College Union

What does fundraising and board development have to do with student leadership development?

Many of us say we highly value student leadership development (and within that I would also include discipleship), but we spend the majority of our ministry dollars on stuff that has little or nothing to do with it.

Funding reflects organizational priorities. Like taking a look at your personal checkbook (or debit card printout) reveals your personal spending priorities, by looking at your campus ministry budget, you should see a reflection of what your ministry values.

Look at your budget and ask some simple questions.

• If someone from outside our ministry took an objective look at our budget, what would they say are our main priorities?
• Does our budget reflect the intentionality required to develop students in their discipleship/leadership?
• Where are we spending money that provides little or no kingdom influence?
• If we did everything we wanted to do to shape students as disciple-leaders, what would we do and how much would it cost?
• Where can we reallocate our limited dollars to provide the financial infrastructure needed to be who God is calling us to be and to do what God is calling us to do?

Boards set budgets. Ideally, a board should work to propose and approve a budget congruent with the mission objectives of your campus ministry. That means we have to work closely with our board chair to identify potential board members who have a passion for the mission of campus ministry as well as to develop potential and current board members to buy in to the mission objectives.
If student leadership development is a top priority (which I think it needs to be), developing board members who understand its strategic significance (as well as the who, what, why, and how) will help you and your board develop a budget and a funding plan that provides the financial infrastructure to achieve your goals.

Categories: Student Leadership
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