Building a Sustainable Mission

Bringing your vision to life may be inspired from within, but unless you're independently wealthy, turning it into a viable mission will quickly bring you face-to-face with an outer reality -- without the money to keep it going, it can be a real challenge to change the world.

Inner conditions aside, the outer world can be a harsh environment in which to start a mission, and an even tougher one to keep it going. Though perhaps it's the last place you'd rather your attention be, money matters and it must become a primary focus if your project is to remain viable.

Fund-raising can take many forms. Those who choose the non-profit route often find themselves writing grant applications and soliciting contributions from charitable donors or other charitable ventures. This can be a full time job, detracting from the performance of the mission mandate. In addition, campaigns often require complex governmental filings with stiff penalties when reporting deadlines are missed. It therefore becomes essential to have adequate staffing (or outsourced services) to keep both essential services and fund-raising activities on track. And while micro-lending and other financing may be available, such sources are less accessible for non-profits than the entrepreneur might otherwise desire.

On the other hand, many new breed social entrepreneurs, as well as for-profit social enterprises operated by otherwise charitable organizations, operate their missions as profit-seeking enterprises. For profit firms have a greater ability to raise capital in the debt and equity markets. Sale of goods or services to the ultimate consumer are also traditional means of sustaining mission operations, even where profit is not the primary purpose for operating the mission or are otherwise earmarked for charitable activities.

Some missions, like those who deliver a message or perspective by writing a book, often fall within the realm of hobby businesses (though expensive hobbies if the author undertakes his or her own publishing, marketing and/or distribution). Such hobby activities are often subsidized by entrepreneurial savings from employment, investments, or funds accessed from family or credit cards. Too often, though, authors in their zeal violate the cardinal rule all fledgling writers are told -- "Don't quit your day job."

Others, like those who are called to volunteer their time and energy to others' projects, are the lifeblood of the effort to change the world. But even they have financial and other personal needs that cannot be ignored, but too often are when those who recruit their participation are blind to the needs of their volunteers.

For when volunteers devote too much time to service, it can draw them away from work and family activities through which they sustain themselves and provide for their own needs. And when that line is crossed, they can quickly become resentful and run out of steam -- or else be sucked dry and drop along the side of the road while the charity searches for someone else to take their place.

In short, whether you are heading up a for-profit or charitable venture, writing a book, or just volunteering to help, you are in reality running a business -- the business of your life. And as in any business, the first order of business is making sure it works and provides the means to keep it going without leaving a trail of scorched earth in its wake.

Whether you generate income from a day job, profits from operations or receive charitable contributions you re-distribute to needy beneficiaries, the result is the same -- at least as much needs to come in as goes out if you're going to be able to keep doing it for any length of time.

That means not only covering the cost of your mission's operations, but it's administrative expenses as well -- including your own personal and family needs unless you've got them covered in some other way. So if you want to eat, keep a roof over your head, and have the facilities and staff needed to perform your mission, you're going to need to keep a sharp eye on the bottom line whether you want to or not.

Remember, the first responsibility of every soul is to create its own life and insure its ability to get the experiences it came for. While trying to change the world may be part of that, it does not relieve us from our duty to obtain the necessities of life for us and those whose welfare is dependent upon us.

Your job, as mission entrepreneur, is therefore to get and keep your mission on a found financial footing if it is to succeed. For sooner or later even the deepest pockets tend to run dry, and your mission will stand or fall on your ability to generate the funds it needs -- and you need -- to survive.

If yours is not doing so, perhaps you might change your focus and start attending to such things now, rather than later when your back is against the wall. Otherwise you may one day face the harsh reality that sometimes even the best-intentioned mission will fall by the wayside without the money to keep them going.

The bigger question, however, is what's at work inside if you are ignoring money matters or putting them behind the expression of your inspiration through your mission to serve? Is it truly a question of contribution? Or is it the continuation of a theme of giving to your own detriment and depletion, perhaps played out over many lives? If so, then revisit your choices and the intentions at work behind them. It is, after all, first and foremost to gather the experiences needed by your soul on its evolutionary journey, and falling back into the same old patterns may do little to balance those energies within you and bring new ones to explore.

Remember, it's all about you. Only through your evolution does the outer world evolve. Use the opportunity wisely to serve you both -- even when it means chasing money to make your mission go 'round.