From Aerospace to Ministry: Lessons in Letting Go

Leading with Faith: Lessons from an Aerospace Executive's Transition to Ministry

Stepping into nonprofit leadership from the corporate world can feel like a daunting career change. Yet for Cory Akin, former CFO in aerospace and defense, it was a calling from God that opened an unexpected door.

After over 30 years in the private sector, Cory felt God telling him that his next season would be in full-time ministry. This new path eventually led Cory to The Bucket Ministry - a nonprofit sharing God's love through providing safe water solutions globally. As The Bucket Ministry's Director of Development, Cory now raises funds to support their faith-based humanitarian work.

What unique skills shape leaders who have crossed over into the nonprofit sphere? How did God equip someone with an extensive corporate background for nonprofit fundraising and engagement?

The Winding Path to Ministry

Cory traces God's preparation back years before his position at The Bucket Ministry. Through honing negotiation talents and building relationships with diverse organizational leaders, Cory sees divine orchestration.

Yet stepping into nonprofit development still meant embracing major change. Cory notes the challenges of shifting from a results-driven business culture to sharing stories that allow the Holy Spirit to move people into partnership. This required learning to relinquish control and fully rely on God's timing.

Core Elements of The Bucket Ministry

The Bucket Ministry provides water filtration systems and health resources to empower communities lacking clean water access. Their mission statement says it all: "To share God's love through the gift of safe, clean drinking water."

By meeting critical physical needs in Jesus' name, The Bucket Ministry gains opportunities to share the gospel relationally. Their on-the-ground missionaries thus proclaim and demonstrate God's compassion.

Relationship Building as a Key Strategy

Despite growing scale, The Bucket Ministry strives to maintain personal donor connections. Cory sends handwritten notes, texts, and even video messages to convey gratitude for each gift.

Donors recognize and value this uncommon level of care. Many ministry supporters hunger for deeper involvement beyond just financial transactions. By building genuine relationships, The Bucket Ministry cultivates greater partnership in their work.

Spiritual Insights for Nonprofit Leaders

Cory emphasizes leaning into faith as central to fruitful nonprofit development, even when it means giving up control. Daily surrender to God's timing and purposes is imperative. As Cory notes, "All I can do is tell the story. It's up to the Holy Spirit to move somebody."

This podcast conversation provides a window into how God weaves together our unique stories and gifts for Kingdom impact. May it inspire us to step out in faith when God calls any of us into unexpected places of influence.

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Transcription

00:00:04
            

Well, hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts podcast brought to you by our friends over at we give. If you're looking for the best donor experience on the planet, go check out we give.com. Super grateful for them making this partnership happen. But today on the show, super excited ministry that I want to dive into, learn more about, and have my friend Cory Aiken here, who is the director of development at the bucket ministry.        

00:00:28
            

Cory, how you doing today? I'm doing great, Matt. How are you? I am good. I'm good.        

00:00:35
            

I think we've talked a little bit beforehand, swapped stories about Texas, and yeah, we're down here in Tampa, Florida, where it is, as always, brutally hot and sunshine, just like Texas. So super excited to have you on today. And really what I want to do is just dive into your story a little bit because you have a little bit of an unorthodox path to working in development for christian ministry. So why don't you just tell our audience a little bit about what you do today, but really how God brought you to that place. Yeah, happy to do that.        

00:01:04
            

And first of all, thanks for having me on today, Matt. Really been looking forward to this. But yeah, as you said, my story is a little bit different. You know, my background is actually aerospace and defense over 32 years. And my last job was a CFO of a midsize defense firm.        

00:01:25
            

And you know how I ended up in ministry and let alone on the mission side of it, it truly is a story that only God can write. And, you know, he moved me out of the last company I was with and I actually thought I was going to be headed into semi retirement, kind of cruising along, doing some interim CFO consulting work. And the Lord just closed all those doors and, you know, it was actually a little over a year ago. I looked at my wife and said, I don't think I'm supposed to be back in corporate America and making profit in that economy. I feel like the Lord's calling me into ministry and to work in God's economy.        

00:02:08
            

And she looked at me like I had three heads, which is okay. And, you know, she's like, no, you really need to get a job. And I'm like, hey, honey, all I can tell you is God told me to wait. And well, in March, bucket ministry showed up at my church. They shared their story, and God literally spoke right there and said, you need to go work for them.        

