Faith & Spiritual Based Organizations
Integrating the spiritual and material
Conscious and Integrated Organizations
As individuals we flourish most when we find a wide integration across all aspects of our lives - integrating our spiritual, social, environmental, and financial aspects of life. We are both happy and more well-rounded, and we are more functional, effective and able to act more creatively and with a wider range of responses.
The same is true for organizations.
Most businesses are proficient at day to day operations as well as business planning and strategy. Businesses excel at action, at getting things done.
In contrast, spiritual-based groups, charities and non-profits are strong on inspirational vision, mission and values, and have exceptionally high commitment. The engagement and service ethic of their member is often founded on visions and beliefs greater than themselves from which they draw strength and inspiration. These are places where we may choose to work without money, or for less money than we could earn elsewhere.
To name this in a way that honours and gives space for a wide variety of wisdom traditions, faiths and spiritual practices, we can say that people in these kinds of organizations often have a strong connection to “Source”, to a vision of something greater than themselves.
By a conscious integrated organization we mean an organization where the individual members and the structure of the organization as a whole has integrated these two poles, and the full range in between. They are based in Source, a vision beyond themselves, in compassionate service, in strong vision, mission and values. And they are highly functional, effective, financial generative and expert at business operations and actions.
Personalized pain points. “You tried xyz, but you still didn’t get your desired result.”
“We believe that personalized pleasure points should go here.”
“I highly recommend spending time with duncan.”
— Quote Source
Introducing…
A clear description of what you’re offering.
Ava will make an image that shows the pathway for spiritual groups.
“one final testimonial.”
— Quote Source
Next steps
Schedule a consult with Duncan to learn more
Non-Profits, Charities & Spiritual Orgs
Spiritual-based organizations, charities, non-profits often are based in an ideal of compassionate service to others and the world. They have strong and inspirational values and vision. Particularly in spiritual-based groups, members may have a resilience and awareness from a strong contemplative or meditative practice, the members see themselves and the organization as on a spiritual journey, and they are grounded beyond this in something that is spacious, wonderful, loving and greater than our individual egos. These are great strengths.
On the other side, often such organizations can be less skilled - or even dysfunctional - when it comes to the nuts and bolts of running a complex financial business.
The journey of growth for these organizations is to become more functional. For example, freeing up blocks and shadows around money so that the organization can become financially sustainable. Embracing accountability, planning, project management, marketing, sales and so on in order to be of better service. Often this will mean finding different approaches to these standard business tools that were more heart-based and consistent with the organization's values.
From Source to action
Imagine an arc from Source to Action. On the left side is “Source”. Here we find the teaching and teachers of whichever wisdom tradition, faith, or spiritual roots guide the individuals and organization. We find the community of people practicing or sharing this view, and a strong service oriented approach. And we find commitment to personal and shared vision, mission and values.
On the right side, “Action” are the concrete specific steps for-profits businesses can be so good at. Finances, planning, project management, HR and so on. And associated with this but taking a step towards a bigger picture, the more thoughtful strategic approaches and people training of the company.
Doorways to being more conscious and integrated
There is some key middle ground between the two ends of the scale that are missing areas of development for most organizations. These are the doorways or stepping stones towards becoming a more complete dynamic conscious organization. The diagram below shows some of these key doorways:
The growth edge for spiritual groups & non-profits
A spiritual organization is typically strong on the left side of the picture - and the movement towards growth and a fuller flourishing is embracing and learning the skills on the right.
Let’s Look at Each of These in Turn:
Shifting/Deepening Business Practice Through Mindfulness
Let’s look from the perspective of a business first. Many businesses or corporations, recognizing the need to shift how they do things. There are many initiatives businesses may try that take a deeper approach. For example systems thinking approaches, design thinking, organizational development and change management work, innovation initiatives, and so on.
These are all excellent, however an aspect less talked about is that to achieve any of these changes requires team members who are able to be truly present to do that work. No truly valuable work or change can be accomplished by people who are distracted, stressed, burnt out, or running on autopilot.
Increasingly companies are establishing programs for mindfulness or emotional intelligence. Sometimes these may be limited to a “well being” aspect. While that’s true, the greater potential is in giving team members approaches and tools to be more aware and present, to start seeing what is really going on for themselves, for the team, for clients, in the environment around them, and the company as a whole.
Therefore a great first step for companies looking to shift how they work is to establish personal ,team and ideally organizational wide mindfulness programs.
Integrating Mindfulness
For organizations with mindfulness programs a key next step is to start to look at how to integrate/manifest that in the way the company works. How can the power of present awareness inform areas such as values, how we listen and communicate, how we work together in teams, how we set up our shared workspaces, etc.
Resilience: Health, Body & Land
It’s also important to remember people are more and more distracted and worn down. Most of us live in cities with less connection to nature and our food sources. We’re juggling a thousand things and running on overlad. Applying mindfulness is key, but we need also to spend time looking at our overall resilience - our basic health, our relationship to our bodies and land,. This is key to give us the resilience and strength for the challenge of transformative work.
Relationship to Money
With foundational mindfulness practice in place, and increased resilience/health, this gives the cohesion and strength to look at some of the more complex and challenging issues for individuals and at the group level. An excellent nexus for challenging and shifting our views is looking at our relationship to money - both individually and as an organization. For businesses, it’s expanding our view of what is generative beyond just the financial to take a wider look at impact and success that considers also the social, environmental and spiritual impacts of the work. For non-profits, charities and spiritual-based groups, the challenge is more likely embracing the positive aspects of finances - shifting views about money as an evil, and finding a way to generate abundant resources for doing the organization’s vision-based work. The matrix of our individual blocks and views about money.
Shadow and the Tougher Stuff
There are also other shadow areas than money, and tougher, more sensitive and more systemic topics that need to be looked at. These areas can tie up huge tensions and energy blocks individually and at the organization level. Cleaning up these big areas frees us great amounts of energy and creativity. One area is around power and hierarchy. Generally for profit businesses may have a clear hierarchy and management structure - the challenge in this case is opening up to more team-based and holistic ways of working. In non-profits or spiritual-based groups it can sometimes be the opposite challenge - power and authority are seen as negatives. This can result in no-one being able to truly lead. Moving beyond both the need for a fixed hierarchy, or the need to resist or reject leadership or control, requires strong awareness and maturity. On a more systemic level, this speaks also to deeply inbuilt power imbalances in our society, and the need to do the work of Justice Equality Diversion and Inclusion. Related to this are shadow issues and taboos around identity, sexuality, and gender relations.
Conscious Team and Community
Through all this work we are constantly deepening and development the community of organization workers or members. This is a journey together and its important to further and build trust, team and community throughout.
An Example Journey:
For spiritual-based groups the presenting problem may be a lack of effectiveness, or systemic financial struggles, or sometime issues working well as a team and making decisions. Typically we’ve found that these issues are deeper blocks and challenges 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. Therefore for such groups, 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.
For a charity or non-profit the path may vary. While the above path for spiritual-based groups may also be relevant, one difference is that spiritual-based groups are likely already blessed with a strong common contemplative practices, whereas charities or nonprofits may not have this. In fact, burn out of highly committed individuals may be one of the chief issues. Starting with resilience and health may in this case be the best door in, along with some foundational mindfulness practice to build awareness and sustainability.
