Key Two: Aim for Professional Excellence

God inspires and equips us to give people our absolute best.
To achieve professional excellence, you need to:

• Set and maintain the highest standards in your work
• Be prepared to undertake training and gain qualifications where necessary
• Be strategic in your planning and delivery (see Key 3)
• Ensure your team are thriving and fulfilling their capabilities (see Key 5) 

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.
Colossians 3:23-24

Learn more about the 10 Keys for impact

• Read the introduction to the 10 Keys booklet, by Matthew Frost
• Download a hard copy of 10 Keys for Impact as pdf

• Explore further resources relating to professional excellence

Our job as Christians is not to be led by the world, but to lead it. I love it when outside agencies come to us and are inspired by the way that we work. Our policies, procedures and building match or, in many cases, are better than the agencies that we work with. There is no credibility gap.

Mike Robins, Newquay Christian Centre

We have a responsibility to our clients to give them the best service we can provide. They come to us in need and look to us for our help; we can’t give them anything but God’s best. It’s also vital for fundraising that donors see you are well-organised so they can trust their money will be well-used.

Dan Lane, Christians Against Poverty

We’ve worked to bring in processes and web-tools to quantify and improve our performance. It can be hard work and tedious but it’s vital. I’ve also deliberately sought to join or create networks that share skills and expertise. Overall we are trying to learn, and capture learning so that we can build on it.

Richard Phillips, ACET Ireland

Working to a high standard of excellence can sometimes bring its own unexpected rewards. We once applied for a £25,000 grant and were given £34,000 instead as the trust were so impressed with our work.

Audrey Carmichael, Crossover

It’s easy to try and do too much when you see so many needs but it’s better to do something small really well than to try and make limited resources spread too thinly.

Phil Herbert, Healthy Living Projects

Make sure you have a defined, written vision and three-year plan so that everyone is clear about where you’re headed. Never forget that what can be achieved with Christ can far outstrip anything that the world can achieve; and to deliver things well honours him.

Catherine Marshall, Signal

The pursuit of professional excellence should be something that we all strive to attain. As an organisation, we’ve secured the Investors in People standard, PQASSO & Matrix. They improve our services and demonstrate that we have been validated by an external body so people can see we are committed to quality and excellence. We don’t chase such standards for their own sake – they need to be relevant and have strategic value to our work.

Stuart Ashmore, First Base Walsall

‘Turning the Key’ – Additional Tips:

• Spend time defining your vision and detailed plan (see Key 3)
• Quarterly management meetings give a chance for evaluation and feedback
• Think about people within your church who have professional expertise they could offer. They could be good people to have on your board of Trustees.
• Look at what other organisations are doing and learn from them
• Ensure you have a complaints procedure in place for service users
• Use PQASSO or other Quality Assurance tool

• Biblical Reflection relating to aiming for professional excellence
• Detailed discussion and action paper: Professional Excellence – Why? What? How?
• Important Questions: ’10 Quality Questions’
• Important Questions: ’10 Important Questions for your Trustees’

Helpful organisations 

• Use PQASSO. See www.ces-vol.org.uk for more details
• www.ncvo-vol.org.uk
• www.faithworks.info