00:02:31
            

And he was real specific. He said, not only that, you're not going to do finance anymore, you're going to step into the world of fundraising. And, you know, the gift of hindsight is beautiful in that God has allowed me to look back, and he created a pathway for me to build a great Rolodex. I'm dating myself by using that term, but with the influential people that I've been able to work with and know inside corporate America and outside, within churches and universities. And so he's kind of prepared that way for quite a while.        

00:03:11
            

So that's kind of how I ended up at the bucket ministry. Wow. So two quick kind of side notes. One, give us a high level overview of the work bucket ministry does, because I'm guessing it was compelling enough that when you heard their story, you said, okay, I have. Like, it was God speaking to you.        

00:03:28
            

So give us a little bit. First, high level overview of the ministry that bucket ministry does. Yeah. In simple terms, our mission statement is to share God's love through the gift of safe, clean drinking water. And what we do is we take a water filter, a five gallon bucket, thus the name, and antiparasitic meds, and we give out free gifts, just like Jesus met the physical need.        

00:03:50
            

And what we found out is once we meet the physical need, it allows us to have relational equity with the recipient of that bucket to share the gospel. Yeah, that's amazing. And on the other note, the second question I had for you is, coming out of aerospace defense. What. What did God do in your life preparing you?        

00:04:12
            

Like, what skills did he give you there that you think really have translated in the nonprofit world? I've been blessed to be around some great leaders with people skills. I've done a lot of reading, been to a lot of seminars, and through that skillset and learning how to relate. And then what I would say, probably even more importantly, is how to ask questions. I used to do a lot of negotiating, and the skill I learned in that is to answer a question with a question, and he who speaks first loses.        

00:04:46
            

And so how to get people to talk, to be honest with you. Yeah, yeah. Which is so critical in, honestly, in fundraising and in donor development work, to get people where they're comfortable enough, where they feel like it's not just a high pressure ask. Like, oh, my gosh, there's coming in, you want something from me, but it's really a, hey, we're trying to get to know you. We're building a relationship building rapport so that when the time does come, there's real relational equity there.        

00:05:14
            

Built up. No, you're exactly right. Exactly right. Okay, so in your role as development director, so far, you're seven months on the job. It sounds like, from what we talked about, new in the role, which is fascinating because that's been a really common theme that, you know, from, we're 26 episodes into the podcast, tons of folks are new in the role.        

00:05:36
            

It seems like COVID really restructured a lot of the way that nonprofits work. And so I understand you're new in the role, but could you maybe speak to some of the strategies, campaigns, things that you all have done at Bucket ministry do you think have been really effective for you thus far? Well, I think the biggest thing that we do, honestly, is we're kind of working backwards. And what I mean by that is in today's digital age, everything's about the mass emails and the mass text. And we believe in the personal touch.        

00:06:08
            

We love having hospitality. And so for every gift that our friends provide to the ministry, we give them a personal touch in that it's either a phone call, a text, a text video, a written letter. And so we're working kind of back to old school, thus the gray hair. But, you know, we have found that people love that. You know, to be honest with you, they really do, because, you know, I know before stepping into this role, I've given them many ministries, and then you never hear from them.        

00:06:45
            

And so by getting that personal touch with every gift, we think it's making a difference. Absolutely. And so how do you all, because you are not a small ministry, right? Like, you guys are growing. How do you do that at scale?        

00:07:01
            

What does that tactically look like? Is that, hey, every Monday I have an email reminder or I have a task that comes up on my inbox. How do you guys logistically handle making sure that every donor gets a touchpoint like that? As a mid sized, not for profit christian organization, the ministry never had somebody in my role until seven months ago when I actually pursued that. And so I'm kind of building that out.        

00:07:28
            

We have another individual that works with us, and she's, I will tell you, she's the glue to the ministry because she's somebody that touches our donors every single time a gift comes in, and we kind of divide those duties out. And so we've done it that way where we are, you know, our founder will often tell me, he goes, you know, I want to grow this ministry where the biggest thing in here is a development team, and they're having to say thank you, and we need multiple people to do it. I love it. I love it. Yeah.        

00:07:58
            

One of the kind of axioms I have is, I talk about this all with our team, is when we say the word process, a lot of times what we really should say is people, right? Sometimes the process is just, oh, no, we need another person to do that. Right. It's easy to say, oh, well, we can automate that or we can scale it this way or we can some really complex thing. And sometimes a great process is as simple as can we just hire the right person to do this and staff up there?        

