Tag Archive for: Capacity Builder Short Reads

BAM Helpers: Expanding Capacity for Business as Mission

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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…

 

Click to Open PDF & Download

 

The following BAM Pathways are now available:

 

Jo Plummer is the Creative Director & Co-Founder of BAM Global and the co-editor of the Lausanne Occasional Paper on Business as Mission. She has been developing resources for BAM since 2001 and currently serves as Editor of the Business as Mission website and The BAM Review Blog. 

 

 

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

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

 

 

God is at Work: How the BAM Movement Has Grown Over 25 Years

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by Mats Tunehag


By God’s grace we have seen an exponential growth of the global business as mission movement in the last 25 years. A movement, per definition, consists of many organizations and initiatives, which are independent but choose to be interdependent. They share mission and values, and they communicate and collaborate.

The nature of a movement means that no-one but God has the exact figures of the growth, but BAM Global has been tracking the direction of growth over the years. The trends are clear, and even the approximate numbers are astonishing.

Please allow us to paint a picture of this encouraging growth—looking at ten variables—and how they have changed in the last 25 years:

1. 25 years ago, we talked about BAM businesses in the dozens, often micro to small size businesses. Today there are thousands, mainly in the SME sector, but also large companies.

2. 25 years ago, churches and denominations had not embraced BAM. Today there are all kinds of churches and whole denominations like in Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, USA, Russia, and many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which are engaged in BAM.

3. 25 years ago, a handful of mission organizations had started to include BAM in their strategies. Today most of the oldest and major Evangelical mission agencies in the world are involved in BAM.

4. 25 years ago, BAM was not a topic in academic institutions. Today many universities and MBA programs teach BAM, and there are dozens of PhD’s and a lot more Master theses on BAM from all over the world.

5. 25 years ago, we talked about investments in BAM companies in thousands of dollars, today in millions of dollars.

6. 25 years ago, there were no BAM incubators or accelerators, but today they exist in about 20 countries.

7. 25 years ago, there were no BAM networks. Today there are 30+ BAM networks—national, regional and international. Most are related to a country or a region, and others are focusing on an issue, industry or constituency.

8. 25 years ago, the conversations about BAM were in English. Today there is BAM material, conversations and work in over 20 languages.

9. 25 years ago, BAM was not a part of the Lausanne Movement, but it was introduced 2002, which was the start of the first global think tank on business as mission culminating at the Lausanne Forum in Thailand in 2004 and the Lausanne Occasional Paper on BAM. Since then, around 40 global consultations on business as mission topics have been convened, resulting in over 30 white papers on BAM. At the Fourth Lausanne Congress in Korea, September 2024, where 5000 people from about 200 countries participated, around half the attendees had indicated on the registration form that they were interested in faith at work, including business as mission.

10. 25 years ago, we approximate that there were about a dozen BAM resources. Today there are almost 1000 BAM Resource Library entries and Blogs here on the BAM Resource Centre at businessasmission.com alone—articles, papers, videos, books, organizations, and more.

God is good, and he is at work. There is a significant kairos moment in our generation, manifesting itself on all continents. We are in anticipation for what He will continue to do in the next generation.

AMDG—Ad Maoirem Dei Gloriam—for the greater glory of God!

 

Mats Tunehag is the Chairman of BAM Global, and he is a global thought leader on Business as Mission, BAM. Since the 1990’s he has created numerous networks of leaders from business, church, missions and academia from all continents. He has served as an advisor to groups involved in business, investment, freedom businesses, research and partnership development. He is the chief architect of the ‘Business as Mission Manifesto’ and the ‘Wealth Creation Manifesto’, which is a conceptual framework for the global BAM movement. See: matstunehag.com/about/ for more about Mats.

Together, Towards, Tomorrow
Building from Generation to Generation

That’s the theme of the BAM Global Summit this year. Join us and discover what God is doing through business as mission.

 

Discover More About the Summit & Register

 


 

Photo by Imagine Buddy on Unsplash

 

 

The World is Open for Business and the Bible is Too!

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by Jo Plummer

 

Business is a powerful response to mandates that God gives His people in the Bible.

God calls His people to join His ‘missio dei’—His mission to the world—to respond to the pressing spiritual, physical, economic and social needs of people and communities. We can do that effectively through business.

