Assignment 3

Resource Management:

Assignment 3 Week 3

Reading:  Do personal research to answer the questions below.

Networking within the community social services organizations and within the inner city political arena, is an integral part of building an urban ministry.  Familiarity with your organization is an important marketing tool bridging the gap between those of high esteem and wealth and those of low estate and poverty.  Receiving goods and correctly distributing those goods skillfully works for the good of all concerned.  When working in inner-city ministry, much of your time will be devoted to gathering and distributing materials to those to whom you minister.  It can be very time consuming to locate, retrieve, stock, prepare and distribute the materials you need to do the ministry at hand. Networking is vitally important in this venture as many other organizations need the same things to operate their organizations as you do.  One factor in ensuring your success is to bless other organizations with any overages that you have producing a common good within the community.  Then this principle works in reverse as other organizations will begin to donate to you overages that they have which you may need because they have been the recipients of your good will.  Local grocery stores and dent and bent stores are many times looking for groups to donate various items, however you will need to expend the manpower to gather and store the items for later use. 

Restaurants and dinner theaters can be an excellent resource for pre-made food for a feeding program but the majority of the time you will need to provide volunteers to pick up the food, containers to store the food and a ready means to serve the food quickly to restrict spoilage and to ensure that you are not being a health risk to your clients.  Spoilage is a major concern as much of what you are receiving is one step away from being unusable.  You will need ample dumpster space to dispose of the unusable items to especially make room for new sources of food coming in. 

Many refrigerators, freezers and shelving units need to be in place to store and dispense the materials that you will be gathering.  Facility size may have to be factored in to what you can and can not receive.  This type of distribution ministry will likely require many volunteers and recruiting, scheduling and working with many different personalities types which can have its rewards as well as challenges.  This type of ministry is a lot like operating a restaurant and there are many challenges to face daily in preparation for distribution of goods and services to the poor.

1.  How would you position yourself to receive items from a donating organization so that they donate to you instead of another benevolent organization?  How would you represent yourself? 

2.  What strategy would you use to deal with a local agency that is going to all the grocery stores in town ahead of you to secure all the food sources in town?

3.  What criteria would you require for your volunteers to possess to work within your ministry?  Would you recruit anyone?  Why or why not?

4.  What are other outreaches that can grow out from a homeless mission or Christian men’s rehab program?

5.  What avenues and processes will you pursue to ensure incoming finances and resources and management of those resources once secured?