An Orthodox consultant who is professionally trained and well experienced serves many useful purposes in the development of a parish or church organization.

The consultant as coach. Parish and church institution strategic planning is a rare event in Orthodox Church life. A parish is exceptional if it even engages in occasional "long-term planning". More common but no less complicated and challenging is the capital campaign – especially on the million dollar or multi-million dollar levels often seen today. These are not activities for which priests and bishops have been trained. Lay leadership is often inexperienced or untaught in the prerequisite skills. An expert consultant, well-versed in Orthodox Church life, can coach members of the church leadership as well as the fundraising team to take on their roles with greater confidence, authority and understanding of the methods and the processes of nonprofit development.

The consultant as change agent or catalyst. Inertia, vested interests, precedent, previous fundraising methods or mistakes, fear of failure, and community perception are all challenges to necessary change. Every organization has its naysayers – those whose refrain is: "That won’t work here", "We tried that", or "We don’t do it that way." It is often easier for an objective voice – especially one that speaks from experience and knowledge – to implement the required change that will bring success to the enterprise. It is the consultant’s role both to challenge the assumptions, thinking and methods that inhibit church development, and to affirm and validate the assumptions, thinking and methods that enable positive church development. To do this, the consultant must be versatile, mobile and innovative, all the while working from a deep and broad knowledge base. At times it may be necessary for counsel to articulate an alternative point of view based upon professional training and experience in numerous campaigns. Sometimes it is the consultant’s role to say what needs to be said, not necessarily what some may want to hear.

The consultant as expert. Every parish council or governing board member will have an idea about how the church institution should conduct a planning phase or raise the money in a capital campaign. This is good. One hopes for parish council and governing board involvement. When the consultant arrives, there is almost always an existing plan for capital fundraising. Often it is closely linked to naming opportunities and based upon general appeals, banquets and a grandiose "launching event." Oftentimes, what in the profession is called "the easy money", has already been collected at an early dinner or social event hosted by the priest or leading layperson. This is when the difficulty begins. What happens after the "easy money" is raised? At least 50% of the inquiries made to Stewardship Advocates come from parishes and church institutions that are stalled in campaigns. They may have raised the first $1 million in a $4 million capital campaign and can get no further. (Please click here to read why the early use of counsel enhances the prospects for success.) A consultant is blessed with distinctive qualifications stemming from professional training and comprehensive experience in a very special branch of learning. The consultant serves as an authoritative expert to whom church leaders and the faithful can turn for expert counsel. It is the consultant’s role to bring skillful and effective action to bear on difficult, unfamiliar and complicated issues. In the case of Stewardship Advocates, in addition to professional degrees directly related to church development, consultants have completed comprehensive training and education in strategic planning, all aspects of fundraising, board development and specific strategies of nonprofit advancement.

The consultant as sage. Church leadership can be extremely frustrating and lonely. Every priest or bishop feels as though he is always swimming against the strong current of secularism and relativism – often completely alone. Priests and bishops are educated and trained to lead communities from Egypt to Israel, as it were, from slavery to freedom in Christ. Faced with the practical and project based need to build community consensus, define and prioritize community objectives, raise an enormous amount of money or lead a once-in-a-lifetime parish development project – one can easily feel overwhelmed.

The laity in turn often bring tremendous energy, enthusiasm, dedication, special skills and determination to the planning or fundraising task. However, expertise in a related field such as public relations, financial planning, accounting, business development, sales, or marketing still lacks the requisite expertise in nonprofit development theory and methodology. Those who have learned fundraising in other environments such as hospitals, higher education, libraries, the political arena, volunteer organizations, or special causes very rarely have managerial or practical experience in major gifts, planned gifts or multi-million dollar capital campaigns.

Someone, therefore, must bring objectivity to the process. Someone must have the ability to conduct a careful and thorough analysis; the capacity to perform diligent inquiry and prospect research; to be the listening ear; have relevant erudition, mastery of a highly specialized process, expert discernment, professional knowledge and wisdom.

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