When we intentionally respond to God’s missional mandates through business, this is ‘business as mission’! We emphasise that business as mission (BAM) is a response to three particular biblical mandates:

The Culture Mandate – the power of business to ‘tend the garden’ and ‘steward creation’ (Genesis 1 and 2)

The Great Commandment – the power of business to ‘love God’ and ‘love our neighbour’ (Matthew 22)

The Great Commission – the power of business to ‘make disciples’ and ‘proclaim the gospel in all the world’ (Mark 16, Matthew 28, Luke 24, Acts 1:8)

These are the foundational mandates for BAM, although there are many other commands and precepts we can apply in the context of business. For example, we are called to be justice-bringers, light-bearers, peacemakers, honest-dealers, servant leaders, enemy-lovers, mercy-showers—and many more. All of these can be lived out in the context of business, as Jesus-followers in the marketplace.

However, the three mandates above give us a clear framework to build BAM on solid biblical foundations.

Tending the Garden: The Cultural Mandate

In the creation story in Genesis, God gives humans the task to steward the world’s resources and care for creation. We often call this the cultural mandate or creation mandate. Business is a powerful way to ‘tend the garden’ in this way because it takes natural resources, along with creativity and work, and combines them to multiply resources and drive innovation. Business is a God-ordained institution, with a God-given role in society, that stretches right back to Genesis. By God’s design, business should bring dignity to people and flourishing to communities.

Deuteronomy 8 confirms that it is God who gives us the ability to produce wealth. God told his people that the manna would stop as they entered the promised land because he had provided abundant natural resources. God can provide supernaturally for us in extraordinary circumstances, but the God-given way His provision comes in most ordinary circumstances is through work and business. So in Deuteronomy 8, God told His people to take those abundant resources and start agricultural and mining businesses (v 8-9). We see that business, done well—and not forgetting the Lord our God (v 11)—is glorifying to Him.

If the natural role of business in God’s design for humankind is to create livelihoods, multiply wealth and resources, drive creativity and innovation, and sustainably provide for families, communities and nations, then we can already clearly see the potential of business for God’s kingdom work on earth. Businesswomen and men may then intentionally harness this power of business and focus it to sustainably address some of the world’s most pressing problems: lack of gospel access, environmental crises, joblessness, poverty, slavery, sanitation problems, food security, and so on. When we intentionally weave in such missional responses into our company strategy, we are doing business as mission. We are leveraging the innate power of business to respond to two further interwoven mandates: the great commandment and the great commission.

Loving Our Neighbour: The Great Commandment

Jesus said, love God and love your neighbour. Dallas Willard once said that ‘Business is a primary moving force of the love of God in human history.’

Bringing those two ideas together, business has an innate God-given power to do good in the world. As we have seen, business creates dignified work, multiplies resources, provides for families and communities, and pushes forward innovation and development. It can be a moving force of God’s love by creating decent livelihoods and economic stability, enabling peace, provision, and generosity.

Aid and relief for the poor is necessary in times of crisis and disaster—and for the likes of the ‘widow and orphan’ who cannot provide for themselves. But, like the people in Deuteronomy 8, the usual way families provide for themselves is not through aid, but, through trade, through business and a thriving economy. Business shows the love of God by creating meaningful ways to work in the world.

For-profit enterprises are the primary way that good jobs are created. On the other hand, a lack of jobs leaves families vulnerable to extreme poverty, corruption, human trafficking, and exploitation of all kinds. Business is a powerful way to love God and love our neighbours because in many parts of the world, what our ‘neighbour’ needs most is a good job.

Proclaiming the Gospel: The Great Commission

In every village, town and city in the world, businesses are at the heart of the community; that is true in Kenya, Canada and Azerbaijan, Brazil, Cambodia and Iraq! Business people have an influential role in a community, meeting real needs, and building a strong network of relationships.

People spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else. Deep relationships can be formed and biblical principles modelled in the crucible of daily business life, creating a company culture that reflects Jesus as well as opportunities to share His Good News. Business is a powerful way to make disciples, and to share the gospel in word and deed in the context of everyday life—to the ends of the earth.

Many of the places that the gospel has still to reach are hostile to traditional missionaries and difficult to access, yet business people are welcome nearly everywhere. The world is open for business!

In Conclusion

God has mandated His people to be good stewards of creation, to create resources for the good of society, to love God first and then love our neighbour, and to take the gospel to all nations. Thus, a business as mission company includes spiritual transformation as a measure of business success, alongside social, environmental and economic concerns—and has a special concern for the poor, marginalised and unreached peoples.

