Creating a Great Strategic Plan for Future Expansion

In past blogs, we’ve emphasized the importance of completing a strategic plan before diving into the design phase of a church expansion project. But what makes a good strategic plan?

We believe that, while every plan is a bit different, there are four elements that factor in every good strategy—whether in church leadership, real estate development or business.

Below, we apply business principles to church strategic planning. Some of the terms seem odd or out of place in a church setting, but they work—just with different connotations and manifestations in the church setting, than in the business world.

1. Vision

What’s the point of planning if you don’t have any idea where you, collectively, are heading? Church leaders must first have vision and then get on the same page about it before moving forward. This vision should include not just the building project, but also the reasons why and how it will fit in with the overall purpose, direction and heart of the church.

In other words, think about the bigger story your church is part of and how your expansion project will contribute to that story.

2. Financial Feasibility Analysis

Avoid designing your project before you know the total funds it will require, including hidden costs, and have a doable plan for how and when you’ll finance it.

If you can’t afford it now, don’t do it now. Consider other, more affordable options. If none of them work, figure out exactly how much money you need to complete your vision, and then plan a fundraising and/or financing program and timeline around that. Make your plan achievable. Be realistic about your capacity to raise the necessary funds and your church’s ability to carry long-term debt. Also consider how this debt will get paid off during the church’s next grow phase.

3. Competition Awareness

This is a loaded question for many pastors, but a valuable one to ask: What are other similar churches doing? When a church seeks to expand, it’s not about competing with other churches, but often it is about understanding established principles about what works for expanding churches in this day and age. And it’s about learning from others’ mistakes.

Also worth considering is whether your church fits into a specific niche in your community that’s different than other area churches, whether the niche is part of your long-term vision and how your expansion project will impact that niche.

4. Understanding Your Customer Base

This is another business term that seems out of place at first, and indeed, perhaps even troubling in the church context. Nonetheless, every church must consider two groups of people when creating a strategic plan: its congregation and the people it is trying to serve. Sometimes, those are the same but often, large churches serve populations who never set foot in one of their worship services.

What are the needs, desires and perspectives of these two groups? Are they represented in your vision and your plan? Will the expansion project or its financing impact programming in positive or negative ways?

We’ve helped lots of churches develop successful strategic plans. For more information or advice on planning for a church expansion, contact Scott McLean at scott@developco.com.

Boost Your Credibility: Become Accredited

It wasn’t long ago that most people trusted their church leaders implicitly and without question. But that has changed.

Several scintillating scandals involving high profile church leaders dampened public trust over recent decades. Having watched certain respected leaders fall from pillars of society to villains, many folks feel a bit jaded.

It is therefore crucial for church leaders—not just pastors, but boards and administrative types—to earn and maintain the trust of their congregations and, we daresay, their broader communities. Yet although most churches will never see their name associated with negative news, this has grown more difficult to do.

How to meet the challenge? Certainly, the breadth of hiring, leadership and management practices involved in personnel issues is beyond our scope here. But when it comes to financial management, which includes operating one’s church facility, it’s hard to overstate the importance of a proven track record of responsible, transparent practices.

A church’s history of good management stretches beyond any individual leader over time, builds a reputation and demonstrates the trustworthiness of that church. To help establish this, we advise churches to consider becoming accredited. Achieving such acknowledgement from an outside organization can boost your credibility.

The leading accreditation organization for evangelical Christian churches in the U.S. is the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The ECFA’s mission is to enhance trust in Christ-centered ministries, and it offers accreditation to churches, ministries, schools and other nonprofit organizations.

To earn accreditation, churches must comply with the ECFA’s standards for financial accountability, transparency, fundraising and board governance. They must also have operated for at least a year, have received revenues of more than $50,000 during their last fiscal year and have financial statements prepared by an independent CPA.

The organization’s rules center around seven standards of responsible stewardship, which guide things such as financial oversight, use of resources, compensation-setting, transparency, charitable gift communication, “acting in the best interest of givers” and more.

Nearly 1,800 accredited members collectively represent nearly $20 billion in annual revenue, according to the ECFA, which has been around since 1979.

For more information or advice about getting your church accredited, or simply about developing trustworthy facility and budgetary management, contact Scott McLean at scott@developco.com

Churches As Economic Assets: The impact of location and traffic

Churches are so much more than houses of worship.

They act as community centers, childcare centers and sometimes, even schools. Yet there’s more. Although churches don’t pay property taxes, they can be valuable drivers of local economic development in several ways.

One economic impact that’s become more apparent with the rise of the megachurch involves location and church size. Churches serve as community centers and gathering places, drawing attendees to services and programs throughout the week. And simply by bringing lots of people to a neighborhood regularly, large churches can also provide significant economic boosts to local retail businesses and communities.

Of course, having a megachurch in your neighborhood means challenges, too—like traffic and loss of property tax revenue. So, to provide extra value, build good relationships with their communities and pursue a more integrated vision, some large churches have been doing more to be forces for economic revitalization.

For example, last week Christ Fellowship Church, the nation’s 15^th largest church, held its first services at a new location in a Florida mall. The church now owns and occupies the Boynton Beach Mall’s anchor spot, which had been vacant for roughly three years since Dilliards closed.

The mall has been struggling, and city officials hope the church in that 7.5-acre location will help vitalize the area. They expect the church to attract some 3,000 visitors throughout each week. It will also run a coffee shop, the proceeds of which will go toward outreach.

When the church-in-the-mall idea first came up in 2011, some city officials were concerned that it’d cut into the city’s retail tax base. But since then, they’ve reportedly come to believe the church will provide other economic benefits that’ll make up for that. Christ Fellowship has put more than $7.1 million into onsite construction and, instead of taxes, will donate $25,000/year to the city’s enrichment fund.

This sort of thing is a growing trend. As ecommerce threatens brick-and-mortar retail establishments like malls and shopping centers, many experts expect that non-retail tenants will increase as malls look for ways to get people in the doors. And growing churches are increasingly seeking out nontraditional spaces.

The Sun Sentinel newspaper reports that 220 out of 114,000 shopping center properties in the U.S. list a “church/community center” as a tenant.

While churches must be careful about blurring the lines between business and ministry, we’re excited that more are thinking directly about ways they can provide economic benefits to their broader communities.

One church we’re working with now, Grace Place in Berthoud, is actively partnering with municipal leadership to provide community amenities and even a regional trail. We hope to see more and more churches doing similar things.

It is important for a church to have a great relationship with its neighbors; and it’s vital for a community to see the church as an important and vital resource. That occasional traffic jam might not be so bad after all.

How does your church impact its local economy? Send us your thoughts! For more information about Development Advisors’ church facility development services, contact Scott McLean at scott@developco.com. To read more about church trends in economic development, read our next blog!