Frequently Asked Questions

What are the most promising avenues for religious innovation that are emerging so far?

The How We Gather project provides a good overview of many new forms of religious community underway and some of their common characteristics. In some ways, though, innovation in the ‘Meaning Sector’ is a lot like early innovation in the information technology revolution -- people trying out a very wide range of ideas -- and it will take a while to learn which general directions appear to be working for those longing for communities of meaning and purpose. Many current ideas are based on specific personal interests of the innovator. Those are great but the more that ideas meet the fundamental needs of larger groups of people who feel them most acutely, the more sustainable they will be.

Where can I get help designing and implementing my project?

The UUA Emerging Ministries team offers free webinars and seminars on religious innovation and design thinking at General Assembly and other venues. Sign up for the UU Religious Innovators Network to learn more. There are also a range of free or low cost courses covering various aspects of social innovation design and implementation offered online through Acumen+, IdeoU, and OpenIdeo, and there are in-depth, in-person “incubator” and “accelerator” programs available specifically for religious innovators offered by the Glean Network and DoGoodX. Visit our Key Resources page for more information. If you have questions about discernment, project direction or mentoring, feel free to contact Brock Leach, UUA consultant for Innovative Ministries, anytime at brock.leach[at]icloud.com

Where can I get connected to other UU Innovators for advice and support?

Your first step is to register to become part of the newly formed UU Religious Innovators Network. You may also contact the Network Coordinator, Eli Snider, at esnider[at]clfuu.org. The UU Religious Innovators Network is intended to be a peer-to-peer support network providing both spiritual support and practical advice to religious innovators.

What is the right time in my life to do a start-up?

The fact of the matter is start-ups are risky. So the right time to begin one is whenever you can afford to invest yourself in something that might not pan out. Set some boundaries for yourself in terms of how much time and money you’re willing to invest; and consider yourself successful if you learned something, even if your original idea didn’t pan out.

Is there a specific talent or personality profile that lends itself to innovation work?

No, not according to Gallup’s StrengthsFinder research. But the ability to assess your own strengths and limitations and build a team that compliments your weaknesses is critically important. While they’re not skills or talents per se, a deep passion/calling for the work, the perseverance to persist through the inevitable challenges, and a willingness to build a whole “ecosystem” of people from whom you can learn and with whom you can create something of lasting value, are probably the most frequent attributes of successful innovators.

Are my personal desire to make a difference and have some autonomy legitimate reasons to do a startup ministry?

The desire to make a difference or a deep sense of calling are essential to success (see persistence above). Autonomy, on the hand, is a mixed bag: wanting the freedom to help lead and build something that really works for people is totally legitimate; wanting to create it and lead it by yourself, though, could really get in the way. The reality is that successful innovators don’t have a lot of autonomy; they have a whole lot of collaborators.

The Five-Step Checklist

Want to make sure you’re thinking about the right steps? Identify where you are in the cycle below and learn more:

 Get clear on the basic assumptions underlying your idea:

• Who exactly do you want to serve who is not already being served well?

• What are their defining characteristics as determined by location, demographics, cultural background, life-stage or other particular needs?

• What do you hypothesize is the gain they could find, the pain that could be eased or problem that your idea could solve for them?

• What about your idea might be uniquely valuable to them?

  Informally check your assumptions with friends, particularly those who you think might ac be interested in solving this problem too.

• Do they readily identify with this problem or opportunity?  Do they have examples from their own experience?

• Are they energized in thinking about the potential solution?

• Identify a group of the people who you intend to serve—people who you think might need what you’re thinking about offering.  Ideally they will be representative of the larger group of potential beneficiaries.   You might identify a group of 10 to 30 people with whom you can engage in some depth individually and in small groups.

• Prototype and revise in multiple iterations as you design the community or program you envision.  Using the principles and process of Design Thinking (see our overview presentation),  you and your team will go on a learning journey together, co-creating a new community or program through a process that centers the needs, ideas and participation of the people you intend to serve.  This is an iterative process comprised of five interlocking practices-- Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test—that are designed to reduce risk by learning directly from beneficiaries, “failing fast” and developing creative confidence in the later iterations that emerge.

•  Test a live version of your final prototype after you’re satisfied that you have developed an idea that will meet the needs of your beneficiaries.  This test should be of a “minimum viable” version of your concept,  executed at minimum cost while providing participants with a viable live experience of the key features of your concept.  This is an opportunity to test who will participate,  how they respond to your idea, and what improvements still need to be made.

•  Draft a clear Value Proposition Statement  based in your prototyping and testing experience that clarifies the strategic essence of your idea-- who you intend to serve, how you intend to serve them programmatically, and the uniquely valuable means by which you will meet their needs.  This statement captures the most essential aspects of your community or program that will be of lasting value to your participants.

