Faith & Spiritual Based Orgs

Spiritual-based organizations are often are based in an ideal of compassionate service to others and the world.  They have strong inspirational values and vision.  Particularly in spiritual-based groups, members may have a resilience and awareness from a strong contemplative or meditative practice. Members see themselves and the organization as on a spiritual journey. This can ground them in something that is compassionate, loving and greater than our individual egos.  This gives a great resilience and strength  

On the other side, often such organizations can lack skills - or be avoidant or even dysfunctional - when it comes to the nuts and bolts of running the business and financial sides of the organization.

For spiritual-based groups there can be consistent problems around a lack of effectiveness, or systemic financial struggles, or issues around decision and hierarchy. Typically we’ve found that these issues are driven from views and blocks around relationship to money and power.  Money especially is an incredible nexus that ties together so many of the common blocks of a spiritual organization. 

The journey of growth for these organizations is to embrace the positive sides of functionality and finances, without losing their core vision and heart-based approach. For example, freeing up blocks and shadows around money can help the organization become financially sustainable, and attract more resources to support their good work.  Embracing more planning, accountability and project management can let the organization and its members be of greater service. However this also means finding different approaches to these financial and business skills that are more heart-based and consistent with the organization's values.

For such groups, we believe organizational money coaching can be an excellent way to start.  Alternatively, organization development coaching using the conscious organization framework to identify the key gaps or blocks can be a valuable approach.