There are many ways to utilize unused spaces to support your church and outreach. When your building is empty for over 90% of the week, you can repurpose it with meaning and impact. Our team at Ministry Solutions Group has seen everything from childcare programs to pickleball courts. Coffee shops to co-work spaces.
One thing we’ve learned is that you don’t want to activate your spaces alone. You want strong partners in place who can help you see your blind spots, plan ahead, adapt as you go, and ultimately find success.
If you’re planning on activating your underused spaces, always consider whether partnering with a local or outside organization can be part of that process.
It’s tempting to do things on your own. You’re a church with thousands of people — maybe even tens of thousands. Surely you can find the talent in your own building to guide something like a childcare program or coffee shop initiative, right?
Here’s the thing. Even if you have the talent, DIY-ing these projects is risky. You’re dependent on an internal team, often offering inconsistent volunteer support and outdated or incomplete knowledge. When you partner with an outside organization, it’s much easier to set contractual obligations and clear expectations about how you want things to go.
Partnerships also provide a critical outsider perspective. Attending a town hall meeting or working with a local official can give you critical insights into felt needs in your area. A contractor or vendor will understand aspects of your local region that you might be missing as a non-profit organization.
Building relationships and rapport with individuals and organizations outside of your ministry can help you identify blind spots. You can take on each project with a clear strategy in place. This leads to intelligent debt decisions and effective ministry impact.
Here are three things our team has found are essential as you forge partnerships outside of your church.
Just because you’re a faith-based organization working with a group in a secular industry doesn’t mean your values have to clash or even be back-burnered. There are often little signs of organic alignment that can point you toward the right partner for your ministry.
For instance, when Ministry Solutions Group helped Discovery Church set up a childcare program in Colorado Springs, we encouraged them to work with a partner who could understand regulations, safety standards, and effective education programs. On top of that, we helped them find a childcare program provider that aligned with their church’s mission and values. This created an added sense of purpose, meaning, and mission that reinforced the relationships from the beginning.
As you consider partners, make sure you go into each relationship with clear expectations in place. Even if they are operating an important, independent program or business within your building, they are not completely autonomous to do as they please Monday through Friday.
Our Director of Childcare Services and Project Administrator, Brittany DeRoche, explained it best when she pointed out that a partner is coming into your space — not the other way around. Third-party partners and operators are often used to a built-to-suit look and feel. In this case, they’re sharing a space, and they’re a guest in your house. A partner should understand and be willing to abide by that from Day 1.
Use a partnership to think bigger than what’s normally possible. Leverage their industry expertise to inform and expand your building activation initiatives. The Local Good Cafe at Chase Oaks Church in Plano, Texas, is a great example of this.
Technically, the cafe is run by an independent offshoot of the ministry. However, it has used its coffee shop status to forge a variety of connections with partners in the local community. The cafe is connected to:
Rather than stop at local coffee, the cafe has become a hot spot with a smorgasbord of food and drink items — all of which represent key building activation partnerships. The result? Nearly 70,000 unique credit card swipes since our last check-in with them.
Partnerships are an important part of building activation success, which is one area where our team can help. We are another strategic partner that can support you through the strategy and execution phases of a building activation initiative. Ministry Solutions Group also has the network, knowledge, and experience to help you forge key connections with other partners in your area.
Whether it’s finding a roaster for a coffee shop, vetting reputable childcare operators, or anything else, we can help you chart a safe, financially responsible, high-impact path forward for your ministry’s underused spaces. Reach out for a Free Analysis. We’ll set up a 30-minute consultation, and together, we can help you start building connections that can align your ministry’s untapped resources with your mission.