San Diego CTO Forum
Are you in San Diego and lead tech? Etienne De Bruin launched the San Diego CTO Forum and their first event had a wait list. Join in the great exchange happening at http://www.sdcto.com/ A group for CTO’s based in San Diego to get together, share challenges, solutions and a beer.
EO Accelerator – San Diego Startups and Entrepreneurs
Are you a start-up or entrepreneur in the San Diego area? I serve on the board The Entrepreneurs’ Organization that is launching an Accelerator program here in San Diego in the first quarter of 2012. This is EO’s facilitated learning program for entrepreneurs in the emerging space – those with annual sales of $250,000 to $1 million and under age 47. The idea is to help grow the next generation of entrepreneurs and to provide them with the tools to climb past that $1 million mark. Accelerator classes are small as the program operates with a maximum of 30 participants.
I strongly support the Accelerator San Diego Program and I’m excited about how much impact this program will have on your business. Accelerator is a huge opportunity to grow your business through intense, facilitated learning and connections to Entrepreneurs’ Organization. EO San Diego members are involved as mentors to help the participants digest the content and apply it to your business.
There are only 30 spots, and this is going to fill up fast!
Post a comment with your email and I’ll connect you with the right people to learn more!
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Regional GCM Collectives
The GCM Collective invites you to join in regional GCM Collectives with other missional leaders. In a collective you will experience peer-learning; what others are doing, what is working, what they are learning and how they have dealt with similar challenges you currently face. Each Collective will setup regular opportunities to meet in person and interact in a private group within the GCM Collective Community website for you to dig deeper with these peers and share successes and challenges going forward together. The goal is for you to be able to share experiences, resources and support to assist you in the ongoing mission God has called you to in your city.
In addition to the peer learning, those in a regional collective will have access to specific training, resources, and online webinars with other practitioners and thought leaders to help you lead missional communities, centered on the gospel.
If you are interested, submit this quick GCM Regional Collectives interest form by by Dec. 15*. When we get your email, you’ll receive an invite to the Regional GCM Collective group within the GCM online community. This is where we will be putting forth all announcements of where regional GCMs are forming, training dates and other resources to aid the discussions and prayer within the regional collectives.
Our goal is to communicate with the collectives by early January, so they can begin meeting at the end of January or early February. So far we have over 120 and growing that have signed up!
If you have other pastors or leaders in your area that you know would be interested, feel free to send them a link to this post. The more information we gather of those interested up front, the easier it will be to set up the regional collectives.
We look forward to serve alongside you to make disciples who make disciples.
*If you are already a member of the Regional GCM Group by joining within the GCM Community, you do not need to take further action.
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Non-Profit Functional Board of Directors and Elders for Churches
How do you get the most out of your Board? How do you avoid the awkward Board Meetings where issues are presented and members address surface layers because they aren’t involved in the challenges being discussed? How do you go beyond the missed expectations from one another? Over the last few years I’ve had the privilege to serve in on several Boards, advisory council roles, elder teams or on executive teams which has allowed me to see ways we haven’t led well but also ways that were led well. In that, I thought I’d share a bit of my experience and hopefully hear from others about what they think has worked to enhance their Board leadership experience.
On two of the boards, I’ve advocated a move to a Functional Board of Directors (from now on this term will also serve for elder led churches). Functional Boards means that each board member has their role defined and is clear on what is expected of them. Prior to this we operated with unclear expectations and more of a coaching role on issues that surfaced but didn’t feel this was very effective or best using the talent of the board. Here’s how that transition occurred:
1. Create Unity on the Big Picture: Usually the process begins by facilitating an offsite day using a 1-Pager (we’ve used these type of tools with churches during the MonkDev Strategy Sessions as well) to help capture vision, values, obstacles and goal type information. When we’ve done this with organizations there are times where these elements have been thought through and people easily navigate and re-center on these things and other times where this type of process is brand new, so it takes more time. Take the goals and move to the next step.
2. Bring Clarity on Strategic Initiatives: After big picture goals are agreed upon, identify 5-6 strategic initiatives that are necessary to achieve those goals. For example, one of the 1-pager goals of a non-profit was to become self-supporting and move from the founder donating a large portion of the monies. The strategic initiatives under that were many, but included increasing revenue. At this point ‘triage’ the situation to see which element if focused most keenly on would have the biggest impact on driving the initiative. In this case, sponsorship was the largest source of revenue and the most immediate to become self-supporting.
