Abstract

Mexico is a Third World country in the process of maturing on many fronts.  The July 2006 presidential election is testimony to painful, real, maturing of democracy in Mexico.  Only six years after Vicente Fox became the first president in 70 years to be elected from outside the PRI party, elections are now vigorously contested at all levels. In the economic realm, Mexico began opening itself to vigorously contested markets somewhat earlier, by reducing trade barriers and taking a leading role the creation of NAFTA.

Less visible is the development and maturing in Mexico of the private voluntary sector. Without fanfare, and often without much visibility, many secular and religious organizations have been meeting social needs in Mexico for generations. They have built and maintained schools, provided health care, encouraged artistic expression, and coordinated neighborhood improvements. 

Using illustrations that focus on several such organizations in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, this paper outlines the work being done by indigenous and other organizations that are creatively meeting social and economic needs.  Our particular emphasis is on the transitions such organizations must make in the face of changes around them. The changes are cultural, political, and economic.  They require organizational innovation and development, ranging from rethinking visions to training successors and building alternative models for financial sustainability. These generational transitions must be successfully worked through if organizations are to continue meeting needs.

I.    Introduction

            All new ventures that survive beyond their infancy face growing pains and challenges that come with success.  For example, CEOs and boards of directors of successful corporations must carefully identify and groom their successors.  Cavuto (2004, pp. 191-8) chronicles how careful forethought regarding Michael Walsh’s successor smoothed his exit as the CEO of Tenneco Corporation, even when that transition unfolded much sooner than anyone could anticipate.

            As companies grow, they must also consider whether to offer their stock publicly, or to remain privately held.  In choosing, the first-generation owners of firms face a tradeoff.  Going public brings new funds for investment, but reduces the level of control over decisions that has been enjoyed by the current owners.  In fact, many very large businesses opt to retain private ownership, rather than go public.  Haworth, Inc., an office furniture manufacturer in Holland, Michigan, provides a striking example of a very large, yet privately held, enterprise.  In 1994, the company reached the $1 billion mark, surpassing the $2 billion landmark in 2000. Haworth continues to grow, and today the family-owned private Haworth, Inc. operates in more than 120 countries and employs nearly 9,000 (Haworth history n.d.).

            Sole proprietors of initially successful home-based businesses face several related questions.  First, such firms are often begun on a part-time basis.  As a result, their founders must decide whether they are prepared to assume the risk of quitting their full-time jobs in order to pursue the new enterprise on a full-time basis.  Second, sole proprietors must weigh the costs and benefits of bringing others on board.  Of course, this decision also brings a tradeoff:  bringing in someone with complementary talent, while sacrificing control over the enterprise.  Also, when a small business gets going, its founders must decide whether to assume another form of risk by securing funds for investment.  Whether such funds come from a bank, or from venture capitalists, borrowing creates new risks at the same time that it enhances possibilities for the future.

            Sometimes, as they grow older, owners or CEOs hand over control of their companies to younger members of their families.  Such a strategy has a mixed track record.  Iacocca (1984) captures well the struggles of Ford Motor Company as management of the company moved from older to younger hands in the Ford family.  Cardone Industries provides an interesting contrast.  Cardone Industries, Inc. has been a leading global supplier of remanufactured automotive products for over 35 years, now offering 44 product lines under seven divisions (Cardone online home page n.d.).  Michael Cardone, Sr., industry pioneer, co-founded Cardone Industries with his son, Michael Cardone, Jr., in 1970. The company started with six people in a row house in North Philadelphia.  Today, the son, Michael Cardone, Jr., oversees the entire private concern (Cardone history n.d.).

            Just like their for-profit counterparts, blossoming NGOs face issues of transition.  For example, an NGO—with a local mission in its infancy—might contemplate whether to expand in order to serve a broader geographic region. 

Similarly, an NGO might consider alternative financing strategies.  In many first-world NGOs, monies are donated locally.  In contrast, many third-world NGOs initially rely upon external financing.  However, as an externally financed NGO grows, multiple alternative local financing strategies become possible.  In Hungary, Erzsébet Szekeres founded what has become a financially self-sustaining assisted living community for the disabled (Bornstein 2004, pp. 98-116).