The definition of business as mission is:

  • Profitable and sustainable businesses;
  • Intentional about Kingdom of God purpose and impact on people and nations;
  • Focused on holistic transformation and the multiple bottom lines of economic, social, environmental and spiritual outcomes;
  • Concerned about the world’s poorest and least evangelised peoples.

Let’s keep our Bibles open and keep our eyes open for opportunities to solve pressing global issues through business as mission, in response to God’s mandates and for His glory!

For more reading on ‘the three mandates’ read this post by Mats Tunehag.

 

This month we are looking at business as mission through the lens of the Bible and God’s mandates to us. All posts this month.

Parts of this post were adapted from the paper ‘Business as Mission and the Global Workplace’ read it in full here. Mats Tunehag also contributed to this post through our many conversations and the ideas he has shared in past articles and talks.

 

 Jo Plummer is the Creative Director & Co-Founder of BAM Global and the co-editor of the Lausanne Occasional Paper on Business as Mission. She directs BAM Global initiatives such as BAM Global Events, BAM Global Think Tank consultations, and the BGlobal Community. Jo has been developing resources for BAM since 2001 and serves as Editor of the Business as Mission website and The BAM Review Blog. 

 

 

Photo by Rachel Strong on Unsplash

Creating the Map: Exploring Categories in the BAM Ecosystem

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by Jon B, with Jo Plummer

 

In Part 1 of this two part series, we introduced the new BAM Ecosystem map developed in partnership by The Stone Table and BAM Global, with input from other partners in the business as mission community.

In our first post, we outlined our motivation and hopes for this new tool. In this second post, we will briefly share our approach to adding entities to the map and then discuss in turn each of the five main categories, including notable sources, resources and observations.

Mapping the Ecosystem

The business as mission community is broad and diverse, with a wide range of entities associated with it from across the world. Some are solely focused on BAM and would label themselves as such. Whereas, others do not primarily identify with a “BAM label” but are like-minded in terms of goals and/or may have an association with BAM activities.

The BAM Ecosystem Map recognises that BAM overlaps, in terms of vision and activities, with several other movements that have their own growing ecosystems. For this reason, we have not put hard boundaries around what constitutes “BAM” when it comes to inclusion on the Map; we have not limited ourselves to those who self-identify as BAM entities or who operate only within our definition of business as mission.

Instead, we have asked ourselves whether an entity has resources and activities that would be of interest to current and would-be BAM practitioners. We have also looked at the degree of alignment in terms of vision, i.e. a shared goal to multiply business solutions to the world’s pressing global issues in response to God’s missional call on His people. And we have looked at historic and relational connections between the entity and those active in practicing or resourcing BAM.

An exception to this approach is in the Networking, Events and Prayer category, where we have included only networking and convening entities that are more specifically focused on BAM, plus a few significant like-minded networks. This is because we could not include the vast number of “marketplace ministry” networks around the world that share our theology of work foundations but do not have an overt BAM application. There are other directories for such organizations for different countries of the world and our intention is that the BAM Ecosystem Map will stay more focused on helping people discover specifically BAM-centred networks, events and prayer initiatives.

Read more

The Business as Mission Ecosystem Map: A New Interactive Tool

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by Jon B, with Jo Plummer

 

Business as mission is a growing movement around the world. It is not our movement but the move of God through His people.

In 2004, the first global consultation on business as mission took place under the auspices of the Lausanne Forum. Around ninety people took part altogether and we estimate that at the time there were around 10 BAM-related books and approximately 20 articles, plus a couple dozen entities in early stages of developing BAM networking or resourcing. Twenty years later, there are almost 1000 resources and blogs here in the latest version of the BAM Resource Centre website. In September 2024, at the fourth Lausanne Congress, 2,400 people (nearly half of the total attendees) reported that they were interested in a workplace track.

Today our opportunities in business as mission include: a growing awareness and acceptance of BAM as a strategy in the global Church, a greater breadth and depth of expertise in the business as mission ecosystem with more specialisation and functionality, and growing communication and collaboration between respective parts.

Yet, there is still a dissonance between the God-given potential of business for His kingdom purposes and the way that many Christians perceive business as inherently evil or corrupt. Businesses and business people remain a relatively untapped resource for intentional mission impact.

Our barriers remain: ongoing scepticism, outstanding resource siloes, lack of resources in critical regions and languages, and lack of easy access to existing resources.

