Walking the Talk

A Consultative Program of the Council for Health and Human Service Ministries

What is the passion behind your organization? How do you tap this energy to advance your work? And how do you face the challenges of leadership in a way that's faithful to your mission?

Leaders of faith-based organizations come up against these questions every day. We want our organizations to more fully claim their identities as ministries of the church. But we struggle with how to put this desire into practice - how to walk the talk. That's why we need companions for the journey.

Walking the Talk is a consultative program through which CHHSM works with member ministries over a sustained period of time to identify, amplify and leverage the spiritual and organizational strengths of the ministry in order to:

• Build an organizational culture rooted in a sense of vocation
• Integrate faith-based values and business strategy
• Establish practices that reinforce core identity and mission
• Discern new opportunities for mission and organizational development
• Communicate the ministry's distinctive quality and character

CHHSM ministries pursue these objectives in formal and informal ways, with varying degrees of success. The value of Walking the Talk is to engage a partner who accompanies the organization in these endeavors, keeping them on track in more intentional and effective ways. This is accomplished through:

• Systematic assessment of existing organizational culture, resources and practices that have supported the ministry's success.
• Based on the assessment, the custom-designed and supported implementation of strategies that reinforce and expand inherent strengths to produce better outcomes for a healthier organization.

Walking the Talk services are designed to meet the organization at a point of its perceived need and address that need by uncovering and leveraging the resources already resident in the ministry. It is not assumed that problems don't exist, but it is assumed that God has provided the means to resolve them when we trust in God's abundant gifts.

Are you ready for a different kind of consultative engagement that honors your distinctive character as a faith-based organization? If so, we're eager to walk with you. To learn more how Walking the Talk might benefit you and your organization, contact Daniel Pryfogle, CHHSM's director of consulting services, at 919-460-7069, or by email.

Walking the Talk Resources

Appreciative Inquiry/Positive Change

Better Is Based in Who We've Been, an article by Daniel Pryfogle

Leading from Abundance a speech by Daniel Pryfogle to Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas

Case Western Reserve University's AI Commons, a portal on the Appreciative Inquiry movement and its best practices

The Berkana Institute, a pioneering effort to support life-affirming leaders around the world

Leadership and Vocation

"The Practice of Soulful Leadership," reflections by Daniel Pryfogle

Other articles by Daniel Pryfogle – "Fear and Dancing" and "The Soulful Organization"

Social Enterprise

The Social Enterprise Alliance, the leading gathering of nonprofits working on earned-income ventures

Ashoka, an advocate for social entrepreneurs around the world

"When the Church Gets Down to Business," an article by Daniel Pryfogle on faith-based social enterprise

Social Edge, an online program of the Skoll Foundation

Stanford Social Innovation Review, a journal on strategies and tools for nonprofits and socially responsible businesses