Dr. Mark L. Vincent's Blog

The following is a presentation made this past week at the Christian Leadership Alliance's Conference in Dallas, TX. It was part of a summit on Steward Leadership. Portions of what you will find below include input from summit participants.

Over the years, we've turned, repeatedly, to the subject of Steward Leadership, especially as articulated in Scott Rodin's book on the Steward Leader.  I've been privileged to support this work through some writing contributions to other titles:

My family story is one of holding our household together through my wife's long battle with leiomyosarcoma. Eighteen occurrences in sixteen years is a lot for anyone. We've made it this far, raising our children and now enjoying being grandparents, while building Design Group International, completing research projects related to graduate education, and finding ways to enjoy life, however constricted it might feel.

A recent interaction with some executive leadership students thinking with me in sessions I'm privileged to facilitate with Christian Leadership Alliance provoked the following thoughts:

What’s your philosophy on fundraising?

Last month I had the opportunity to lead a discussion with scholarship providers about board ownership of fundraising.  I presented three approaches or philosophies about fundraising as

This week--most like any other week--was filled with figuring it out.

Over the last fiteen years I've slowly been reading vol 1 of the now 6 volumes of The Fundamentalism Project. While academics take the most joy in reading ponderous volumes with extensive bibliographies, esteemed historian Martin Marty's essay at the back is the one every organizational leader should read--especially those who head global enterprise.

BizTimes Milwaukee recently reviewed Arianna Huffington's book Thrive, where she recounts her story of learning to balance life better after nearly working herself to death in building her business.

I was with a ministry CEO last week who hoped to see a greater degree of voluntarism in his organization. He was asked if he had a volunteer time budget and that was a new concept to him--to actually quantify the likely number of volunteer hours currently available to him and then how they were being allocated in support of the organization's mission.  Those in conversation with him encouraged him to strategically optimize the volunteer hours currently available so that there would be more integrity and realism in the appeals for new volunteers.