The Hidden Work Behind a Major Generosity Initiative

Frank Bealer: Well, hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Next Sunday Podcast. I’m here with the one, the only, the incredible, stupendous, fabulous, fantastical Jim Sheppard.

Jim Sheppard: Can I be honest? You’ve said that a number of times, and I’ve expressed my discomfort. I feel like every time you say that, something is coming and I’m about to be asked for something. I’ve got my hand on my wallet and everything else that is sacred in my life because it feels like I’m being buttered up.

Frank: I just appreciate you, Jim. I want to make sure everybody knows. It feels insufficient to say, “I’m here with the wonderful Jim Sheppard.”

Jim: Just say, “My friend Jim Sheppard,” because if they know I’m a friend of Frank, think what that says.

Frank: It says a lot, actually.

Jim: People have questions and concerns now. “I know Frank, and now I’ve got questions about you that I didn’t have before you told me you were a friend of Frank.”

Frank: Exactly right. I could have saved that one.

It’s good to be back with you. The last time we were together, we were working on the summer session. We had some really good engagement. I watched some of the comments and questions, and people were taking in what we were saying and thanking us for it. We received a handful of text messages saying, “This was really helpful. Thanks for serving.”

Today’s topic is very practical. We’re back to our normal rhythm, and we’re excited to be in your headphones every couple of weeks, sharing some of the things we’ve learned. I have the privilege of sitting with Jim and asking questions to help all of us get better at what we do. We want to serve you well.

Today’s question comes up almost every time we begin a generosity initiative, whether we are there for a strategy day or spending time with elders, board members, and staff.

Sunday comes every seven days, whether we’re ready or not. So, when it comes to a generosity initiative, how much more work will be involved? What is the workload on the pastor, staff, elders, and trustees during a major generosity initiative?

Jim: I get that question even during the sales process, when a church is interviewing us and considering our services. It’s a great question, and I’m glad they ask it.

Sometimes we give the answer and they aren’t listening. Then we have to remind them later, “We told you early on that there was going to be some work involved.”

The important question is: How do you want to run this as a church staff?

You have congregational churches, churches in which one or two people make most of the decisions, and all kinds of models in between. I’ve raised a lot of money with a few people. I’ve raised a lot of money with a large team. I’ve done it just about every way in between.

The most important question is: How do you want to do it? Once we define that, I can tell you what the workloads will look like. If the work will all be handled by staff, that is a different answer from one in which many laypeople will be involved.

If it will be handled mainly by staff, at least a couple of people doing the heavy lifting may need to have some of their duties reassigned during this season.

You can’t reassign the pastor’s duties. The pastor will unquestionably be the most important voice. There may be other voices, but the pastor’s will be the most important. We need to tell the pastor up front what those responsibilities are.

Most of that work happens early, during the pace-setting phase and the one-on-one follow-up conversations. That takes a lot of time. Later, it is not nearly as intense.

There is generally a sermon series during a generosity initiative, but the pastor is going to preach on something. That isn’t necessarily additional time; it is a matter of rearranging what the pastor will address. Defining the senior pastor’s expectations is very important. That is what can trip them up more than almost anything else.

Frank: Yes, especially because of delay. Some of the lift comes early with the vision one-pager, developing the case for support, documenting the vision, and gaining a clear line of sight to what we are trying to achieve. Then there are the pace-setting follow-ups.

Those conversations and the development of that content influence everything else. If we are behind on those items or the generosity series, it affects other people who have heavy lifts ahead of them.

The pastor needs clarity early: “Here is where we will need you most, and here is where you may want to be involved.”

On many occasions, we’ve laid out the plan and the senior pastor has chosen to be more involved in other areas. That is great. We are glad to have the pastor in those meetings. But when the pastor has been involved for a while and feels ready to move on, the original responsibilities still need to be completed. The additional involvement does not eliminate the work we will need the pastor to do later.

Jim: In a smaller church, it may be normal for the senior pastor’s voice to be almost everywhere. In a larger church, that level of involvement begins to define what the leadership culture looks like.

We may say the culture is collaborative, but it is collaborative only when the senior pastor is in the room. I’m not saying that is necessarily bad. But leaders may tell me, “I don’t decide. It’s really collaborative. Whatever the team decides.” Then I see the senior pastor showing up too often in those meetings, and I understand the reality. I know what was said, but what is real?

