Over the years I have been blessed to work with engaged, energetic, enthusiastic, and creative interns. Most of the time these interns have been young men who have just finished with college and are unsure whether their calling was into the business or the ministry world. By the end or our year together, they have either had enough of this ministry thing or they couldn’t wait for more. Either way it was fun!
- On of my favorite interns and I walked through the death of his girlfriend from leukemia. It was a gut wrenching 18 months of praying, laughing, and crying together. After her home going, we took a mission trip to Fiji and Australia. My young son in the faith stood boldly in front of 3,000 new friends in the faith and recounted Christ’s faithfulness, even though he’d suffered while serving over the past year. I learned from his faithfulness that God blesses a small investment exponentially.
- What are some practical steps for identifying and recruiting interns so that the younger professional, older mentor, and the organization all receive compelling value? Our staff team recently ran across this article “How to Find an Intern to Work for You.” It includes this tip: “Find people at work who graduated from the schools that you're contacting. They can be great ambassadors to potential interns particularly if they are recent graduates.”
- Interns take time, but your investment pays dividends in their development and in the development of the ministry.
Are you overpaid? Based on the responses of hundreds of ministry leaders we have served over the years, my guess is “no.” In fact probability you are underpaid. Our board did a smart thing. Several years ago we formed the Compensation Committee as part of our Finance Committee.
- Every May they begin researching salary surveys across the ministry and nonprofit landscape. The Compensation Committee takes the top two or three of the highest paid positions in our organization and contrasts those salaries with comparable roles in same-size ministries. This is a ministry Best Practice and the information is required on the ministry’s IRS Form 990 annual tax return.
- Other resources used by the Compensation Committee to harvest current data for salary surveys are ECFA and Guidestar.
- Happy surveying!
New board members bring fresh perspective and energy to board meetings. They don’t know any better than to ask questions that may be the very thing needed to break up a logjam in thinking. For example, recently one of our new board members asked whether our field staff financial model was the same for full-time and part-time contractors. It was an honest question that caused us to modify our schedule to be more in line with what’s fair for all parties.
- So, where do you find new board members? Day in and day out pray for the Holy Spirit to direct you to someone who may have a passion for your calling. It may be a new acquaintance who is looking for significance in his or her new season of work, or it may be an old friend who has come back into your life and is looking to serve. Pray and look for divine appointments since God has His agents everywhere.
- Last, perhaps you draft a spreadsheet similar to the one we use called, Ministry Ventures Board Candidates. This is a document you update between board meetings, and it provides accountability for all board members to be thinking and recruiting their replacements. If you have three terms then depending on the size of your board, one or two members will rotate off each year. Planning ahead allows everyone time to discover his or her best since finding new board member takes time.
- Who is a board candidate you can ask to pray about coming on your board?