Non-Profits

S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-Fil-A chain restaurants, was honored by President Bush with the President’s Call to Service Award at the White House April 15th, 2008 for his “life-long commitment to volunteer service.”

The President’s Call to Service Award is presented to recipients who have accumulated over 4,000 hours of volunteer community service. Mr. Cathy has dedicated well over that to numerous endeavors throughout his lifetime. He has actively participated in the health of the community by helping young people achieve their potential, as well as helping couples strengthen their marriages.

He has taught Sunday school to 13-year-old young men for almost 50 years. He also founded the Winshape Foundation in 1984 which reaches out to people to nurture and encourage them to be successful parts of the community. The Winshape Foundation offers annual summer camps for boys and girls, and marriage and corporate retreats for adults. Winshape has also added foster homes, and a challeng/ropes course to their grounds at Berry College. Recently Winshape began sponsoring domestic and international missions trips to reach young people in the worldwide community.

S. Truett Cathy is much more than just the successful owner of the “nation’s second-largest quick-service chicken restaurant”, he is a light and blessing to the non-profit community through his lifelong dedication to volunteer service. He has taken his business and service skills to a whole new level that reaches beyond the excellent service Chick-Fil-A offers to its patrons.

“He is a great example of a wealthy, successful business man who has been blessed by God and uses those blessings as opportunties to bless the community in so many ways,” said Ashley Watkins, a Non-profit Major at Southeastern University. “He is an inspiration to people who want to be successful even though they are going into the non-profit sector.”

Below is a video interview of S. Truett Cathy from CNN as he talks about combining business skills and faith:

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The 2007-2008 Academic Year marked the beginning of a new club on Southeastern University’s expanding campus: S.I.F.E. This club has recently returned from their regional competition where they were awarded “Rookie of the Year” and “1st Runner Up” in this region for the incredible projects they implemented within our community.

S.I.F.E. is the acronym for “Students In Free Enterprise.” It “is an international organization that mobilizes university students around the world to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders” according to their website www.sife.org.

Although S.I.F.E. has just recently been added to Southeastern’s list of clubs, their impact on the school and the community of Lakeland can already be seen. This year alone they taught the elderly how to work with computers and the internet, taught third graders about the importance of the orange to Florida’s agriculture and hosted a 5K race to raise money for future projects.

“Next year we really want to expand on what we have done, do bigger projects and expand membership into other majors,” said Michael Hanlin, a Junior completing his business degree at Southeastern, who presented at the regional competition in Orlando this semester.

Annually S.I.F.E. clubs from colleges across the world come together to compete in regional, national, and world competitions. A team from each school presents their club’s projects from the year in front of a panel of business leaders who serve as judges for the competition. Teams are rewarded based upon the success of their projects and the professionalism of their presentation. In this way they are motivated to constantly improve their projects by competing with other schools.

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When it comes to running and growing a nonprofit organization it is essential to have an excellent way of tracking finances. Joyce Meyer Ministries, a nonprofit organization that provides Christian broadcasts, missions outreaches and conventions worldwide, has chosen to use Serenic Navigator made by the Serenic Corporation as their financial tracker.

According to the PR Newswire website article, the organization is “implementing Serenic Navigator to support [their] standard of transparency and integrity in reporting [their] finances to [their] partners and friends of the ministry.”

Serenic President and CEO Randy Keith told PR Newswire that “they needed a system that will give them the ability to integrate donation activity with a proven financial management solution developed specifically to meet the needs of nonprofits.”

Nonprofit organizations that are willing to carefully track and publish their financial information are typically more honest and more likely to hold themselves up to a higher standard of integrity when it comes to raising funds for their organization. When looking for a good organization to donate to or volunteer with, check out their finances and see exactly what your money and time is supporting.

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For any local PR students: The FPRA is having a round table meeting March 10th at 4:30 in the Sawgrass room at Southeastern University. It will be a great time for students to meet PR professionals and ask them questions about the business of Public Relations. Who knows…you may find your next employer!

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Hey if you’re interested in checking out another blog related to Non-profits check out my friend Shari Hoffner’s website www.betweendreamsmag.com/nonprofitnews.

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Welcome to wordpress.com and Non-Profit News. This is a great place to ask questions about non-profit organizations in general and talk about the good and bad sides of being involved with a non-profit. Feel free to ask questions, post responses and inform bloggers on anything and everything non-profit.