I’ve also had senior pastors decide they want to attend all the meetings. They go to the first round and say, “I didn’t know there were quite that many meetings. I’m going to take a pass from here on out.” I tell them, “Good call, pastor.”

Frank: We like to have this conversation very early, and we continue it until everyone has clarity, because there is a lot to do to execute a generosity initiative successfully.

Either a handful of people work very, very hard, or many people must be coordinated and kept on the same page. It is a big lift, and it lasts for a longer season.

One of the things that surprises people is that an effective generosity initiative usually takes longer than they imagined and requires more involvement from staff and certain lay leaders than they may have expected.

People aren’t calling us because they are bored and want to start a generosity initiative. They are at an inflection point. Something significant is happening, and sometimes it is an emergency.

There is a natural pull to become involved, understand what is happening, and participate actively in the decision-making process because they are making important decisions. That is why they invite us, and we don’t take that lightly.

We also want to give everyone a clear view of the work so they can allocate some of it during easier seasons in the rhythm of the church rather than simply following whatever is already on the calendar.

Jim: Another factor is the tension between staff and lay involvement. I hear this even in churches that are largely staff-led or congregationally led: “We can bring more people in, but they don’t really understand how things work in the life of our church.”

You can bring in more hands through lay volunteers, but then you have to help them understand the work. At some point, it may feel easier to do it yourselves. That is the church’s decision, but it is a real tension.

People also ask, “Will we need to hire someone to serve as the point person?” You could, but that does not happen very often in my experience. We can usually organize the work so that you probably don’t need to hire someone. But someone on the team will need to be the primary point person.

Frank: Absolutely. Often, that person is the executive pastor because so much already flows through that role. It is a natural cycle, but more work will flow through that person during this season.

The executive pastor may need to reassign some normal responsibilities to create room for the initiative. The additional workload may fluctuate. Sometimes it will be relatively light, and sometimes it will be significant.

Jim: If an executive pastor, COO, or another leader is the best person to take it on, we need to understand how to reallocate some of that person’s regular work. They should be able to lead the initiative without paying a price at home.

In addition to the generosity initiative, that leader may also be reviewing construction documents and plans. When a church identifies its point person, my question is: In light of the purpose of this generosity initiative, what other work will that person be doing that has nothing to do with the initiative?

Frank: I have a call this afternoon with an executive pastor who initially thought the initiative would require a 20–30% reallocation of his work. As we have talked, that estimate has moved to 50%.

That is not because we changed anything about our work. It is because we helped him distinguish the different responsibilities involved. The meeting about the initiative is not the same as the meeting with the architect. There will be a separate meeting about programming and conversations with children’s ministry and the missions department.

He said, “They’ve never done this before.”

I said, “Right. You are going to have to drive that because they haven’t done it.”

He quickly realized that this season—which is not necessarily short—will involve a significant lift.

One of the things I didn’t fully understand before I began consulting with Generis was the privilege of coming alongside a church or faith-based nonprofit to understand the timeline and scope of work and serve them well in that way.

Without that understanding, a train wreck is coming. The work will bottleneck. Someone will become very stressed. There is a better way to manage it.

That does not mean the season will not be heavy or that there will not be a lot to carry. Both are still true. But we can manage it better.

Our work is not simply communicating a list of tasks during the first few weeks. It is much more nuanced than that.

Jim: One of the questions I ask during the first meeting with the executive team or staff is, “How many of you have been through one of these before?”

If no hands go up, that is very telling. If every hand goes up, that is also telling. A mixture of experience can tell us a great deal.

It helps us understand how much we need to frame expectations and help the team develop a working knowledge of what the initiative will require. Even if people have participated in an initiative before, have they been through a generosity initiative conducted the way we approach it?

Teams already know the initiative will be a big lift. Sometimes they believe it will be so significant that it will become the only thing happening in the life of the church.

But we aren’t stopping everything else. We are placing this on top of everything else.

When the initiative reaches the public phase, I tell the communications team, “This is top billing, but not exclusive billing.”

I want the initiative to be prominent, but it cannot be the only thing the church discusses. Children’s ministry, week-to-week discipleship, and the rest of church life are still happening. The initiative is a lift placed on top of everything else, not a replacement for everything else.

