Servant Leader

The Society has survived, and even in some cases remarkably thrived, during the pandemic period. Yet we have not been immune to the several major trends that affect our ability to grow or even maintain our membership.

It is worse than we thought.

Let’s look briefly at what we already know, the reasons why we are in this predicament. First, we primarily draw Society members from the Catholic Church, and the Church has suffered over decades now from eroding family memberships and departures from our faith. Add in a series of abuse scandals and other pre-pandemic issues, and we can clearly see that our universe of potential Catholic members has been shrinking.

Across the country, one Diocese at a time, we see massive parish consolidations. The Church has neither the dollars nor the number of clergy available to afford so many parishes, especially with declining enrollments and subsequent reductions in Sunday collections and other revenues. Society Conferences in these closed or consolidated parishes have merged when possible, but others have closed after struggling to stay viable with an aging Vincentian membership.

Then add to this a pandemic that closed down our very ability to go to Mass, to see each other and to serve. Local Society Conferences often lost their home base because the parish properties were closed. While we adapted mightily to these conditions to serve, it was certainly harmful to our membership efforts when we physically could not be together for many months. Fellowship was the first casualty.

Our just-completed annual national reporting from every Council and Conference shows a continued membership erosion, even considering some growth in associate members and in some ethnic minority volunteer numbers. I believe that these numbers still assume and perhaps inflate our actual membership numbers. It is easy to simply use the numbers from last year rather than take a new census of everyone to see if they are still active. We instead assume this participation. This is dangerous!

I asked our National Council Members at the Midyear meeting to consider a membership census, checking individually with each member to make sure they are still active and available to serve even if we need to help them adapt to changing parish and Conference membership. Now that the annual reporting is complete, let’s renew this effort to be in touch with every single one of our active and associate members. Businesspeople tell us that your best future customer is the one you already have, and it is easier and less expensive to maintain a customer than to grow a new one.  While our members are far more than customers, the adage still works.

Let’s assure that every Vincentian is accounted for and has the ability to continue to grow in holiness with us. This may mean Conference mergers. Alternatively it might mean new Conferences, designed for language/ethnic groups or for younger cohorts. Every Vincentian deserves a home with us to be closer with the Lord.

I won’t pretend to have all the answers about what to do about parish closures and mergers, Conference transitions and other community dynamics that negatively impact our membership. We all need to work together on this and share effective strategies. Let’s first agree, however, on a few principles to guide our work. One, every Vincentian is of value and deserves our communication, respect and best efforts to keep them active. Second, while we can’t control parish futures we will be nimble in adapting and designing Conferences to give everyone a Vincentian home. Some Conferences may serve multiple parish communities, while some parishes may now host multiple Conferences! Third, we will not assume Vincentian membership and services, but actively work to keep everyone we have and increase our efforts to find new members.

The people we serve continue to be with us, and their numbers are not shrinking! With today’s economic challenges, short and long term we may have more demands on our time and financial resources.

The Church is still with us as well, even though it is at times battered and bruised. Our Bishops and priests still appreciate our work as an “outsource solution” to serve the neighborhood poor amid dwindling clergy and parish resources to do so. The Church also deeply appreciates our work to help anyone, especially Catholics, to grow in holiness.

Most importantly, Christ is still with us. We know this because we see His face every time we serve.

Hang in there, dust ourselves off after so many challenges, and let’s get to work to re-establish our membership and our faith in action. Too many depend on us to do anything less.

Dave Barringer
CEO

Sir Paul McCartney is touring again this year. In a few days he will turn 80 years old, but he still takes on  the grind of travel to different cities and several hours of concert performing almost nightly.

I saw him in the late 1980s, when he played RFK Stadium in DC for two consecutive July days. (I attended both shows, but please don’t tell either woman who went with me once!)  He was already nearly 20 years from his last Beatles album and about 15 years from his “Wings at the Speed of Sound” album and tour. We all thought it was pretty cool, if not historic, to see him live and in person.