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It is thought by some that Nonprofit organizations sap money out of public and private investors and dispense it on foreign soil adding to the depletion of the American economy. However, a study done in Colorado has proven that nonprofit organizations are significant contributors to the growth of jobs and production. In Colorado alone the nonprofit sector contributes $2 billion to the state’s economy and over 123,000 full-time employee positions. These numbers make Colorado’s nonprofit sector the third largest industry in Colorado! They contribute more to the gross state product than the mining, transportation, utilities and agriculture industries combined.
The first part of this study was done by The Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, and its director, Lester M. Salamon. The second part of the study was performed by Denver’s Corona Research, Inc., and its principal Kevin Raines. The study was sponsored by Qwest, Community First Foundation and the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. To see the whole article you can visit http://www.ColoradoNonprofits.org or http://prnewswire.com.

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Overland Missions may have only started eight years ago as a Christian missionary non-profit organization, but they have grown immensely because of their divine backing

Overland Missions began back in 1999 by Philip Smethurst and now this missionary organization deploys expeditions to countries all over the world. Overland is actively working in 17 countries dispersed among Africa, Indonesia, South America and Latin America. This non-profit organization is living proof that God supports those who devote themselves to fulfilling the Great Commission. Overland Missions has a full time staff that raises all of their own support through personal fund raising. They come on board understanding that they must rely on God to provide for their material needs. Apparently he has.

Dave Philips, director of operations, sitting in the Overland Missions office at Destiny Christian Church on Merritt Island

“There is a different dynamic involved when raising money for the Lord…we raise money by faith,” said Dave Philips, Overland’s director of operations. Dave has worked with Overland Missions since the early days as a recon man and expedition leader. He knows first hand what it’s like to rely on God through faith for financial support. Overland Missions is funded completely by public and private donors through their employees. They do not do any organizational fund raisers to raise support.

The employees act as public relations person’s who speak in public forums about Overland Missions and tell the audience about what God is doing in these foreign countries through the help of Overland. The difference between these employees and those of other secular non-profits is that they have a divine backing. These guys know what they have been called to do and they are passionate about it, which makes fund raising that much easier.

According to Dave, each person must know what their vision is, how that connects to Overland Missions, be able to communicate that vision effectively and act in complete integrity with the funds one is blessed with. Those who want to work for a non-profit must be aware of the fact that they must be skilled communicators who possess high moral standards if their organization is to succeed. As a vital piece of the non-profit’s framework, each person should understand the weight they carry.

Dave also spoke about other hardships of working for a non-profit organization. As a non-profit employee, particularly for a Christian missionary organization, you have two full time jobs: to put in 40+ office hours a week and to raise money so you can eat! Some people coming into a position at a non-profit have worked in the business world and earned enough money to support them while they work for the Lord. Others come right out of school into this field and must find a way to support themsleves. Dave was one of those kids who joined Overland Missions when he was fresh out of college and the organization was in its infancy.

He talked much about the “frustrations of the twenties” when he first became a recon man for Overland. In your twenties, Dave said, one gets frustrated because they know God has placed dreams and visions in their hearts that they long to see come to fruition, but they have to wait. They have to realize that God is shaping them for their destiny, and until God brings it to pass, patience is the key. The greatest joy for Dave Philips came out of the “frustration of the twenties” when he realized that God would take care of everything else as long as he kept his focus on following God’s plan for his life.

Dave Killough, Expedition Operator, putting in hours at the Overland Missions office on Merritt Island

I also spoke to another Dave on staff, Dave Killough, who is the expedition operator. He says the most difficult part of working for a non-profit such as Overland is managing and motivating volunteer staff. He believes that although employees are not paid by the organization, each should work knowing that it is “unto the Lord and not unto men.” Dave Killough would probably agree with me that it takes highly motivated, focused and goal-oriented people to effectively operate a Christian, missionary non-profit organization. But he also said he finds great joy in his job at Overland because he gets to do something that isn’t “typical” and has a “higher purpose” than anything else he could be doing.

For those looking to do an internship with a non-profit, Overland offers internship and full time career missionary opportunities. Both positions begin with three months at their Africa base near Victoria Falls doing Missions work. They are also currently accepting applicants for their Advanced Missionary Training that will occur May 8 through July 31 and September 1 through November 23 of this year. For more information visit overlandmissions.com.

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