Becoming Legendary Don't drown in the Quo

Capital Campaigns and Change Agents

Most people do not like change. If people have been doing things one way and someone introduces a change that will force them to shift their behavior, there is typically push back. This degree of this push back is usually determined by how much change is required. I recall working at one church where leadership decided to set up a new model for committees and since this forced the staff and the congregation to radically change how they related to the system of church democracy, there was a near rebellion. I guess what I am getting at is that change does happen and often it needs to happen, but that does not mean this change will be easy. In fact, some changes, no matter how necessary and no matter how small, are not accepted. The naysayers win the day. All of this can be seen in every level of society and I think most of us have had to either introduce change or be asked to change.

And like everyone, I have been a jerk when someone tries to make me change a system if the current system is working. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it, right? If the change is going to cause me to learn a lot of new things that slow me down or asks me to alter my finances or my actions, I typically balk and join a little faction of other people who would rather overthrow the institution that goes the way of the change.

So. With that being said, I get to our topic of change today – Church Capital Campaigns. Church Capital Campaigns are attempts by a congregation to raise extra funds from their particular flock to either renovate a current part of the building, or to raise extra cash to pay for a whole new set of buildings. Both of these two ventures are introductions of change because people are asked to give more money and because the leadership usually forms its focus around this project. In other words, leaders shift their focus to get their congregants to get on board with the new change.

But, I have to say that any sort of change that tries to open wallets wider is the most difficult change to get people to accept. People tend to not like when churches are asking for any money from them much less asking them for even more money. Knowing this, a church that is trying to raise extra capital really needs to bring in experts who know how to introduce this most difficult change. These experts are called Change Agents.

Change Agents understand how to bring about the vision of new church design and shifts in architecture, slowly bringing the church members to buy-in. How do they do this?

More on that in the next article…

Let’s just say I was super impressed with two businesses I visited the other day – both of them housed in the same building.  Both of them are super professional and both of them are run by the same owner, who exudes passion about what he doing on a national scale.

Halo Architects is well known around the country as a unified team who does church architecture and church design (as well as commercial, institutional, etc.).  Their project managers are good at their jobs and all you have to do is check out their portfolio to catch the excellent implementations of the company vision.  Halo works closely with their clients to make sure their architects are completing the jobs efficiently and precisely.

The second business is called Gone Virtual and often works closely with Halo Architects.  Gone Virtual is also involved in church design, but they use special 3D animation technology to create renderings and 3D virtual tours for clients who are about to set their course in building new campaigns.  This ability to show church 3D animation is key in church capital campaigns exactly what is going to happen.  This makes people relax but it also allows for good dialogue to occur so that people can have buy-in.  I’ve worked at three churches which have done capital campaigns and the best of them showed the 3D animation to prepare the congregation.  Everyone wanted what they saw and there was a consensus for the church to go full-steam ahead.

So those are the basics of these businesses and I think they approach legendary because they do what they say under strong leadership and they always work to please their clients. You don’t find my businesses like these two.  I’d definitely model my next business like theirs – good enough, eh?