Over the years I have kept Sir Paul rolling in money, having bought the same albums first on vinyl, and then again on 8-track (kids, ask your parents), cassette, CD, and now streaming services. Heck, vinyl is cool again, so I could buy another box set at many times the price of the first album!

The songs sound better than ever thanks to digital technology and re-mastering. It’s just not the same, though, as seeing a live concert, with all its potential for between-song artist comments, little glitches, cranked up amplifiers, impromptu guitar riffs and of course, the environment of thousands of fans standing and screaming. There is something special about just being in the same room, even if that room holds 50,000 others.

Imagine if Christ had not appeared in person to the Apostles after His crucifixion, but instead sent a messenger, or since all is in His power sent some sort of recorded message. Impressive? Definitely! But nowhere near as powerful as His appearing in a locked room – after His own death.

After their shock subsided a bit, we know that the Apostles listened, and then remembered Christ’s words and image for the rest of their lives. They spread His message and their personal encounter around the known world.

As Vincentians we have almost the same opportunity. How often do we say that we see the Face of Christ during a Home Visit? And that we hope that those we serve see the Face of Christ likewise in us in our humble service? We certainly are not the Lord, but we bring his messages of hope and love with us when we enter the home of a neighbor in need.

Over the pandemic period, we needed to innovate to maintain our service to people in need. Often, during the suspension of person to person contact this meant a greater use of the telephone and Zoom or other computer-driven tools to make a connection and to provide for emergency needs. Yet it was never planned to use these tools permanently.

Yes, a phone call is more efficient than driving to and from someone’s house, and a phone interaction is more likely to be brief compared to a personal visit. Yet brevity and efficiency has never been our mission or even our intention. No, as Vincentians we are more focused on caring, friendship and prayer, none of which are driven by a clock or even a calendar. Relationships take and deserve both our hearts and our time, whether it be hours, days, or months.

We concert-goers vividly remember the time and place of seeing our favorite musical artists. The in-person experience leaves such a lasting impression. Likewise, our friends in need will often long remember our Vincentian presence as the Face of Christ during our Home Visit. They will remember the help we gave them and most of all, our compassionate spirit and hopeful attitude.

As McCartney once co-wrote, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” Let’s avoid whenever possible anything less than our physical presence in the homes of our friends in their time of material and spiritual needs. Be a Vincentian rock star!

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

It is difficult for us to process the recurring news about mass shootings whether we try to do so as Americans, Catholics, or as family members. As Vincentians, however, perhaps we can add constructively to the conversation and to the question of “What can we do?”

This column won’t address the Second Amendment or gun control issues. Rather, as Vincentians we focus our prayers and services on people. What do we know, and what can we do?

We know that poor health (physical, and especially mental), leads to unhealthy situations including marriage challenges, rage issues, workplace violence, and child abuse. Many of us act differently when we are in pain, even if from a simple headache. Chronic pain often leads to worse choices and outcomes. Some pain leads to depression, hopelessness, and “acting out” in many forms. In our work with families, we can see more readily than most how deficiencies of income, health, medicine, and general medical care intersect, often in potentially dangerous ways. We know that some of our friends in need must make a choice between buying food or medicine. And since food is often for one’s entire family, food wins. If the medicine is for a mental or psychological condition that may not even manifest in physical pain, it can be an easier if more dangerous choice.

Some of our Councils have started free and least-cost pharmacies to help. With such support, a person in need has more money available for other basic needs. Some folks can’t even afford a doctor visit co-pay, so anything we can do is helpful in daily-life terms. Other nonprofits have initiated a prescription program in concert with their returning citizens work, wherein someone gets diagnosed and prescribed a mail order medicine before prison release and it carries forward when they are home. Imagine the mental health issues alone that are avoided with this program for a vulnerable returning citizen!

We look at not only emergency needs but also systemic change solutions for our neighbors in need to mitigate or even exit their poverty situation. We may need a more strategic look at how mental health services, medicines assistance, and general healthcare intersect with other poverty challenges. Vincentians don’t need to be the medical providers, but we can help organize the dollars, transportation, and scheduling and/or arranging the visits needed. All of this will require collaboration with public health offices, healthcare providers, funders, pharmacies, and other important players. We are pretty good at this in other areas of our work, notably food pantries and utility payments. Consider this another stream of basic needs we can contribute toward for those we serve.

