Transforming Missions Financing Strategy Through Inter-Organizational Alliance

Three student-based ministries aspired for better funded missions as a result of an exploratory visioning collaboration through a decision-making forum for mission executives and their selected stakeholders. They conferred on the implications of their shared organizational community and redefined the mission funding paradigm by focusing on donors as stakeholders. The participation thus included some donors who, together with the mission leaders and organization members, determined that the Scriptures offer transforming strategies for recruiting prospective donors. Action research themes guided the views of the participants to facilitate the process.

The groups gathered as a hermeneutical community to clarify their confronting reality. They embraced a shared vision of partnership by way of a mutual influence limited to just their ministries. The collaboration engaged them to advance for a shared vision of leadership as an influence beyond them in the light of the Church.

Both levels of shared vision evaluated their ministries in terms of a common ecology of education, mission and donor-finance dependency; hence, they chose Education as Mission as a strategy to develop better-informed donors. A follow-up process will prepare them in a consultation ahead of a later conference to recruit more donors. Critical realism was utilized as a resource to manage the dual reality of divine
and human action in mission funding. It involved integrating the Scriptures with some models of mission strategies. The project as an exploratory decision-making phase can be continued with the planning, implementation and consolidation phases. The next stages are subject to the executive boards' approval but are, in reality, beyond the terms of this study. The dissertation was successful to the extent that the ministries decided to expand their funding bases, to employ partnership solutions and to transform the landscape of missions funding beyond their current stewardship.