Tracking results...

by Jim Herrignton

This weekend, Matt Register of the Gottlieb Foundation, sent me a note from his web site about the importance for non-profits to track results. It reminded me of a conversation more than a year ago when David Weekley gave me a copy of Good to Great in the Social Sectors that promotes the same idea.

When Mission Houston launched in January 1999, we spent an enormous amount of our time building relationships. We had a deep conviction that if the enormous negative social trends of the past 40 years were going to be reversed, it would take the whole body of Christ working strategically in unity across the entire greater Houston area. We knew that there were deep divisions in the Body of Christ – between Evangelicals and Charismatics, Protestants and Catholics, a wide range of culture and language groups, men and women, and urban and suburban congregations.

For six years that was our primary focus, and we had a lot of success in building authentic relationships of trust in many places. (And yes, there is still much work to be done in that arena.)

At some points along the way, different folks said, even if the only thing you are currently doing is building relationships, you need to find a way to track and measure your progress. For a variety of reasons we didn’t do that. Over time that came to haunt us. It resulted in what some in the business world call “crisis in investor confidence.” You might be surprised to know this but most of our funding does not come from congregations, though there are some great congregations that do support our work like Memorial Drive Presbyterian, Calvary Community Church, Cypress Bible Church, Copperfield Baptist Church – just to name a few. The vast majority of our funding comes from individual believers who work in the private sector. Their call for clarity about tracking and measuring things began as a suggestion and grew steadily to heartfelt cry.

And we finally began listening. . .albeit slowly. For our resistance to listening we repented about a year ago. We have spent the last year clarifying and refining our measures for success. Ultimately we are after the spiritual and social transformation of the city. Those measures are very long term and include things like impact on the number of people coming to faith in Christ, decline in the poverty rate (especially among the children in our city), the divorce rate, and things like that. But in the Whole and Healthy Children Initiative, we believe that mobilizing the Body of Christ around children in our educational systems and tracking progress there will make a significant impact on the long term measures. So in the Whole and Healthy Children Initiative, we are tracking these things.

1. The number of communities that launch an initiative. Our goal is to launch in at least five to six communities in school year 2007/2008 and to increase that every year until we have an initiative in all 45 communities across the greater Houston area.

2. In each community where an initiative is in place our goal is to have:
a. 100 mentors for 100 children in three schools with high percentages of at risk kids.
b. 100 intercessors praying for each of the mentors and child they are mentoring.
c. An annual campus beautification project in each school.
d. $10,000 raised from the private sector for the faculty and administration of each school.\

Are these the right measures? Time will tell. But they are the measures to which we believe the Lord has led us and for which we are going to be accountable. Our Board has agreed to these measures. Our staff is deeply committed to being accountable for these measures. We will report to you on a regular basis about progress being made.