BAM Helpers: Expanding Capacity for Business as Mission

by Jo Plummer

 

The BAM movement needs you! For business as mission to be fruitful, we need all kinds of people, fulfilling different roles in BAM, including:

1) Do-ers: Those getting involved by doing business as mission themselves, either by developing a BAM company or by joining one.

2) Helpers: Those enabling, resourcing, and connecting others doing BAM—through activities such as mentoring, investing, praying, network-building, incubating, training, mobilising, researching, and so on!

3) Explorers: Those new to BAM who are exploring the concept and finding out where they fit.

We’ve created thirteen different toolboxes under these three main headings of ‘Do-er‘, ‘Helper‘ and ‘Explorer‘—we call these different routes the BAM Pathways!

God has equipped each of us with different backgrounds, skills, and passions and He is leading each of us on unique paths. However, your unique path will almost certainly have things in common with others. Thus, each Toolbox gives advice and recommended resources for a particular area of BAM engagement. Whatever your involvement or interest area, you can easily navigate to some helpful materials and make connections with those on a similar journey.

Introducing the BAM Helpers Pathway

We have previously released the BAM Do-ers and BAM Explorers Pathways, and this month we are launching the BAM Helpers Pathway section.

BAM Helpers are those who help others do BAM in any capacity. BAM Helpers might serve one particular BAM company, they might support a particular network or interest-area, or they might serve the broader BAM community across the world.

We often refer to the Business as Mission movement as an ‘ecosystem’. BAM Helpers are those who help build and strengthen this ecosystem, allowing BAM practitioners and companies to thrive.

This includes obvious roles such as business incubators, investors, and mentors…

To perhaps less obvious ones, like church leaders, network builders, recruiters, educators, and communicators, that enable the pipeline of people getting involved in BAM to flow…

Or perhaps board members, pastors, counsellors, or mission leaders to provide care and accountability…

Or or prayer partners to help us all keep in step with the Holy Spirit…

What follows is not designed to be an exhaustive list of helping roles, there are many diverse opportunities to serve in the BAM ecosystem! Instead these Pathways are designed to give an introduction to ideas and resources under some main categories.

We’ve developed six toolboxes in the BAM Helpers Pathway, the first three are functions within the BAM community and the last three are the other constituencies—or spheres—that are vital partners (alongside the business sphere) when it comes to BAM.

3 Vital Functions

 

Intercessors

Intercessors are passionate about supporting the BAM movement through prayer and intercession. BAM intercessors lay a vital foundation in prayer for everything else that happens in business as mission globally. Visit the Intercessors Toolbox.

Networkers

Networkers are catalysts for growth and engagement in business as mission. They connect people and resources in a particular geographic region or for a particular industry or BAM-related issue. They are motivated to gather people, whether together online and in-person, so that resources and know-how can be shared and everyone can be better equipped. They are also advocates and mobilisers, helping new people get interested and engaged in business as mission. Visit the Networkers Toolbox.

Capacity Builders

Capacity builders are contributing their professional skills or mission experience to build a strong ecosystem around BAM companies and increase their capacity. Capacity builders may focus at different levels, for example:

• Providing support and services to an individual BAM practitioner or company, such as consulting, investing.
• Building an entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports multiple businesses in a particular group, region or industry, for example a country-focused business incubator, investment for companies in the 10/40 window, or training for the agribusiness sector, and so on.
• Contributing skills or services to the global BAM ecosystem as a whole, such as communications, prayer, etc..

And these often overlap, for instance, we pray both for individual BAM companies and the BAM movement every month in BAM Global prayer calls. A city-wide business incubator will nurture the whole business ecosystem, as well as provide services to individual companies.

Capacity building can have a strong overlap with network building, and vice versa. The Capacity Builders toolbox is coming soon!

3 Vital Partner Constituencies

Business is obviously at the heart of business as mission, and much of the focus of the helping roles outlined above is on supporting strong, fruitful companies. However, the business sphere cannot stand alone. For business as mission to be fruitful, we need the involvement of churches, mission agencies and NGOs, academic institutions, researchers, and others. That is why the final three Helpers toolboxes—to be launched later this month—will be focused on three key partner constituencies:

Church Leaders

Church leaders or staff who recognise BAM as an effective ministry strategy and are looking to resource and mobilise the business people in their congregations or denomination.

Academics

Academics looking to inspire and equip students for BAM, integrate BAM into their curriculum and/or connect research in their institution with real BAM practice. It also includes educators, scholars, and researchers operating outside formal institutions, or undertaking individual study.

Mission Leaders

Mission leaders and staff that see how BAM aligns with the strategic goals of their organisation and/or are responsible for overseeing BAM policies and companies.

 

Our hope is each of these constituencies will connect with those in the wider BAM ecosystem, as well as others from the same constituency who they can learn from.

Discover More about the BAM Pathways…

 

 

The following BAM Pathways are now available:

• Do-ers Pathway for BAM Entrepeneurs, BAM Workers, and Future BAMers
• Explorers Pathway for Newcomers, Students, Business Seekers, and Missionary Seekers
• Helpers Pathway for Intercessors and Networkers, with Capacity Builders, Church Leaders, Mission Leaders, and Academics – coming soon.

 

 

 

A couple of short sections of this article have been adapted from an older post.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash