TheLeader VOLUME XXV ISSUE2 Spring2024 - Flipbook - Page 37
G R A N T S
A T
W O R K
Department of Stewardship, Outreach & Evangelism Funded
$149,500 for Leadership 100 Orthodox Ministry Services (OMS)
Parish Plan for Excellence
In reporting to Fr. Jim Kordaris, Director of the
Department of Stewardship, Outreach & Evangelism, Bill
Marianes and Alex Cooley, project directors, contended
that Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan parishes suffer
operationally, economically, and in other areas with
declining support, volunteerism, and engagement. “Until
now, parishes have had no empirically validated Orthodox
tools and processes to assess and diagnose (a) their health
and effectiveness, (b) their most significant challenges, (c)
the root causes of these challenges, (d) how to benchmark
priorities and parish performance, or (e) how to implement
actions to address their most critical identified issues.”
After 20 years of working with hundreds of parishes
throughout the United States, the Orthodox Ministry
Services (OMS) team created its proprietary Effective
Parish Assessment (EPA) and Parish Plan for Excellence to
help Orthodox parishes and ministries assess their
performance in 6 Pillars and 30 Building Blocks which the
data has validated are essential components of the
healthiest and most effective parishes.
To be effective and healthy, a parish must optimize to
excellence 1. Vision & Planning, 2. Leadership & Teams, 3.
Stewardship & Generosity, 4. Ministries, 5. Parishioner
Engagement, and 6. Operational Effectiveness. These 6
Pillars are supported by 30 detailed Building Block
subcategories that must also be optimized to excellence.
Through a statistically validated, comprehensive, and easyto-implement online Effective Parish Assessment survey
tool, all parishioners can now provide critical input to
parish leadership on the operational health, effectiveness,
and challenges that need the greatest attention.
Under this L100 grant, OMS’s EPA tool and its Parish Plan
for Excellence process were intended to help 18 Pilot
Parishes with a detailed assessment and customized Parish
Improvement Plan (PIP). L100 decided to convert the
original OMS 1-year plan into a 2- year project.
Nevertheless, at the end of the first year, OMS had already
exceeded the entire project by completing an EPA with 19
parishes. OMS has since progressed even further and has
delivered the EPA and PIP to most of the parishes it
committed to serve.
As of September 2023, the EPA delivery results were as
follows:
GOA Parishes agreed to participate = 33
GOA Parishes that have completed the EPA survey = 28
GOA Parishes currently running the EPA survey = 2
Remaining committed GOA parishes with scheduled times
to participate = 3
The whole process OMS made available to parishes
included the following 8 steps:
1. Parish Solicitation
OMS created a series of presentation materials and two
podcasts explaining every element of parish health and how
the EPA provides a validated assessment. These were made
available at www.effectiveparish.org. OMS then spoke with
the leadership at every parish willing to participate,
presenting the entire EPA and PIP process, answering all
questions, and scheduling their participation.
2. Parish Implementation
OMS delivered explanatory marketing materials for
parishes to promote parishioner EPA participation. OMS
created and opened the online survey tool to all
parishioners. Throughout the three-week solicitation
timeline, OMS stayed in regular contact with the parish
administrator to answer questions and ensure maximum
participation and a statistically significant sample size of
respondents.
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