Also, social entrepreneurs with good ideas for new NGOs must decide whom else to bring on board in such a venture.  Again, there is a tradeoff:  the visionary founder may need to relinquish a degree of control in order to bring in others with specific expertise essential for the NGOs long-term viability.  When Prison Fellowship wanted to broaden the range of services it provided, it recruited a person with the specific expertise required (Oster & Hamel 2003, p. 86).

By focusing on several such organizations in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, this paper describes work being done at grassroots levels by indigenous and other organizations that are creatively meeting social and economic needs.  We emphasize the challenges associated with the transitions such organizations must make to changes all around them: cultural, political, and economic.  They require organizational innovation and development, ranging from rethinking founders’ visions to training successors and building alternative models for financial sustainability.

These are “generational transitions” that must be successfully worked through if organizations are to continue meeting needs and expanding their capacity to do so.  Changing political/economic systems are opening up space for work that is uniquely suited to grassroots efforts by NGOs, instead of distant and distracted governments.  It is especially timely to consider changes in Mexico, where the needs are great, social networks are thick, and genuine opportunities for creative solutions to generational transitions are immense.  Herein lies a critical challenge to social entrepreneurship as it infiltrates, competes with, and shapes NGOs and all society in Mexico and other parts of the Third World.

II.   The Mexican NGO landscape.

Mexico is a Third World country in the process of maturing on many fronts.  The July 2006 presidential election is testimony to the painful, real, maturing of democracy in Mexico.  Only six years after President Vicente Fox became the first president in 70 years to be elected from outside the PRI party, elections are now vigorously contested at all levels.  It is no longer possible to pay voters to elect candidates hand picked by their predecessors.   In the economic realm, Mexico began opening itself to vigorously contested markets somewhat earlier, by unilaterally reducing trade barriers and then taking a leading role the creation of NAFTA—still the only free trade area with First and Third world membership.

Less visible is the development and maturing of the private voluntary sector in Mexico.  Because Mexico’s political model was one of domination by government, and a highly centralized one at that, the private voluntary sector was long thought to be virtually non-existent and unimportant—especially by twentieth-century Mexican intellectuals enamored of socialist ideology and governance systems.  Many of them have long insisted that the government alone is responsible for meeting all social and economic needs.

Of course, Mexicans living outside of the largest cities and/or outside the region surrounding Mexico City and the Federal District are quick to testify that when something needs to be done at the local level—including streets and schools—politically-dominated bureaucracies often prove wasteful and corrupt.  Making promises about dramatic social and economic change each election year, the officials elected concentrate on short-term programs, like building a hospital.  Too often, commitments of one administration are simply dropped mid-stream and replaced with those of the new administration.

Without fanfare, and often with little visibility, tens of thousands of secular and religious community organizations have been meeting social needs in Mexico for generations.  They have built and maintained schools (from primary through university levels), provided health care (in clinics, hospitals, and community outreach programs), encouraged artistic expression (from traditional crafts and public sculpture to internationally recognized artists), and coordinated neighborhood improvements (from roads and septic systems to performance centers).  For centuries, the Catholic Church did most such work.  Throughout the last century, similar work has been planted by foreign, Protestant missionaries and then transferred to the full control and support of Mexican national churches.  Still more recently, non-sectarian groups (like Habitat for Humanity) and secular organizations are being added to the scene.  One of the opportunities and challenges now faced is how to lay the groundwork for collaboration across religious divides (which has been acrimonious in much of Mexico), as well as among religious and community groups whose goals for improving the lives of ordinary people are potentially complementary.

III.  Defining the transitional issues for NGOs that are increasingly taking on the characteristics of “social entrepreneurship.”