If we are going to leverage the opportunities before us and overcome these barriers to BAM growth, we cannot waste an ounce of energy in pride or division. Christ has called us all as a global body, and He has commissioned us to redeem culture, to free the captives, to bless the nations, and to see the good news of the gospel proclaimed to the ends of the earth (see for example, Colossians 1:19-20, Luke 4:18-19, Genesis 12:2-3, Matthew 28:19-20).

Howard Hendricks once described church ministry as a football game with, “Twenty-two men in need of rest and forty thousand people in the stands in need of exercise.”

We need everyone in the game. We need a diverse range of expertise and experience in the BAM ecosystem and better ways for people to collaborate with one another. There is work to be done to mobilise new people, companies and entities—and to enable them to make their vital contribution and connections. That’s the “why” at the heart of the new BAM Ecosystem Map.

Introducing the BAM Ecosystem Map

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new interactive tool for the business as mission community, the BAM Ecosystem Map. Click the image to explore: Read more

What is Business as Mission? A Short Introduction

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by Jo Plummer

Business as mission, simply put, is the seamless integration of excellent business with intentional mission. It is doing business for God’s glory, the gospel, and the common good.

Business is a God-given vocation and institution in society, with the potential to bring multiple benefits to people, communities and nations. Business as mission intentionally leverages this intrinsic power of business to address spiritual needs, hand in hand with social, economic and environmental needs. Business as mission is strategic today because it is often best placed to meet a wide range of needs in communities around the world.

Let’s start with business

Dallas Willard once said, “Business is a primary moving force of the love of God in human history.” Business, done well, is glorifying to God. Period. We see in the Bible and throughout history that business is able to create dignified jobs,  multiply resources, provide for families and communities, push forward innovation, and, in short, do good in society. A company does not need a business as mission strategy to justify its purpose or to somehow make it more ‘holy’. Business professionals following Jesus in the marketplace already have a sacred vocation. Business is a good idea that comes from God.

Yet, God has called us, His Church, to partner with him in the work of mission. To love our neighbour as ourselves, to care for the poor and vulnerable, and to share the gospel and make disciples in every part of the world. And business people, along with their skills and experiences, are some of the most needed in the work of global mission today. Alongside more traditional forms of mission, the world is crying out for for-profit, business solutions to some of its most pressing issues. These issues include job scarcity, human trafficking, economic exploitation, corruption, environmental degradation, dire poverty, and the challenge of sharing the love of God and His good news with those who haven’t yet heard it.

Business as Mission

In the global marketplace today, we have an opportunity to harness the God-given power of business to address these pressing spiritual, social, environmental, and economic issues. Business as mission is a movement of business professionals, mission leaders, church leaders and academics who are doing just that. They are taking the instrument of business, with its innate, God-given ability and power, and intentionally using that power in the work of mission. They are using their professional know-how and the gifts of entrepreneurship and good management to bring creative and long-term, sustainable solutions to local and global challenges. They are making a positive impact through for-profit business, along the ‘four bottom lines’: social, environmental, financial and spiritual. We sometimes refer to these as the 4Ps: people, planet, profit, and eternal purpose.

Defining BAM

There is no one universally agreed definition of business as mission, but there are some key common denominators in the global BAM movement. And while there is growing consensus around the concept, many other terms are also used for the same, or similar, idea. Many prefer terms such as: missional entrepreneurship, transformational business, missional business or business for transformation (B4T), among others. Business as mission, or ‘BAM’, is just one widely used term in the English language, other terms have developed in other languages.

This is the working definition of business as mission used by BAM Global:

Business as Mission is:

  • Profitable and sustainable businesses;
  • Intentional about Kingdom of God purpose and impact on people and nations;
  • Focused on holistic transformation and the multiple bottom lines of economic, social, environmental and spiritual outcomes;
  • Concerned about the world’s poorest and least evangelized peoples.

Intentional and Integrated

Business as mission is not a new idea! Business and mission have been combined in different ways, at different times throughout Church history. However, the contemporary business as mission movement represents a growing intentionality in the global Church to fully integrate business goals with the call to the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. It is an answer to the prayer, ‘May Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’, as people and communities are positively transformed through for-profit business activities. BAM is the intentional integration of business and mission.

The idea of integration is important. This is not ‘ministry’ tacked onto business for convenience or business tacked onto ministry. Instead the mission is worked out in and through the business, through its activities, through the products and services and through relationships built in daily business life—with employees, customers, suppliers, officials, business networks, and the wider community.

