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It started over coffee. We had known each other through mutual friends and decided to have
coffee to get to know one another better. Frank is a church planting director- helping people
plant new churches. His Masters in Nonprofit Leadership and Management from the University of San Diego strengthened his desire to help churches, nonprofits and faith-based organizations. John was a CEO of a national faith-based organization, a community organizer and pastor. He has his Master’s in Social Work from San Diego State University.
The conversation continually inclined toward trends and challenges facing nonprofits and faith-based organizations. Frank could see it with start-ups and existing nonprofits. John was
consulting with a number of nonprofits and writing a lot of grants. Finally, Frank said, “maybe
we should work together.” The smiles and excitement were immediate and added to the rush ofthe caffeine. Over the next few weeks, the discussion centered around the mission statement,values, market research, corporate structures, services and financials strategies. Then we hit a wall, what do we call this new organization? We were literally stuck, none of the ideas we had made sense. We had exhausted our mental reserves and needed input from others. We agreed to ask friends and colleagues and return the following week.
Whenever we tell the story behind Simon Cross, people tell us that they get who we are and what we do. Our name says it all.
Throughout the week the search for a name continued. John turned to his best friend Steve who is an artist and has an innate ability to see things differently. Steve said, “you should call it Simon Cross because Simon carried the Lord’s cross.” That worked! Nonprofit and faith-based leaders carry a burden of leadership and often need help. We realized that as consultants, our job was not to change organizations and their leaders but to help them fulfill their mission. We even created a tagline- “Turning faith into results.”
Whenever we tell the story behind Simon Cross, people tell us that they get who we are and what we do. Our name says it all.