            The organizations we have observed most closely in southern Mexico are several Pentecostal mission/ministries, as well as Habitat for Humanity Mexico.  Pentecostal ministries in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca have been expanding for about 17 years, having been planted by missionaries from Canada and the U.S, whose first aim was evangelization.  However, as with most Protestant missions throughout history, evangelization was accompanied immediately by efforts to meet practical needs by building schools and health clinics.  These ministries have grown dramatically over the years, with churches being planted in more than 50 indigenous towns throughout the poorest areas in the Oaxaca mountains, and the establishment of specialized schools (theology and music, for example).  Historically, virtually all the church leaders (pastors, elders, etc.) have been Mexican.  They are trained in formal and informal settings, despite initially low levels of education there; and many are indigenous.  Thousands of families and hundreds of communities touched by the new churches and ministries are demonstrably healthier: stronger families, less alcoholism, higher education levels for their children, and rising incomes based on increased productivity.  (Because there are still tensions between Catholics and Protestants in this part of Mexico, no doubt some such changes would be criticized by fellow Mexicans, claiming that any improvements have come at the expense of divisions within towns and families along sectarian lines).

In recent years, these blossoming missions have begun to face new challenges born of their very success.  For example, many of the indigenous pastors—though very successful caregivers—are not able to support themselves and their families financially, largely because they are serving very poor congregations in one of the poorest areas in all of Mexico.  Some have left for the U.S., braving the dangers of illegal border crossings, to seek employment in agriculture, industry, and construction.

Demonstrating considerable resourcefulness and creativity, Pentecostal ministries are responding by offering occupational training for their Bible school graduates—in trades like carpentry, auto mechanics, and fisheries.  Recently, they have also launched projects designed to train young adults in management and to assist them with small business start-ups.  The success of the students will benefit their immediate families and communities.  In addition, their training is focused on laying the foundation for business practices that maintain high standards for quality and moral values, thereby setting benchmarks for the next generation of businesses.

            The extension of ministry vision to include growing the capacity of families and communities to meet economic needs is a strong sign of the founders’ dedication to meeting real needs beyond those that might be labeled “spiritual.”  However, the founding missionaries now must reach far beyond their own expertise and training (which was primarily in evangelization).  Although they are very talented, intelligent, and driven, many have little more than a high school education themselves.  They see the need for bringing in reinforcements who possess education and skills that surpass their own (even in theology), in order to minister more effectively and sustainably.  This is a delicate psychological and organizational matter to negotiate, when members of their own congregations and outreach efforts now involve Mexican doctors and others with university educations. 

            Depending on the leadership styles at work, the shape of the challenges differs.  In one ministry, the founder still exercises strong personal control over all financial, ministerial, and other decisions, even though practical Bible and ministry training is provided to the church/ministry leaders.  The founder does not yet consider them to have the necessary vision and skills to be trusted with making key decisions. 

In another ministry, the pastor (himself without a high school degree) encourages “autonomous” ministries.  Members of his congregation undertake self-identified projects to meet needs ranging from rehabilitation of handicapped youth, to new housing and occupational training for single mothers who often resort to prostitution for lack of alternatives.  The group working on the latter project includes a physician, who is also involved in local politics, as well as a restaurant owner and her agronomist husband.  Their respective education, cultural roots, and local connections necessarily exceed those of their American pastor, no matter how talented he is.  The pastor has made a conscious decision to provide spiritual support and training for active outreach by members of his growing congregation, rejecting any temptation to control their vision, structure, and financing.

            It would be wrong to conclude that one ministry has been less fruitful than the other, as measured by improvements in the lives of many people.  However, it seems to us that the centrally controlled ministry is in the greatest danger of failing to meet the most basic generational challenge: to become self-sustaining beyond the working lifetime of the founding pastor.  This pastor’s need to control everything means that “his” church and its outreach leadership may never be given the opportunity to develop their own capacity for sustaining and growing their ministry.  If so, they will be unable to adapt to inevitable changes in the needs, culture, educational standards, and hopes of people they hope to serve.  