As already stated, business is designed by God to provide livelihoods, multiply resources, and enable communities to flourish through a combination of creativity, hard work and risk. A profitable and sustainable business is able to create new jobs, drive innovation, provide needed goods and services, and help societies develop. Through business as mission we can intentionally tackle poverty, bring positive social and environmental change, and carry with us the message of eternal life.

Business as mission is a concept that can and should be applied everywhere, but the business as mission movement has a special concern for people and places where there are dire economic, social, environmental and spiritual needs – Mats Tunehag

We invite you to be inspired and equipped by the stories and resources that we’ve created and curated on this Business as Mission Resource website.

Download this article as a PDF.

Watch the 3 Minute What is BAM? Explainer Video

The first version of What is BAM? was published on The BAM Review in 2015, this version was updated in 2024.

Want to find out more about BAM?

Join us at the BAM Global Connect on the 13th November

 

 

More About Event

 

 Jo Plummer is the Creative Director & Co-Founder of BAM Global and the co-editor of the Lausanne Occasional Paper on Business as Mission. She has been developing resources for BAM since 2001 and currently serves as Editor of the Business as Mission website and The BAM Review Blog. 

 

 

 

 

Photo by M. Cooper on Unsplash

 

 

 

It Takes an Ecosystem to ‘Raise a BAM Company’!

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There are many different ways to get involved in business as mission and the BAM movement needs many types of people, skills, experiences and passions. If you are interested in engaging with BAM, there is a path and role for you! Last month, we started with the topic of getting involved in doing BAM yourself. This month, we are exploring ways to support and resource others to do BAM – in other words, how to help build the business as mission ecosystem!

Business as mission companies and practitioners need many different kinds of support and resources to thrive. To discover the many different and necessary roles in the BAM ecosystem, read Part 1 of this series.

To wrap the series up, we thought it would be fun and interesting to look at this issue from the other side; from the point of view of the BAM practitioner. We asked the owners of two BAM companies about the supportive ecosystem around them.

A well-known saying in English is that “It takes a village to raise a child.” I think we could also say, “It takes a vibrant support network and ecosystem to raise a BAM company!” Would you agree with that?… And if so, how have you seen that play out in your own company experience?
Ryan and Lee, BAM Real Estate Development Company in Southeast Asia

Yes, absolutely. We wouldn’t be where we are today without an incredible network of advisors.  For us, it started with informal advisors from our personal network and over the years it has become much more formalized and strategic. I like to think about our network of advisors in concentric circles with those in the inner circle reserved for a few people who care for and understand everything about you. The highest level of trust and vulnerability happens at the inner circle level. Many people refer to this as a personal board. The next circle is our advisory board which in our case functions more like a governance Board for our BAM ventures. They are concerned about us, but also very much concerned about the mission and vision of the venture and ensuring it’s sustainability and purpose.  The next level of advisors we engage with are subject matter experts, who can be consultants and/or coaches. We normally engage with SMEs for specific challenges or time periods.

As we grow, we have had to learn how to adapt our use of advisors along the way. We are slow to bring a new person onto our Board, so we typically engage them first as an SME. An SME may engage with us for weeks/months, a board member engages for years, and the inner circle is  more of a lifetime commitment.  The relational aspect increases as it goes closer to the center, but in all situations we like to clarify expectations in writing that explains what we are asking of the advisor and how we will review our working relationship overtime. In the past, we didn’t have anything in writing and it was awkward to ask someone to step aside from a role, when in reality we needed someone else with a different set of experiences and giftings for a new phase of growth.  Read more

There’s a Role for You in the BAM Ecosystem! Four People Share [Video]

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Listen to four people share firsthand how they are contributing their unique gifts and experiences to build the BAM ecosystem.

 


 
The BAM ecosystem is bigger than you think! As well as BAM practitioners – those who actually run the business as mission companies – there are countless others supporting those practitioners and companies.

From mobilisers, to investors… from intercessors, to mentors… from communicators, to business incubators… from recruiters, to trainers… and many more. As well as businesses and business services, the BAM movement also includes academics, mission leaders, church leaders and others.

There is a role for you!
 

>> Read Part 1 of this series for ways to get involved!

 

Discover more on Launching and Landing for BAM and Incubation and Ecosystem.

More great BAM resources at our online Business as Mission Resource Library and The BAM Review Blog.

Are we missing any resources that should be listed? Contact us to share them.

 

 

In What Areas is Greater Collaboration Most Critical?

