Funding from a For-Profit Organization: Catalyst for Columbus
Catalyst Project, Columbus Ohio
The Catalyst Project started in 2013 when a group of marketplace professionals came together to pray weekly about how to advance and adorn the gospel in the city.
They began building relationships with different churches across denominations and culture believing that the leadership of the local church was essential. They studied what was happening in other cities by attending Movement Day and talking with Kevin Palau which led to a series of strategic and operational planning sessions engaging more than two dozen church fellowships.
From these experiences, Catalyst for Columbus (CFC) was formed with a mission to celebrate and accelerate a unified Gospel movement in Central Ohio through three strategic priorities: pray, seek, and serve.
Focus Areas: Pray. Seek. Serve.
Pray: Encourage unified city-focused prayer
- Pray for Columbus monthly prayer guide and daily calendar
- Pray 40 For Columbus annual devotional
- One Night Worship – annual all-city worship gathering
- One Night Prayer – annual all-city concert of prayer
Seek: Promote vocational discipleship and gospel enterprise
- Columbus Faith and Work Learning Community
- Gospel Enterprise Discovery Project
- Columbus Discipleship Network
Serve: Celebrate, connect and serve Gospel-centered micro-networks
- Special events and smaller gatherings to strengthen Gospel community across a diverse network of church fellowships
- Facilitate strategic planning opportunities and support efforts to accelerate city gospel movement priorities like church-planting
- Support multi-church efforts to serve the community like For Columbus Kids, a prayer partnership to help every school have a dedicated church partner.
Catalyst Project Funding Model
Krista Sisterhen, one of the leaders of CFC described their funding model as such: “Catalyst is a gospel enterprise of a real estate development company and receives a significant portion of its operating expenses through disbursements from the company. Catalyst is also able to receive charitable contributions to support its mission as an initiative of the Sagamore Institute which is a tax-exempt organization.”
The Key to Our Success
Sisterhen commented: “We have three distinctive core values based upon Acts 2:14-47 that guide our mission – we are gospel-centered, church-driven and intentionally multicultural. We are interested in building bridges and strengthening relationships for the flourishing peace of our city. We are not interested in promoting our organization. We’ve been deliberate about being in the back of the room, not the front. Our focus is serving the local church. We’ve been successful about maintaining a low profile and I think this is one of the main reasons why we are experiencing so much favor here.”
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