S7 Give Generously · Lesson 3 of 4

Lesson 3 — Partnering Well: Vetting, Agreements and Accountability

Vet missions and outreach partner organizations responsibly and formalize each partnership with a written agreement and an accountability calendar.

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Seven Principles curriculum version 1.0 — author-review draft pending Leland Rubin's approval prior to publication. · Leland's Seven Stewardship Principles methodology, content, exercises and deliverables are created by Leland Rubin and remain in author-review draft pending his approval.

Where this lesson sits

Curriculum version 1.0 · Author Review

Module purpose: Build a current picture of community and mission-field need, set an intentional missions and outreach budget with a stated rationale, vet and formalize partner organizations with written agreements, and report outward impact honestly, including shortfalls.

Official outcome: Missions and Community Outreach Giving Plan

This lesson produces: Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker

Anything you type is kept in this browser session only. This prototype does not save to a server.

Learn

Participant study reading — approximately 90 minutes of learning and shared work.

Learning objective: Vet missions and outreach partner organizations responsibly and formalize each partnership with a written agreement and an accountability calendar.

Recommended participants: Pastor, missions or outreach team lead, treasurer, and one board member

Estimated teaching time: 90 minutes

Success indicators

• Every currently funded partner has documented vetting covering mission fit, financial health and reporting capacity
• Every currently funded partner has a signed written agreement describing use of funds and reporting expectations
• An accountability calendar exists with a check-in date for every partner within the next twelve months
• Leadership can describe, for at least one partner, a specific decision point where continued funding depends on documented performance

Materials and evidence you will use

• Missions and Outreach Budget Worksheet from Lesson 2
• Partner organizations' publicly available financial statements or annual reports, where available
• Any prior partnership agreements or memoranda of understanding already in place
• Documented vetting across all four categories for every current partner
• A signed or in-progress agreement status recorded for every committed partner

What you should be able to produce

• Every currently funded partner has documented vetting covering mission fit, financial health and reporting capacity
• Every currently funded partner has a signed written agreement describing use of funds and reporting expectations
• An accountability calendar exists with a check-in date for every partner within the next twelve months
• Leadership can describe, for at least one partner, a specific decision point where continued funding depends on documented performance

Foundational ministry principle

1 Corinthians 4:2

2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.

King James Version (KJV) · Public domain

This short, direct passage is proposed for the lesson opening because it states plainly what is required of a steward: faithfulness, which applies both to the church's own handling of funds and to the partners it entrusts those funds to.

As a draft framing, the facilitator might suggest that sending money to a partner without vetting or accountability is not generous trust, it is an abdication of the very faithfulness this verse requires of the church as steward, pending Leland Rubin's review of this specific application.

Understand the concept

Your work in this lesson focuses on this outcome: Vet missions and outreach partner organizations responsibly and formalize each partnership with a written agreement and an accountability calendar.

Vetting, written agreements and a standing accountability calendar turn missions and outreach funding from trust based on relationship alone into trust that is verified, documented and sustained.

Why it matters for your church

Funding a partner without documented vetting exposes the church's own giving to reputational and stewardship risk if the partner's actual practices do not match its public presentation.

Long-standing partnerships without written agreements are especially vulnerable to leadership-transition confusion on both sides about what was originally promised.

A church with no accountability calendar tends to renew every partnership by default rather than by decision, regardless of actual performance.

Examine the evidence

Use Missions and Outreach Budget Worksheet from Lesson 2, Partner organizations' publicly available financial statements or annual reports, where available, and Any prior partnership agreements or memoranda of understanding already in place to compare your church's present practice with its stated intentions. Look for documented patterns, missing information, and differences between what people assume and what the evidence supports.

Your completed work should be supported by Documented vetting across all four categories for every current partner, and A signed or in-progress agreement status recorded for every committed partner. Record uncertainty honestly so your team knows what still needs to be verified.

Prepare for the shared exercise

Document vetting status, agreement status and accountability check-in dates for every current and prospective missions and outreach partner. The Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker produces the Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker, which contributes to the principle's principal deliverable.

Before working with your team, consider this reflection: Which of our current missions or outreach partners have we trusted the longest, and could I currently produce, in writing, what we actually agreed to fund and expect from them?

Key terms

Mission fit: The degree to which a potential or current partner organization's actual work matches a specific, named priority from the church's own community and mission-field profile.
Memorandum of understanding: A written, signed agreement between the church and a partner describing the amount and purpose of funds, reporting expectations, named contacts and conditions for continuing or ending the relationship.
General operating support versus designated support: General operating support trusts the partner's own judgment on fund allocation; designated support restricts funds to a specific named project and requires reporting on that project specifically.