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The business as mission community is contributing to a wider ‘listening process’ in the global evangelical mission community as part of our connection the Lausanne Movement. Lausanne also asked us:

In what areas is greater collaboration most critical in order to see the fulfillment of the Great Commission?

We received input from 25 global leaders on this question especially as it relates to business as mission. Four themes emerged as follows, illuminated by some direct quotes from leaders:

1. Collaboration between clergy and laity; between the business sphere and the church, mission agencies, and theological institutions.

2. Collaboration and openness by Evangelicals with other church traditions; overcoming barriers to hearing and learning from other perspectives, both political and theological.

3. Collaboration between geographical regions; working against nationalism and communicating and partnering with cultural humility.

4. Collaboration between organisations, and especially different parts of the BAM ecosystem; reducing redundancy, resource wastage and destructive competition.

 

1. Collaboration between clergy and laity; between the business sphere and the church, mission agencies, and theological institutions

I commend the Wealth Creation Manifesto as a foundation for cooperation between the BAM movement and mission organisations. There is great suspicion of business among mission organisations, much of it based on observation of the unethical (Babylonian) way in which so much business occurs.
RSH

The institutional church needs to recognize that itself alone would never be enough to see the fulfilment of the Great Commission. We need missional leaders from all walks of life: the marketplace, the media, the government, etc. to share the vision together and to collaborate.
FKT

There needs to be a much greater collaboration between the business as mission movement and the institutional church. Most pastors do not understand the God of Business, and many perpetuate the dichotomy between “sacred” and “secular.” Many BAM ministries find the church difficult to move in and through, so this work is done in NGOs outside of the church. But once a denomination does commit to this idea, so many pastors are happy to receive this news, because it is a win-win-win-win. It is a win for the business owner, the business itself, the church, and the community. This is powerful.  There is no downside.
RRT  Read more

Helping Entrepreneurs Thrive: The Power of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

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If you have been in the entrepreneurial world for very long, you have likely heard the words “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems” pop up more and more in the last few years. And for good reason! Ecosystem theory has begun to change the way we think about entrepreneurship in general with the Kauffman Foundation, CoStarters, InBia, and others leading the way in the US. Ecosystem thinking is also transforming the way we do BAM, in that the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems is understood more and more as a powerful way to foster local business ownership, impact economic development, and expand the influence of the Kingdom in the marketplace of local communities around the world.

So, what is an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem?

Generally an ecosystem is an interconnected, interdependent network of elements, living and nonliving, that make up a supportive environment for a particular type of creature or entity. The word “ecosystem” is a biological term, originally used to describe the environment of a type of animal (or group of animals) that enables it to thrive. So a prairie could be an ecosystem for foxes because it provides other foxes, prey like mice, food for the prey like seeds, water, predators that inspire defensive behaviors, a favorable temperature, sunlight, a place to live, etc..

Outside of biology, the word ecosystem has been very fluid in its meaning. It can apply to a lot of different kinds of networks, such as networks of similar organizations, political environments, or ministry connections. Even the term “entrepreneurial ecosystems” is sometimes used to describe global networks across particular industries, networks of BAM practitioners, or networks of entrepreneurs in a local context.

For our purposes, and the purposes of this discussion, we will use the term “entrepreneurial ecosystem” to refer to the local networks of entrepreneurs, business leaders, local investors, and mentors in a single community or local area. For most entrepreneurs, most of the emotional support, resources, and customers come from such a local environment. It is the elements in that local environment that, when interconnected and supportive of entrepreneurs, allow entrepreneurs to thrive. Elements of that ecosystem can include resources like knowledge capital, other entrepreneurs, established businesses, places to operate like co-working spaces, markets, and even cultural attitudes.

“Building” an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

So if entrepreneurial ecosystems are our focus, we may rightly ask how one “builds” an ecosystem? In reality, ecosystems are never really created. Every community has some kind of environment or “ecosystem” for entrepreneurs, just not always one that is conducive for thriving. Debilitating competition from big business, resistance from banks and other lenders to lend, lack of knowledge resources on how to start a business, and a culture against risk-taking or profit-making can all conspire to make entrepreneurship difficult. As a result, a potential entrepreneur, even if he/she had a great idea, may never attempt to start a business, not because they lack ideas, but because they don’t know how, don’t know how to find resources, and (perhaps worst of all) feel all alone. When conditions fail to support entrepreneurs in an area, great ideas die untried, and solvable problems remain unsolved.  Read more