We won’t know if helping someone manage their money to afford both healthcare and proper nutrition will result in positive societal outcomes. What we already know is that any help we can provide against the root causes of poverty is good help, and that no act of charity is foreign to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Even in such pain and tragedy as the national news brings us all too often, God is trying to tell us something. Those we serve have more than financial needs. Our Home Visits provide social interactions which, even by themselves, support mental health by having trusted friends to talk to in difficult times. We have such a unique perspective of being with people and families in need where they live. While we are not trained to diagnose, we can observe and listen, and then make services connections and offers to help with healthcare costs.

In our Council and Conference meetings, let’s broaden our discussion about how to help our neighbors and explore how we might support, and even lead, community health access and supports. In discernment and prayer, let’s partner as needed to do more. If needed services already exist in our community, we can at least advertise and refer.

All of this may never save one single life from a senseless shooting. Yet how many more shall we learn about before we ask if there is something, anything, we can do as Vincentians to help prevent this?

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

One of my earliest leadership roles was in the fourth grade. I started a Legion of Super Heroes club among my classmates, based on a popular comic book at the time. Each of us took on the identity of one of the heroes – there were about 25 of them, thus a “legion” – and played that character’s role during the meetings we held at recess. I was, no laughing please, the Invisible Kid. In the comics the Kid was the elected leader, had a pretty cool uniform – with a headband! – and it could have been worse, like being Matter-Eater Lad whose superpower was, correct, to eat all kinds of matter.

As with many things at that age, the club lasted about three weeks. On the other hand, no super-villains ever attacked our school.

I learned at that point some valuable lessons. One, girls who were not that interested in boys anyway at that age, were even less interested in boys pretending games. Different members need their own motivation for joining and staying in a group. Second, and most important, was that you can have a cool name, interesting mission and, in this case, all the logos you could ever want, but you better have something tangible do at the meetings.

Here we are today with almost the same challenges. We might even argue that super villains really do exist, but that’s for another column.

We meet every two weeks or so with a group of heroes – we call them Vincentians. We don’t have a Legion, but we do have a Society, and it’s even global. The group has a cool name, a very interesting and important mission and, somewhat unfortunately, even multiple logos!

When we invite new heroes to join us and save the world, or at least make our neighborhood better by caring for those within it, what do these recruits see? Do they see bickering current members, more focus on the snacks that day than the mission, or discussions not resulting in action, the main heroic purpose? Do they leave without an assignment, a mentorship, or even a member handbook?

Heroes need purpose, or else they hang up their capes.

How blessed I was to learn this at age nine! Through the years, I had plenty of other formal and informal leadership roles, as have most of us. We lead in our families, jobs, military, clubs, sports teams and even in our group of friends. Leadership decisions might range from formal goal setting to figuring out where to go tonight to have some fun. We set budgets, we organize and motivate the group for some purpose, and we evaluate our work for the next time. We might even do this without thinking about leadership concepts or lessons to carry forward.

It amazes me when someone is elected as a Conference President and act as if they have never led a group! Or worse, they did lead but apparently didn’t learn much from the experience. They act as if leadership is something new at the age of 60, or 70 or older.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has it own rules (and Rule!) for its leaders, tested and confirmed over decades. Every leadership experience has its unique set of rules of the game. If we choose to see it as such, it’s what makes it fun! Every rule set allows for different innovations and approaches, even when the basic leadership skills are more or less the same.

Please consider the various leadership roles you have experienced. You were thrust into some by circumstances, others you were elected into, and some you no doubt took on because no one else was willing to lead. However you got there, remember that God put you there. Just as He does with all aspects of our lives, God gave us these past opportunities to prepare for future opportunities. As we reflect on each of these experiences, let’s ask what we learned, or should have learned, and how that might help us in our Society leadership roles today. Also, how did these experiences help us to be better followers of other Society leaders?

