Built for This Time...
Matthew Overton
I was reading this morning about a medical center in Chicago that had been specifically built a few years back for the outbreak of an infectious disease. Their bed layouts, staff training, equipment, all of it. All of it designed for a moment that they knew would come…eventually. It took eight years. In some ways I feel like this is the story of The Columbia Future Forge right now. We were built for this.
About 5 and a half years ago we started building the Forge (and it wasn’t even the Forge then) with the idea that ministry with teens needed to be done differently. And while that was true, I also built with the idea that ministry as we know it (in general and specifically with teens/young adults) might not remain sustainable in the future. I felt convinced that all non-profits, secular and religious, should be designed with a better model for economic sustainability in mind. At this very moment in time and history I am thankful for that for a variety of reasons.
Part of our design was a revenue based model. We seek to do life transformation work in the lives of teens/young adults in our county through mentorship. We think that every kid needs a mentor. But while that is a wonderful goal, it requires funding to sustain itself. And right now we are benefiting from our design. Our donors give us investment money rather than just donations. They understand that they are n’t simply paying for us to help. They are paying for businesses and empowerment. What this means is that we have always kept capital in reserve for the next business experiment. Many non-profits don’t do that or can’t because they get stuck in a game of program numbers expansion. Our numbers are only allowed to expand as fast as our business can. Right now, part of that reserve capital is keeping us fully staffed and running. Second, because of that investment money we have never had to acquire any equipment or vehicles on margin. In other words, we have no debt. Third, we also have almost no fixed overhead. Our decision to be a church based model has allowed us to keep our costs very low. I take no salary for my work and we only donate monthly funds to our church to cover facility expenses. The average commercial space our size in town would likely cost us between $2,000 (if someone cut us a huge deal) and $6,000 per month. This kind of structuring has allowed ministry to go on in a limited fashion and for us to plan, pray, and hope for the future with relatively minimal stress.
Here is how each of our models is fairing!
The Landscaping Company (Mowtown)- Mowtown has been able to keep mowing and landscaping. Pretty much only our adult workers are out and about, and we pay for them to use separate cars. But, what is remarkable is that we have not lost a single customer due to the economic downturn. In fact, we have added a few. I suspect that this is because our customers are very reluctant to drop our business when they know that 100% of our net profit goes to good places.
The Drone Piloting Program (Forge Drones)- We never monetized this business. We simply didn’t have anyone that wanted to run that sort of business. But, our trainings have gone on because we utilize volunteers to run that program.
The Weight Program (Utmost Athletics)- We have suspended all of our normal weight lifting for the time being, but we have gone to online workouts that we are doing through video. What is great is that we have new students joining us regularly. We have even retained about 40 of our 100 students in some online presence.We have considered charging a small fee for this service, but as of right now it feels good to offer it with no strings attached. And as I said, our robust reserves are allowing us to do that well.
All this is simply to say that we designed ourselves to do good work with less need for emergency support during STABLE circumstances. It is benefiting our ministry greatly right now.
Again, this is precisely why I think we need to design our church ministries (with youth and otherwise) and our non-profits with sustainable revenue streams in mind. It isn’t perfect but it helps. You can’t do that good you are called to do if you can’t sustain the good you are called to do.
If you expect stormy seas, you better build a boat for storms.