3. Create Board ‘Chair’ positions to have key responsibility over an area:
In this regard their are a lot of tools, my experience comes in the form of a Quad Report (so-named because it focuses on 4 things: Role Description (Core Purpose of Role, Responsibilities, What does Success look like?), Core Strategies (how does this role’s outcomes directly feed into the strategic initiatives?), A KPI dashboard (Google KPI Dashboard) and specific goals. In our example, a Board position was created for a Sponsor Chair to oversee growing the sponsorship function and since sponsorship revenue has raised ahead of projections. The position does need to take into account that this person is often a volunteer. They should champion the vision and seek to find people who can help execute. For the non-profit there is an executive director who has worked to tackle a number of the Quad deliverables such as clearer Media Kit for potential sponsors.
Some thoughts on how this applies to a church: One of the biggest breakdown I’ve experienced with a team is unclear expectations. This process can clear this up and release elders to be the first amongst equals in the area of responsibility they are over. In my experience, we’ve had a first amongst equals who sees how all the parts are working together for the greater whole (like the Chair position of President or Chairperson). For more on eldership/leaders structure from my blog, also read: Elders – Missional Movements, Plurality of Leadership & First Amongst Equals and other posts I’ve done on Triperspectival Leadership.
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Conclave Sessions – Gathering Church Communicators
Earlier this year, we launched the Conclave Sessions in Dallas. It was such a success that we have begun to schedule more of these. Our next Roundtable will be this Fall 2011 (October 26th & 27th) in the Windy City of Chicago. We’re pleased to announce that Kem Meyer of Granger and Josh Burns of Park will be joining us as well as several others. The discussions we will tackle will be powerful and provoking. If you’d like to be considered for the Chicago Roundtable, please apply here. We’ll review all submissions and notify you closer to the event if you’ve been selected.
Why A ‘Roundtable’?
We started this project to gather thought leaders, practitioners and church comm experts to leverage best practices and talk through challenges. Each of our Roundtables are filled with individuals from a wide variety of churches, many are growing and influential churches who are able to implement communication strategies. “As iron sharpens iron,” Proverbs says, “so one person sharpens another.” This is an opportunity to share with and learn from your peers in deep and substantial ways.
As a Conclave Member, you’ll receive:
Dinner at the Nightwood Restaurant 
Lunch
A Disruptive Learning Event from a renowned author
Church Communication Key Findings and Best Practices report from the content generated at the Roundtable
Networking opportunities with some of the brightest minds in the church comm space
Schedule
Wednesday, October 26th – 6-9 pm
- Dinner at Nightwood (http://www.nightwoodrestaurant.com/)
- Facilitated Discussion – Rick Bailey author Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World)
Thursday, October 27th – 9:30am-5 pm
- Rick Bailey to present 1-Hour “Building Coherence” session
- Church Communications Roundtable
- Lunch
- Church Communications Core Challenges & Opportunities
- After Party (6-9pm) [OPTIONAL]
Suggestion: Stay Friday and see the city for those out of towners!
Learn more at the Conclave Sessions website.
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An Exclusive Opportunity for Church Communicators
We’ve been silently working behind the scenes for the past few months at MonkDev, talking with some of the best and brightest in the church communications space. We’ve been planning our latest project, the Church Communicator Roundtable. It’s launching in a week, right before the Echo Conference. This invite-only event is an gathering of church communications practitioners who, simply put, know their stuff. Justin Wise has been hand-selecting people all across the country to bring together a solid set of individuals who know how to influence and not just communicate. We have one spot that we’re opening to the public and I’d like to offer that seat exclusively to you. Want to apply?
As a Dallas Roundtable Member, you’ll receive:
A 30 min Pre-Event Coaching Session
Dinner at the III Forks Restaurant
Lunch at the Aloft Hotel
A Disruptive Learning Event of Important Trends
Key Findings and Best Practices report from the content generated at the Roundtable
A Communication Strategy to Traction Plan Session
Networking opportunities with some of the brightest minds in the church comm space
Coming to Chicago in the Fall!
Read MoreDrew Goodmanson
CEO of Monk Development creators of Ekklesia 360. Co-Founder of Kaleo Church where I served as Pastor for 8+ years and helped coach several church plants in San Diego. Co-Founder of the GCM Collective, President of the Board at the Center for Church Communication, Board Member of the Entrepreneurship Organization, Internet/Technology Advisory Chair at the Christian Leadership Alliance. Connect
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