Even in the case of the less-controlling pastor, there are nevertheless some serious generational challenges to be met, related to Pentecostal theology and lifestyle requirements.  Nathan’s pastoral leadership is based on a model shared in many Evangelical Christian denominations (not just Pentecostal churches), urging new adherents to provide evidence of a marked conversion experience.  The usual criteria—never spelled out this baldly—include an emotional moment during which the new believer confesses his (or her) sin and need for God (and specifically the saving grace made possible by Jesus Christ), entrusts his (or her) life entirely to God’s loving care, and renounces previous habits associated with un-Christian lifestyles.  In this particular Christian tradition, things to be given up include alcohol, social dancing, sex outside of marriage, spousal abuse, spending lavishly on oneself, and skimpy clothing.  To many non-Pentecostal Christians, this list seems like a mixed bag of “don’ts”—varying from basic morality (like fidelity in marriage) and Biblical teaching, to “lifestyle” matters (like dancing) that are not regarded as essentials for Christian life in most branches of Christianity throughout history.

We believe that rising education levels of church families (and throughout Mexico in general), as well as Mexican majority cultural traditions that do not require abstinence from dancing and alcohol, for example, will produce frictions between converted adults and the next generation—their children—born into these churches.  There are two related issues here: education and theology.  First, there is a growing educational gap.  Some members of these congregations are much better educated than their pastors.  While they look to their pastors for moral guidance, they tend not to be so condemning of all persons who dance, drink, etc.  Their greater openness means they are better equipped to reach others in the wider community with the love and message of Christ.  However, in congregations where the pastor insists on tight control (even at the level of member families), the leadership and outreach skills of more educated and culturally sophisticated members are severely underused. 

When churches foster more independent outreach, they overcome the problem of underutilized gifts, skills, and connections (related to the educational gap).  However, the problem sometimes shifts to another point in time, when people they help start attending the church services.  At this point, a narrow set of lifestyle expectations by Pentecostals may interfere with the ability of the congregation to meet the newcomers’ spiritual needs.  This is least problematic for newcomers with little education, in dire straights, and fully aware of their besetting sins and need for God.  Their social profile most closely resembles that of pastors and members who admit to having earlier left dissolute lives in order to follow Christ.

 Theology is a key source of generational challenge faced by these churches.  Whereas most parents readily attest to their conversions from lives of spiritual and moral ruin (whether visible or primarily internal), their children will not be able to offer the same dramatic accounts.  Not having experienced a dramatic metamorphosis from old to new life, they may also be less inclined to see some of the lifestyle matters—particularly drinking and dancing—as distinctly un-Christian.  This is not a new generational challenge for Protestants.  Virtually the same issue—what constitutes evidence of true Christian faith in one’s children—affected 18th and 19th century Protestants in America, and led to the proliferation of many denominational splits. 

Finding ways to maintain the loyalty and commitment of youth and young adults born into their faith is not just a vital theological challenge.  It is also a sociological challenge with potentially dangerous spiritual consequences.  How can the faith of young people be affirmed and allowed to mature, rather than directed toward an abrupt conversion experience?  Very strict lifestyle expectations in some Pentecostal churches (ones that are not identical with those of morally serious Mexicans who are most comfortable in their own culture) lend themselves to some dangerous youthful rebellion.

At this point, the theological challenge also becomes a sociological/educational challenge to families and churches.  Rebellion by church youth may not stop with dancing, but lead to much more questionable moral behavior, including excessive use of alcohol and experimentation with other drugs.  After all, if dancing, going to a disco, and taking the first drink are regarded as sins, once a young adult has experimented with these, he or she does not have a strong foundation for discernment that would offer some protection against the temptation to engage in more destructive behaviors.  Their parents’ and pastors’ worst fears may then be fulfilled, because lifestyle choices have been presented to everyone in terms of only two categories: Christian (all that is now required) vs. unchristian (all that is now considered sin).  Such a categorical worldview is not open to careful personal, family, and communal reflection about lifestyles within these Christian churches.  Careful reflection could not only enhance family stability, but also remove some of the barriers Pentecostals face when their efforts to serve the larger community are refused, due to lifestyle expectations regarded by the majority to be un-Mexican.

