Fundraising 101: Stewarding Well

A few years ago when companies were switching from record keeping on paper- to digital records, a large Christian ministry (unrelated to the CRCNA) had a problem that they had to solve- how to convert all their old paper records to the new electronic format. A team of experts was brought in to solve the problem and the outside team decided that this organization needed a special software that scanned documents and digitized them.

Led by the CFO, the organization  aggressively negotiated with a supplier in the name of financial stewardship  and they settled on a price of 4 million dollars for a 6 year contract* The implementation was swift and within 6 weeks the system was running. 

Six months later, the inhouse team, in charge of uploading documents, had finished their work. They no longer needed the software.   No one had asked them how many documents they actually needed to scan. It turns out only a small fraction of the documents were needed for everyday use. The paper copies were a fine backup.  

The system went unused until eventually a buy-out contract was signed - relieving half of the debt for the remaining contract. 

This story illustrates how an organization, leaders and very intelligent people can strive hard to “get a great deal” but end up making a poor long-term decision.  Some call a holistic look at the costs of a project: Total Cost Analysis.
This sounds all very businesslike but what if we used this same mentality and applied it to ministry, what does that look like?

Maybe it means that a church with only a few youths in the youth group should  hold off building a youth center, and instead invest in a basketball court for the neighborhood kids- the youth center might be a future priority.

What do you think? 

*exact contract terms have been simplified for illustration purposes.