What this means for a church

• Funding a partner without documented vetting exposes the church's own giving to reputational and stewardship risk if the partner's actual practices do not match its public presentation
• Long-standing partnerships without written agreements are especially vulnerable to leadership-transition confusion on both sides about what was originally promised
• A church with no accountability calendar tends to renew every partnership by default rather than by decision, regardless of actual performance

Common failure patterns

• Relying on a compelling presentation or personal relationship as the sole basis for ongoing funding decisions
• Never asking a trusted, long-standing partner for updated financial documentation out of a misplaced sense that doing so would be rude
• Signing agreements but never actually holding the scheduled check-ins that would make those agreements meaningful

Ministry case

A Decade-Long Partnership Without a Piece of Paper

Fictional Grace Fellowship, a congregation of about 260 people used here only as an illustrative synthetic example, had funded the same overseas orphan-care partner for eleven years based entirely on a personal relationship between the founding missionary and a former pastor, with no written agreement ever signed and no financial statement ever formally requested.

When this exercise prompted the fictional team to request the partner's most recent financial report, the partner responded immediately and transparently, providing a clear breakdown that matched the church's expectations closely. Rather than revealing any problem, the process strengthened the relationship: both sides signed a simple one-page memorandum of understanding for the first time, and the partner later told the church they wished more of their supporting churches asked the same questions.

Lesson takeaway

Vetting, written agreements and a standing accountability calendar turn missions and outreach funding from trust based on relationship alone into trust that is verified, documented and sustained.

Discuss

Guided discussion for the leadership table.

With every partner now vetted, agreed with in writing, and placed on an accountability calendar, let's turn next to how the church measures what these partnerships actually accomplished and reports that honestly to the congregation.

Which of our current partners has the thinnest documentation, and why has that gone unnoticed until now?
How will we introduce this new vetting and agreement process to a long-standing partner without straining the relationship?
What would have to happen at a check-in for us to seriously consider pausing or ending a partnership?
Who will actually make sure our accountability calendar check-ins happen on schedule rather than sliding?

Discussion notes

Practice

Applied exercise — produces the Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker.

Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker

Document vetting status, agreement status and accountability check-in dates for every current and prospective missions and outreach partner.

Estimated time: 50 minutes

Participants: Pastor, missions or outreach team lead, treasurer, and one board member

Artifact produced: Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker

Required inputs

• Missions and Outreach Budget Worksheet from Lesson 2
• Any available partner financial statements or annual reports
• Any existing partnership agreements or memoranda of understanding

Instructions

List every currently funded partner and any prospective new partner under consideration.
For each, record vetting status across mission fit, financial health, operational capacity and reporting capacity.
Note what documentation exists for each category and what is missing.
Record whether a signed written agreement currently exists, and if not, assign an owner and date to draft one.
For any partner with a vetting gap, record the decision reached: pause, continue while requesting information, or exit.
Set a specific next accountability check-in date and format for every partner.
Assign a named owner to maintain the accountability calendar going forward.

Complete it online

Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker

Church name: ______________________
Date of review: ______________________
Total partners reviewed: ______________________

Partner name	Vetting status (fit/financial/capacity/reporting)	Agreement status	Gap decision (if any)	Next check-in date	Owner

Your response — Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker

Worked example

A fully completed sample using a fictional church. This is illustrative teaching material, not any church's actual data.

Grace Fellowship (illustrative example — not actual church data)

Grace Fellowship is a fictional congregation of about 260 attendees used here to illustrate what a completed partner vetting and agreement tracker looks like.

Partner name	Vetting status (fit/financial/capacity/reporting)	Agreement status	Gap decision (if any)	Next check-in date	Owner
Overseas orphan-care partner	Fit: strong. Financial: newly provided, clear. Capacity: strong, 11-year track record. Reporting: verbal only, no written schedule	Newly signed one-page MOU	None — resolved by requesting and receiving financials	In 6 months	Missions lead, Tom A.
Local family resource center	Fit: strong. Financial: reviewed 990 available. Capacity: new relationship, unproven at scale. Reporting: willing, format not yet set	Draft in progress	Continue while finalizing agreement	In 4 weeks	Outreach lead, Priya N.
Regional disaster-response network	Fit: moderate, used only for flexible pool. Financial: publicly rated highly by an independent evaluator. Capacity: strong. Reporting: standardized reports available	No agreement — used only for as-needed flexible gifts	Continue as-needed, no standing agreement required	As triggered by an event	Treasurer, Wanda K.

How this leadership team reasoned

• Grace Fellowship's team realized their longest-standing partner had the least documentation of the three, purely due to the length and informality of the relationship rather than any actual concern about integrity.
• The team distinguished a standing agreement, appropriate for the two ongoing committed partners, from a lighter as-needed approach appropriate for the disaster-response network funded only from the flexible pool.

Decisions recorded

• Tom A. requested and received updated financials from the overseas partner within one week and both sides signed a first-ever memorandum of understanding.
• Priya N. was assigned to finalize the family resource center agreement within four weeks before any further funds are disbursed beyond an initial good-faith gift.

Completed artifact extract — Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker

Two of three partners now have signed agreements; the third is intentionally left without a standing agreement given its as-needed flexible-pool use, with that decision explicitly recorded rather than left as an oversight.