These theological/sociological challenges for churches may seem far removed from those involving financial sustainability and other generational issues facing social entrepreneurs in Mexico and elsewhere.  However, they are not immaterial.  The capacity for sustained outreach by any organization depends on finding ways to instill a set of values and commitments in the next generation of members.  It also requires creative, principled adaptation to strains from within and without.  Bridging the educational and theological challenges within and among Christian groups is essential.  Only by confronting the sources of distress and distrust within and among groups, will Christians be able to effectively serve God by seeking the good of their communities.

IV.  A successful model for generational challenges. 

We now turn to another organization facing some generational challenges of its own, but whose leadership practices suggest a model for sectarian Christian missions and ministries to consider:  Habitat for Humanity Mexico.  Many of our readers are familiar with the work of Habitat for Humanity, whose mission is to help poor people provide decent, affordable housing for themselves.  Fuller (1995) chronicles the story of Habitat.  Started by a Christian, as an offshoot of a multi-racial Christian community (itself planted in rural Georgia during the 1940s), Habitat now has affiliates in many countries.  Unlike America, where much voluntary labor is involved, needy families in Mexico work as groups to build their own houses.  They are financed with non-interest loans, paid over 10 years.  Until this year, Mexico received much of its funding from overseas donations.  However, Habitat International now expects Habitat for Humanity Mexico to raise all its own funds.  Mortgage repayment eventually becomes a chief sustaining source of funds.  In the meantime, Mexican individuals and firms must now raise funds in Mexico in order to meet the enormous present needs for decent housing.

Habitat for Humanity Mexico shares one characteristic with other ministries mentioned above:  its Christian foundation and explicit teaching of Christian values within each new group of families organized to build their homes.  Habitat differs, however, in striking ways that are relevant to its greater potential to meet certain generational challenges.  Judging by criticisms made by Catholics of Protestants and vice versa in Puerto Escondido, one might think it impossible for families from these two branches of Christianity to work together.  However, the local volunteer leaders of Habitat in each town and neighborhood where they have built (or are building) houses always teach members to respect the “religion” (they do not use the word “denomination”) of all families.  Every meeting—small or large—begins with a reading from the Bible, followed with free responses by all members present, and then a prayer.  Usually they read the passage from at least two different versions, so that nobody feels that the specific version used by his church is less respected than that of another.  The passages often serve as apt reminders that the “people of God,” in all times and places, are called to love and serve each other, to raise their families with Godly values and faith in His provision, to hold each other accountable for the sake of the community, to ask and receive forgiveness, and to reach out to people who are even needier. 

The effectiveness of Habitat’s approach is evident in hundreds of houses along the Oaxaca coast that have been built, brick by brick, with the hands of old and young, schooled and unschooled, women and men from different ethnic groups and religions over only about eight years.  Even so, their work is never done.  Members remind each other at each meeting that, “We are not building houses, but building families.”  When the construction of one house is finished, the celebration includes commitments to help the next family complete their house, and to organize the next community for Habitat.  New families drawn into the circle one year often become Habitat leaders in the following years.  Kids show up for work.  The elderly help prepare meals for the workers.  A group heads out on less than a week’s notice to rebuild a house that is in danger of collapsing over the heads of an extremely poor family taking shelter there—this, even though the family could never afford a Habitat house.  Catholics and Protestants sweat together, eat, talk about their children’s needs, and pray together.  It is impossible for them to treat each other with the suspicion that their churches often foster. 

Many American Protestant churches struggle with differences within their own congregations about how best to serve the local (and broader) community.  Should members exercise their Christian duty through explicitly Christian outreach, for example, in the form of a youth center with Bible studies provided, along with sports and tutoring?  Some members strongly believe that caring for the community should, instead, be done primarily without explicit Christian teaching.  Many such people prefer to work with secular organizations, like Boys and Girls Club, because they aim to serve without any reference to religion.  There are reasons for supporting a variety of approaches.  On the one hand, where practical help is needed—food, clothing, and a house—why should religion enter the picture?  On the other hand, because people often require additional spiritual resources, as well as financial ones, in order to thrive and meet their longer-term personal and social needs, outreach that combines practical help with training for all of life is important. 

