrect thinking.  It is virtually impossible to predict how many times a consultant will need to be onsite.  As one of my friends said once, “If we agree to come in one more time than our competition do we get the contract?”  You want to evaluate your partnership on more than just how many times they fly in.  One church once decided upon a partner because they promised 40 on site visits.  Yet as the church considered a partner for the next campaign they did not even invite back that company.  The number of visits is meaningless without quality consulting.  The real issue with regards to this question is, “Will we get the attention we feel we deserve for the fee we are paying?”
   
   How can a church or Christian ministry find this out?  One way is to ask the consultant how many campaigns they work in a calendar year.  Some companies work their consultants over twenty campaigns in a calendar year.  If you ask how many contracts they are working with now, they might reply with an answer of how many they are working with this week or month.  They know a low answer will assure the client that they have time for them.  A high answer will cause them to possibly lose your business.  So, ask them to tell you truthfully how many campaigns they did last year and how many they will do in 2006.  You can then decide if they have time.  No consultant no matter how good he is can give full attention to more than ten to twelve churches in a year.
   
   One church asked the question in a round about way.  They first asked the consultant how many churches he had worked.  The consultant wanting to show his experience told the truth and gave a high number.  A few questions later they asked how many years he had been a consultant.  Again, wanting to show experience he gave the correct number of years.  At that point someone did the math and said, “This means you work twenty plus campaigns a year!” 
   
   You have to decide if you are comfortable with a consultant that busy.  Can you be sure that he will be there for you when you need them?  Will they be fresh and alert when they are on the field with you?  Will they have time to be proactive for you or will they only react when you call them?  Will their letters be truly written to you or will they be boiler plate form letters with your name on the top?  You are paying a premium price make sure you get premium consulting.
2. When is the best time to have our campaign? “When is the best time of year to have our campaign?”  This is usually how this question is asked.  The real issue is not getting the campaign completed on a time line but getting it completed right.  Recently a church was struggling with the timing of their campaign.  It was May and they did not want the campaign to bleed into their preparation for their Christmas musical.  Preparation for this community outreach begins in October.  Can we do the campaign before October they asked?  Of course the answer is yes.  The real question was would they be ready by then?  It would have been easy to simply have said yes we can do that and force them forward.  However there were issues with regards to their project that needed further clarification.  Having a fall campaign would have left too many questions unanswered.  They would not have had a clear vision of what the project was to be.
   
   Though looking at your calendar is important, you must make sure that all the critical elements of a campaign are lined up in proper sequence and timing.  Take your campaign off of a calendar and make sure it just gets done at the right time.  That time may or may not be driven by a calendar.  Be sure that the company you choose is not pushing you into a specific time frame to help their cash flow.  It is virtually impossible to tell on the first visit when the best time for a campaign will be.  Be careful that the company you are talking with is not trying to fill their schedule as opposed to setting the stage for a successful campaign for you.  It should send a red flag up if someone is trying to convince to move quickly on your campaign.  Getting the campaign right is more important that getting it on time.
3. What is our capacity for raising funds? “How much can we raise?”  That is usually the question that most ask.  It is natural to want to know the dollar amount yet at the beginning stages of a campaign the answer is unknown.  Companies will usually quote a range from one and a half times your yearly budget over three years to three times your yearly budget.  Yet that broad range leaves much up in the air and is based often upon inflated numbers.  The range is more likely to be one to three times a ministries budget.  Three times budget is the exception rather than the rule.  Most firms’ average, if they compute them at all, is more nearly two times budget.  Even this number is contingent upon several factors.
   
   While the ranges quoted might give you some idea of what your capacity is more work will need to be done to arrive at a firm target number.  How many giving units do you have?  How many are High Capacity?  Do you have a plan to communicate the vision to them?  Does the plan make sense?  These and other issues must be settled first before you can gage your capacity for raising funds.  Knowing how to probe and discover the answers to those questions is why you bring in a stewardship partner.
4. How long will it take to raise what we need for our projects cost? “Can we raise X amount?”  Ministries most times know the range of what their project will cost and they want to know if they can raise that amount.  The answer is yes.  The real question is how long will it take you to raise that amount?  Lakewood Church, the largest church in North America, will need at least two stewardship campaigns to pay for moving into Houston’s Compact Center.  If the largest church in America needs more than one three year period to raise all the funds why should the rest of us be any different?  Nearly every project in America today exceeds the amount that can be raised in one three year campaign.
5. How much value will your company bring to our ministry? “How much will this cost us?”  This is what many churches ask.  You might better ask, “Can we raise as much without a partner as with one?”  The answer is no.  While there has been no definitive study on this experience has repeatedly shown that churches doing their own campaigns will raise about half what they could using a stewardship partner.  The fee you pay over three years is a small price to pay to have someone help you raise double what you might raise on your own.  The real issue is the value that a quality partner brings to your ministry. 

During the ground combat phase of the Iraqi War the United States utilized advisors in the north to help the Kurds.  They came to be known as Force Multipliers.  Their knowledge of warfare along with the Kurds small forces multiplied their fighting effectiveness and helped bring down the Iraqi army that was much larger in terms of numbers.  Ask the right questions and you too can have a Force Multiplier for your ministry!

Mark Brooks

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