“COMMON is a creative community for rapidly prototyping social ventures.”–source
In this video Alex Bogusky, one of Common’s founders, shares some vision and an event that he hosted in Boulder to kick-off this new community.
A few quotes from the video that inspired me:
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“Saving the world is super fun but it hasn’t been presented that way.”
- “The more attempts that are made to pioneer businesses the more chances for success.”
- “(Pitching ideas and getting funding) does not exist in the social side of business, but mostly in the tech space.”
The problems and opportunities Bogusky talks about related to social entrepreneurship strongly resemble those of ministries and non-profits. Some ministry leaders choose guilt or obligation as their primary call to help saving the world. Other times I have sensed that if you are having fun AND doing ministry you are somehow doing it wrong. I’d also love to see more invitations to join a ministry or cause based on the opportunities rather than solely the need.
I participated in a time-management exercise with my ministry a few years ago–we had to write out on post-it notes all the things we HAD to do during the week, then organize them by priority and assign them to a particular day and time. During the exercise I realized I started each week thinking about things I get to do and wanted to do in order to live out the mission in a way that best stewarded my gifts, strengths, and weaknesses.
If ministry leaders simply rearrange the existing pieces each week looking for incremental gains in productivity how will they ever take bold steps of faith that don’t fit into 30 minute or 1 hour segments that will lead to exponential and God-sized results?
There are a variety of opportunities to lead significant change in the ministry/non-profit space. Hopefully you are creating space for yourself or those around you to make creative and innovative attempts at pioneering new models, methods, or tactics for fulfilling your mission!