Vision for the Future
A plan entitled InterVarsity 2012 was endorsed by the InterVarsity Board of Trustees, meeting in mid-October at Cedar Campus. “This five-year Strategic Plan represents a new chapter in InterVarsity’s history,” said president Alec Hill. “We want to honor the Lord by focusing our energies on the most important things.”
The roots of this Strategic Plan come from the five National Initiatives developed in 2002. But the Plan contains a broader range of goals and more developed methodology.
“It has not been our history to rally around common themes and head out in the same direction,” Alec said. “To have the senior leadership agree on a common plan on where we are going to go in the next five years is profound.”
Jim Lundgren, InterVarsity’s vice president and director of campus ministry, called the plan a watershed moment for the ministry. “It focuses our national leadership on some critical areas that have been identified by campus leaders.”
The Plan contains five strategic initiatives:
1. Reach More Students, Faculty, and Campuses
• Goal: reach 42,000 students and faculty a year by 2012 by planting 100 new chapters and building 100 current chapters.
2. Increase Evangelism on Campus
• In reliance on the Holy Spirit, see the number of students and faculty who make conversion decisions increase: 1 of 12 undergraduate students; 1 of 25 graduate students; and, 1 of 500 faculty.
3. Develop the Next Generation of Field Leaders
• Improve training for Area Directors and all field staff; provide specialized training for select staff; and mentor the next generation of senior leaders.
4. Become a More Vibrant Multiethnic Fellowship
• Increase the cross-cultural savvy of all staff; improve our organizational health; and, raise up promising ethnic minority leaders.
5. Increase Field Staff Funding
• Implement a portfolio of strategies to empower leadership and staff to increase the income of field staff.
The plan also contains development plans for Advancement, Operations, InterVarsity Press, Urbana 2009, and Camps.
The plan comes, in part, from a recognition that InterVarsity has plateaued over the past decade. The number of students and faculty being reached by the Gospel and the number of chapters has not changed significantly.
“This is going to stretch us as a movement to pray more and to seek empowerment from the Lord,” Jim said. “We’re not going to get there because we’re bright and working hard. I think we are bright and I think we are going to work hard, but that’s not going to do it.”
“This certainly stretches us,” Alec added. “We’re starting to see that when we do cooperate and move together in the same direction, it creates a synergy and momentum of its own.”
Alec Hill and Jim Lundgren talk about two of the key elements to the first initiative, the chapter planting and chapter growth campaigns, in a recent InterVarsity podcast. To listen go to InterVarsity’s audio resources page.