•  Create a viable business plan for your religious community or social enterprise built around the Value Proposition, and laying out the essential activities, key partnerships,  required resources and, most importantly, the sources of revenue that will make your idea viable.   A good tool for doing that is the Social Business Model Canvas.

• Assess your personal readiness to take this next faithful step.   In addition to prayer,  meditation and other spiritual practices, Kareem Aboulenaga’s Six Questions are a good place to start your own discernment: 

·      Why is this work important to society?

·       Why is this work important to me?

·       Why am I the right person to be carrying out this work?

·       Why is this work important to society right now?

·       Why is this work important to me right now?

·       Why am I the right person to be carrying out this work right now?

• Assemble the right start-up team for the construction work ahead.  Do they collectively represent the skills you need and complement your own in important ways?   Are they willing to invest their time and spirit more intensively going forward?  Are they people with whom you are willing to share ownership-- emotionally and spiritually, if not financially? Are they people who are likely  to serve in various volunteer capacities to sustain the organization after start-up?

• Explore potential partnerships.  Look carefully at each of the key resources and essential activities (see Social Business Model Canvas above) you’ll need for your entity and ask which of those could be found at low or no cost by forming partnerships with other individuals or organizations. Open up preliminary conversations with potential partners to learn what’s possible.

•  Determine the initial start-up  capital you’ll need for the building phase and line up the sources-- cash you’ve already been able to raise and other high probability sources of revenue—earned revenue from your entity as well as donations and grants.   Advice:  Don’t take the plunge until you have a clear idea of what seed capital you’ll need and a high-probability pathway for raising it.

•  Set some specific limits on how much you’re willing to invest of your own time and money to get this idea of the ground.  Ask yourself whether you could live with losing that investment if things don’t pan out and whether the learning experience would be worth it.

•  Check with those who depend on you financially, emotionally, or spiritually, talking with them about the implications of this undertaking for your relationship with them.  Are they more supportive than fearful, and could they live with the loss of time and money that you’ve set as a limit?

•  Find a peer support network to turn to when you get stuck or come up against unexpected obstacles.  Create one of your own or consider joining a peer coaching group organized by the  Religious Innovators Network.  It also helps to have what Greg Jones, Dean of Duke Divinity School, calls a “Holy Friend” – someone who will “challenge the sins we have come to love, affirm the gifts we are afraid to claim and help us dream dreams we otherwise would not dream.”

• Find an affordable, accessible venue—physical, virtual or both-- to launch your start-up.  First step: explore what mission-compatible organizations have a venue you could borrow when they’re not using  it.  Note that congregations have idle physical spaces much of the week.

•  Locate communications expertise you can use on a contracted or volunteer basis for web design, “Customer Relationship Management” (CRM) database software and email capabilities.  Ideally you’ll find someone who also has a practical knowledge of social media promotion and related analytics.   Some early participants may have those skills, but they’re worth paying for if you have to.

•  Launch with your best foot forward.  Unlike earlier advice to test a “minimum viable” version of your idea,  the goal now is to attract participants and have them return by showcasing the key features of your concept.   Regardless of what programs are still in development, what matters most is that people feel warmly welcomed and leave with a clear understanding of what you’re building.

•  Confirm your revenue assumptions, whether you’re counting on earned revenue from related activities or donations and grants,  keep a careful eye on how your ingoing assumptions are playing out as people actually begin to participate financially so you can adjust your revenue and expense plans as needed.

•  Take stock of who is participating, how they heard about you, how satisfied they are with the experience and whether they have suggested improvements.   If there are a group of people who return regularly and seem particularly enthusiastic, ask yourself whether they have any commonalities that might shape your communications efforts,  and ask them what they particularly value about this start-up.

•  Invite “early adopters” to join the start-up team as volunteers.  Most people who have  been part of a successful start-up will tell you the deep pride and satisfaction the took in being a valued part of the effort.  For some it was life-changing.

•  Lay the ground work for sustainability by further developing key revenue streams, and where donated revenues are central, begin cultivating a committed donor base.   Checkout the Stage II Fundraising webinar to get started.

•  Strengthen your main revenue streams.  If you’re reliant on earned revenues, look at ways to expand your reach to new customers in new ways.  If it’s built on donors,  it’s time to focus seriously on building a group of major sustaining donors.  Typically that will require hiring development professionals and developing a careful strategy.

•  Take time to strengthen key organizational processes like governance, financial management and human resources, especially those that are essential to continued success, and look for more effective or efficient ways of doing things that are important but not central to the mission.

•  Consider opportunities to scale up your community or program to others who need what you offer.  This is typically a question of the definition and size of the group of intended beneficiaries,  the  current unmet need in that group and the replicability of the idea if it requires start-ups in different locations.   Usually scaling up requires an upfront financial commitment to get major new locations or new communication efforts up and running.

•  Enjoy being part of something vibrant and lasting that provides meaning and purpose to your own life,  the lives of your start-up colleagues and those of all those you have set out to serve.