Frank: When someone asks about workload during a strategy day, the room has often grown larger. During the interview process, only a few people may have been involved. By the strategy day, most of the elders and executive leadership team may be present for five or six hours. It is often a group that does not normally spend that much time together.

When the workload question comes up, I ask two questions before answering it.

The first is about the experience in the room.

The second is, “How many current open positions do you have?”

I write those positions down. They may have openings in children’s ministry or other areas. My response is, “Until that role is filled, I assume someone in this room is carrying that work. What is our line of sight to filling it?”

Has the church been in a constant state of growth with several open positions? That can create a false sense of capacity. Someone may look at a job description and think, “I can take this on.” But the job description does not include the additional work that person is doing to cover a vacant role.

I put that work on the whiteboard. Then we can identify where we may be able to come alongside and help carry some of it. We also discuss whether the church needs to hire someone.

I worked with one church that, shortly after we completed this exercise, asked, “Do you think we need to hire a project manager during this initiative?”

I said, “Yes.”

They were surprised by how definitive the answer was. Normally, I would give a much longer response. But after working through their situation, the answer was clear. They needed help because they did not have capacity or margin.

Identifying capacity and margin requires understanding people’s current roles and their previous experience with generosity initiatives.

I recently spoke with someone who had been commissioned to find a partner for his church’s first major generosity initiative. The church had done some generosity work before, but its leaders recognized that they needed outside help.

The person leading the search had been on the ministry staff for less than a year and had never participated in a campaign. He would need a different level of support. That was not a bad thing. In fact, he was grateful that we were transparent about it.

So, what kind of workload does a major generosity initiative place on the pastor and staff? It varies significantly from church to church, but it is a lift for everyone.

One final question for this episode: Many people believe the work ends when the public phase or preaching series is complete. We know that is not true.

The church has announced the initiative. People have applauded and submitted commitment cards. It can feel like the work is finished.

By the way, I have not found a bank that will accept commitment cards in place of money. They may use them for projections, but they don’t accept them as money.

After investing so much in the public phase, the initiative naturally feels as though it is winding down. But another significant phase of work is about to begin. How do you explain the workload on the other side of the public phase?

Jim: That feeling is natural. The staff—especially the senior pastor—has invested a great deal in the initiative, from the pace-setting phase through the sermon series. There is a collective sigh of relief.

It is important to say, “That part is behind us now.” But there may still be two or three more years of work during the giving period.

The team can take a little time off because no updates may be needed immediately. The campaign’s momentum will continue for a month or two. But approximately two and a half to three months later, we need to pick the work back up.

We review the numbers, discuss what is happening, and define communication rhythms. It is not enough to receive commitments. You have to receive the money.

That means doing what is necessary throughout the fulfillment period to maximize participation from people who pledged, people who did not pledge, and new people who enter the life of the church. The goal is to fulfill 100%—or, in some cases, more—of the original amount committed.

If the church does not continue that work, participation and giving will leak over time. A church may have a $10 million initiative and collect only $6.9 million. We did not work that hard to throw $3.1 million away.

That is what happens when leaders do not pick up the next work sequence and carry it through.

The good news is that the work is more spread out and less intense. The team will not feel as though it is laboring at the same level during any one season. But the church must take it seriously.

People don’t just give. They need encouragement. They need stories and reinforcement. That is what the fulfillment phase is designed to provide.

There is a natural rhythm of saying, “Thank you. We have that behind us.” But the church cannot celebrate for too long before returning to the work of receiving what people committed.

Frank: That is so good. This has been a helpful episode for processing this question.

We want to make sure we have not frightened anyone on staff. Our purpose is to bring clarity and reality to the conversation.

When you begin an initiative with a Generis team member, we want you to have a better line of sight to what is and is not expected and how your church can manage the work.

I hope this has been helpful. You have listened to another episode of the Next Sunday Podcast. We’ll be back with you in a couple of weeks.

Editorial note: This transcript has been cleaned for readability. Verbal fillers, stutters, repeated phrases, and obvious transcription errors have been removed or lightly corrected without changing the speakers’ intended meaning. It should not be treated as a word-for-word legal transcript.