Most Pentecostal churches in Puerto Escondido first focused on evangelization, offering health and education services explicitly tied to the “message” of Christ’s love.  Now, 15-20 years later (a generation), they are reaching a level of organizational, cultural, and faith maturity where collaborating across religious divides, for the sake of the community, may become feasible.  We believe that Habitat for Humanity Mexico serves as the best local example of what is possible and desirable in Puerto Escondido.  They have shown, first, that bigger community needs—like housing—require collaboration beyond a single congregation.  Second, they have demonstrated that meaningful collaboration is possible across denominational differences, by marshalling common spiritual, as well as material and social, resources—namely, with their strong emphasis on Biblical foundations for dynamic, dedicated, long-term family and community development.

This is a generational challenge for churches and other Christian-based ministries in Puerto Escondido, not just because 20 years have elapsed since many of them were founded.  It is a generational challenge because younger members are being provided with spiritual and leadership training to assume responsibility within their congregations and beyond, through their professions, the political process, and more.  This is a key developmental stage, where younger leaders may be able to transcend sectarian barriers, precisely because they exercise larger public responsibilities beyond the congregation.  Their options for leadership and service now range beyond “church-only” ministries, to include groups based on Christian foundations (like Habitat for Humanity, and even Alcoholics Anonymous), and also secular groups that welcome the values and commitment that Christians often bring to their work (e.g., rehabilitation for disabled youth, and care for vulnerable natural resources).

We are aware of recent efforts that reflect some capacity for collaboration, based on community needs and Christian desire to serve.  For example, leaders of the informal ministry to single mothers (by members of one Pentecostal congregation) are discussing possible collaboration with Habitat, precisely because Habitat has experience helping families work together to build affordable housing, including single mothers.  They are also considering a Habitat “model,” in which they would receive American college interns to provide semi-professional help, as they build institutional capacity to meet needs of poor families and their communities.

V.   Conclusion.

            Starting a new NGO from scratch brings challenges.  Blossoming NGOs that have safely passed through their birthing also face challenges.  After all, success brings problems, too, but usually much nicer ones than those encountered in the start-up phase. 

            We have used this paper to chronicle the transitional issues that Mexican NGOs face in the state of Oaxaca.  These issues are not unique to Mexico, but rather are universal enough that one may encounter them in any nation where visionary social entrepreneurs have founded new, often faith-based, NGOs. 

            Much like blooming for-profit entities face trade-offs related to the growth and transition of their enterprises, NGOs must be bold enough to adapt to changes and challenges—even if that adaptation requires the NGOs founder(s) to relinquish some or all of the control of the venture.  No business can endure without adroit adjustment to new challenges; neither can an NGO, no matter how good its intentions.

References:

Bornstein, D 2004, How to change the world:  social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Cardone history n.d.  Retrieved August 29, 2006, from http://www.cardone.com/English/Club/corporate/ history.asp

Cardone online home page n.d.  Retrieved August 29, 2006, from http://www.cardone.com/english/club/

Cavuto, N  2004, More than money:  true stories of people who learned life’s ultimate lesson, ReganBooks, New York.

Fuller, M 1995, A simple, decent place to live: the building realization of Habitat for Humanity, Word, Dallas.

Haworth history n.d.  Retrieved August 29, 2006, from http://www.haworth.com/Brix?pageID=152

Iacocca, LA 1984, Iacocca : an autobiography, Bantam Books, Toronto and New York.

Oster, MJ & Hamel, M 2003, Giving back:  using your influence to create social change, NavPress, Colorado Springs.

firstly published in III. International NGO's Conference organised by the COMU (Canakkale Onsekiz March University, Canakkale), Biga Faculty, December 9-10 2006 , Turkey.

Review of International Law and Politics
Publishes articles and reviews in Turkish, English and German languages