Introduction
Australian Progress has prepared this 40-point summary of Pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling book The Purpose Driven Church to assist our partners, fellows and friends working towards environmental and social change.
The resource is based on Rick Warren’s experience of growing his church, Saddleback, from scratch to 20,000 members attending every week. Saddleback is now the eighth biggest church in the United States.
Ultimately, we recommend you read the book itself – but here is a summary of the key lessons that the Australian Progress team have identified as transferrable from building churches to building sustainable non-profit organisations and mass support for progressive campaigns.
This summary paper was originally prepared by Nick Moraitis in 2010 and has been since informed the community organising and organisational approaches of hundreds of organisations in Australia and worldwide.
Contents
About Australian Progress 3
Purpose Driven Campaigning 4
1 Levels of Commitment from Community to Core 5
- The Circles of Commitment 6
- Listen to the community and earn their trust 6
- Growing from the outside in – and avoiding a single focus on the core 6
- Design programs for each group in the Circle of Commitment 7
- Go slow 7
- Growing your crowd 7
- Develop a seeker-sensitive service 7
- Turning attendees into members 7
2 Being Purpose-Driven 9
- The importance of purpose 10
- Share strategy 10
- Focus 10
- Restate purpose at least monthly 10
- Ways to communicate vision and purpose 11
- Be purpose/mission driven. Don’t be driven by 11
- Considering whether you are really achieving your mission 12
- Apply purpose principles throughout the organisation 12
3 Organisational Culture and Management 13
- Evaluate 14
- Ask for commitment 14
- Conviction 14
- Be open to change 14
- Show leadership 15
- It’s about mobilising for action, not just meeting 15
- Your community/crowd has everything you need 15
- Grow without poaching 15
- Offer value and quality 15
- Be contemporary without compromising 15
- Skill and mistakes 15
- No silver bullets 15
- Learn from others 15
- Focus on people and process, not institutional program growth 15
- Streamline your structure 16
4 Communication and Recruitment 17
- Messaging 18
- Advertising is necessary in the first year – then you can rely more on viral growth 18
- Identifying your target 18
- Know who you can best reach 19
- Recruitment strategy 19
Summary Excerpts
Here a few sneak peeks into the guide.
About Australian Progress
Australian Progress revitalises civil society movements – enabling them to win social and environmental progress, while strengthening our democracy. Together with hundreds of partners, we ensure the community interest shapes our nation’s priorities. We train leaders, drive collaboration, reframe debates, and accelerate new social change organisations. We’re led by a small team of staff and governed by a diverse board of Australia’s pre-eminent social leaders. More information at AustralianProgress.org.au
Download Resource
Download the Purpose Driven Campaigning summary paper
Explore Further
- See more resources from Australian Progress
- Circles of Commitment: A Model of Engagement
- Download the Circles of Commitment Worksheet from Australian Progress and use it to map your organisation’s circles.
- Organising: Start Here
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