We all know the saying of “live and learn” and appreciate its truth. To “lead and learn” as we approach new Society leadership opportunities allows us some confidence. We have the experience, maybe just not here. God has provided it for us if we just review the life He has blessed us to live. Everything He has given us prepares us for the moment before us!

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

It surprises many people to learn that the function of advertising is not to create sales, but to build or drive traffic. Sure, that Buy One, Get One offer or sales price advertisement gets you into the store, but from there you still make a purchase decision on your user experience. In marketing terms, Promotion gets you in the door, but Place, Price, and Product close the sale.

I mention this because the same principles apply to recruiting volunteers, and in our case Vincentians. That pulpit talk or yard signs or parish bulletin announcements all have their place to get people into the recruiting space, usually a Conference meeting or a phone call from a member asking one to join. Personal invitations are often the magic key to a new member, however they come to you.

We suffer sometimes from great advertising but less than great first impressions and other follow-up with prospective members. How many times have a dozen parishioners come to an introductory meeting but are never seen again? Did we fail at genuinely welcoming them, giving them something meaningful to do, listening to their questions, or even simply describing who we are and what we can offer them in our Essential Elements of Spirituality, Service, and Friendship? Don’t shoot the messenger of advertising and promotion; instead improve our product introduction and its benefits!

Product in our case is the set of local Society activities including service to the poor, spiritual formation and the friendships we build through Society membership. Place is the distribution models we use to deliver our services in neighborhoods, provided once again post-pandemic face to face, which is so unique and allows us to see the Face of Christ. The Price is the commitment to meet and to pray regularly, and to serve others as one is able. Since we often hear that Vincentians receive so much more than we give, our “price” of membership is quite reasonable!

Most of this member marketing process is local. After all, that’s where we hold our Conference meetings and where we conduct our works.  Yet the larger Councils, including the National Council, have supportive roles to play. These larger groups can “advertise’ through media on a larger scale than your neighborhood, and build relationships with people and groups in large numbers. This is especially true when we seek out greater diversity in our members, whether it be through age, ethnicity, skill sets, or other distinguishing characteristics.

As this week’s e-Gazette is published, the National Council is promoting the Society at two national Catholic events. The first is Raices Y Alas, a convening built upon the strengths of the recent V Encuentro process for Hispanic Catholics. The second is the annual gathering of Young Catholic Professionals, designed for adults up to 40 years of age. Both groups are important as recruiting opportunities for the Society, and so we will sponsor, provide scholarships, have an exhibition booth, and most importantly, send current Society members to talk up our works and our sincere invitation to join with us.

But none of this activity or expense will recruit one single new member.

No, this week’s work is an investment on behalf of our local Councils and Conferences to start the ball rolling toward local recruitment – that selfsame Product, Price, and Place discussed above. These national events may result in some specific names of people interested in joining, which will be sent to the local Council where they reside. The greater benefit, we pray, is that the events add to the Society’s favorable exposure for participants to learn more about us over time and inquire about joining on their own terms and timetables.

Such marketing investment should not be limited to a few times a year, or only through national event participation. It needs to be consistent (in other words, our branding) and continuous, too, because people are ready to listen to our message on their schedule, not ours. The truth is that we all need to be recruiting at the national, Council and Conference levels all the time, creating a pipeline for new members. Again, however, all those sales leads end up at your local door where they can be turned into members – or just turned away.

There has never been a time in our Society’s history, locally or globally, when we had enough members. Even Conferences that have hundreds of members (yes, these do exist!) should welcome more members seeking their way to greater holiness! Too many members for our parish boundaries? Twinning isn’t just about money; share your membership wealth with more needy neighborhoods. Expand your programs – often our limitations aren’t about funds, they are about people capacity. The needs will always be greater than our membership.

It’s funny how memberships evolve. Every year, we all tend to get one year older! Therefore, we have a constant need to replenish our member ranks, even if those new members are in their retirement years. What are we doing – today – to market and build our ranks of faithful servants trying to get to Heaven?

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO