Advice for Religious Entrepreneurs
Why Profitability Matters in a Religious Organization Startup
Most religious organizations would prefer to focus on prophets, rather than profits. While faith is the underpinnings of all successful religious organizations, making ends meet is also extremely important.
Profitability isn't a primary concern for the leaders of most religious startups.
Your motivation for starting a religious organization isn't to get rich - it's to fulfill a faith calling and accomplish a spiritual mission.
But despite the purity of your motives, the need for profitability will become quickly apparent. In the context of a religious organization, profitability means having the capacity to pay your bills and set a little bit aside for capital improvements, expansion or unexpected events.
Even though you don't have shareholders, your members will want assurances that their religious community is on solid financial footing.
As a startup organization, it's difficult to predict how much revenue you'll have to work with, at least until you have several months of services and programs under your belt.
During the organization's initial stage of life, plan to rely on volunteer staff until your revenue stream stabilizes and you can create a profitable (and realistic) budget.
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