Illustrative exercise score: 18 of 20. Grace Fellowship's team vetted all four categories for every partner, resolved the documentation gap on the longest-standing partner promptly, and set clear check-in dates, though the reporting-format expectation for the new local partner was still being finalized at the time of review.

BAG Index complement

Household financial-literacy layer that complements this stewardship principle.

BAG Index complement

Vetting organizations and charitable-giving fraud awareness

The same vetting discipline the church applies to its missions and outreach partners is a skill households need for their own personal charitable giving. This complement equips leaders to teach households how to recognize legitimate charities and avoid increasingly common charitable-giving fraud schemes.

Teaching points

• Legitimate charities will readily provide their tax-exempt status information, annual reports and answers to direct questions about how donations are used, without pressure or evasiveness
• Independent charity evaluators and public nonprofit registries can help households verify a charity's standing before giving, especially for organizations first encountered through a phone call, email or social media appeal
• Common charitable-giving fraud tactics include urgent, high-pressure appeals following a disaster, requests for payment by gift card or wire transfer, and lookalike names designed to be confused with well-known, trusted charities
• Households should be cautious of any solicitation that guarantees a specific percentage of every dollar reaches a cause without documentation, since legitimate overhead and program costs vary widely and honestly across real charities
• Recurring personal giving commitments should be reviewed periodically just as the church reviews its own partnerships, rather than continuing indefinitely out of habit alone

Household practice step: Create a simple one-page household checklist, adapted from the church's own Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker categories, that members can use before giving to an unfamiliar charity, and make it available through the church's outreach or financial literacy communications.

Supports this principle: Supports S7 Give Generously by protecting the generosity of individual households from fraud, ensuring their giving actually reaches legitimate causes and strengthening trust in charitable giving broadly, which benefits the church's own partners as well.

This complement is educational and product-neutral. It does not endorse any specific charity, charity evaluator, or financial product, and it is not legal advice; anyone who suspects they have been the victim of charitable-giving fraud should be referred to their state attorney general's charity oversight office or a qualified legal professional.

Score

Transparent 20-point exercise rubric: four criteria rated 0 to 5 with observable anchors.

Criterion	0 — not evident	3 — acceptable	5 — exemplary	Sample
Completeness (0–5)	Fewer than half of current partners were reviewed, or vetting categories were left blank for most partners.	All partners were listed, but vetting status was recorded for only some of the four categories per partner.	All current and prospective partners were reviewed with vetting status recorded across all four categories.	5
Use of evidence (0–5)	Vetting conclusions were based on impression or relationship history with no requested documentation.	Some partners' vetting relied on actual documentation, others relied only on prior relationship history.	Every partner's vetting conclusion was based on actual requested or reviewed documentation, including financial statements or ratings where available.	4
Alignment to the module purpose (0–5)	Vetting and agreements were treated as unrelated to the budget or community priorities set in earlier lessons.	Some partners' vetting referenced their fit with named priorities; others did not.	Every partner's fit was explicitly evaluated against the priorities and budget allocations established in Lessons 1 and 2.	5
Actionability and ownership (0–5)	No gap decisions, owners or check-in dates were recorded for any partner.	Owners and check-in dates were recorded for most but not all partners.	Every partner has a named owner, a specific check-in date or trigger, and a documented gap decision where applicable.	4
Worked sample total				18 / 20

Completeness: Grace Fellowship recorded status across all four vetting categories for every listed partner.
Use of evidence: Two of three partners had documentation freshly reviewed; the disaster-response network relied on a publicly available independent rating rather than a directly requested statement, which is acceptable but slightly less direct.
Alignment to the module purpose: Every partner's fit rating was explicitly tied back to its role in the budget worksheet and profile from earlier lessons.
Actionability and ownership: Every partner has a named owner and check-in date; the disaster-response network's 'as triggered by an event' timing is appropriately flexible but slightly less specific than a fixed calendar date.

Lesson-exercise scores (20 points each) demonstrate learning and artifact quality. They do not automatically overwrite the official Seven Principles assessment, which remains a separate 100-point rating of five dimensions for each principle.

Submit evidence

What must be submitted for this lesson to count as complete.

Submit

• Completed Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker with vetting status, agreement status and check-in dates for every partner

Attach this evidence

Documented vetting across all four categories for every current partner
A signed or in-progress agreement status recorded for every committed partner

File upload is not implemented in this prototype. Ticking a box records that the church can produce the document; it does not store a file.

Contribute to official outcome

How this lesson builds the Missions and Community Outreach Giving Plan.

Artifact produced: Partner Vetting and Agreement Tracker

Feeds the partner roster and accountability calendar sections of the Missions and Community Outreach Giving Plan.

Open the module deliverable assembly

Participant reflection and notes

Which of our current missions or outreach partners have we trusted the longest, and could I currently produce, in writing, what we actually agreed to fund and expect from them?

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