00:08:23
            

No. Yeah, that's true. And, you know, but process is such a key word and that's one of the things that we are implementing because again, a donor doesn't want to get contact the same way every single way. So, you know, in January, the touch point may be a text, you know, February the text point may be a postcard, those type of things. And, you know, you kind of asked the question about a campaign and, you know, one of the things we developed with makes it kind of unique, you know, because we work around the world and we're not local.        

00:08:57
            

We had some of our christian missionaries do a little video that we were able to put a QR code on a postcard to send to our people. They give every single month. And I'm looking, I'm looking forward to hearing the results from that because we're literally just sending those out today. But to hear it from the people in the field, I think it's going to be exciting. Absolutely.        

00:09:20
            

Yeah. It's such a great way to connect them to the actual, hey, boots on the ground. These are the people doing the ministry, and that's all the donors really want. Like they want to feel like, hey, I'm giving. Is my money actually making an impact?        

00:09:31
            

Are you actually following up with me at all? So that's great to hear. Well, hey there. Holy donuts. Listeners, ever feel like your nonprofit's donor experience is like a jelly filled donut with no jelly?        

00:09:42
            

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00:10:01
            

And with we give, you get an incredible donor portal, events, pledges, surveys, segmentation on and on. We could go on the features and those checkouts, though, smoother than my attempt to make homemade doughnuts, which, let's just say, didn't quite rise to the occasion. See what I did there. With Wegib's innovative engagement tools, your donors won't just feel the love. They'll be coming back for second because nothing says thanks for your dough better than a world class experience.        

00:10:30
            

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00:10:40
            

Harder question maybe when you look out over christian nonprofit space, what's a trend that you're a little bit nervous about or concerned about, and what's the trend that you're seeing that you're excited for? A little more hopeful about?        

00:10:55
            

A lot of people will flip on both sides of this coin, but I would tell you, AI, and I'm probably from my background, narrow space and defense, a little more cautious about it. Yeah. Because, you know, I also, as we went back, I don't want to lose the personal touch and what we provide people. I think it's a great tool, but I also think it can possibly be misused by organizations and not relay the personal touch to your donor base. Absolutely.        

00:11:28
            

And then on the hopeful side, if there is hopeful side, what's got you a little bit more excited? You know, I think there's just a hunger to connect, to be honest with you, to be a part of something greater. That's what I see with the people that I talk to and get out and go see in person. The fact, you know, again, our ministry didn't have this position, but as I go out across the US and sit down and have coffee with somebody or lunch or whatever, the fact that we're going out and actually touching our donors with a personal relationship and they're getting to connect, that part excites me because then you take it to a different level in the relationship. And, you know, I love that this is a christian podcast.        

00:12:17
            

And, you know, what I found is to end every conversation with a great question is simply to ask, how can I pray for you? And you want to talk about an immediate bond and to be able to sit there and pray in the coffee shop or the restaurant, it just really bonds the organization with the friend of the ministry.        

00:12:39
            

Yeah. And it shows them that you actually care. Besides just the check, you actually care about them as an individual. And I think you're right. As much as people look at, oh, well, you know, are people going to be giving as much?        

00:12:51
            

You know, like, are there all these negative trends for ministries? The reverse side is that the people who are engaged are engaged at a deeper level than ever. They want to be educated about the ministry. They want to really be all in as opposed to just, oh, well, yeah, I write a check to twelve or 13 different ministries just because it's an obligation. No, they really care about the ministries they're part of, so that personal connection is massive for them.        

00:13:13
            

So, okay, I'm excited to ask you this question because you come from a whole different space than a lot of the folks that I interview. So what content resources would you recommend to folks who are in nonprofit marketing or donor development? Whether that's books, podcasts would love to hear. I know you're an avid reader from your space, you know, your time in the aerospace defense industry. What kind of stuff do you like to recommend to your team or just people you interact with?        

00:13:38
            

Well, obviously, being in the people side of the business. Right. One of the first books I was ever given as a teenager by my father that made a difference was how to win friends and influence people. Huge, because if you can't relate, then you're not going to be successful in this role in the ministry. But then I will tell you, there's a second one as I stepped out of corporate America into this that our founder gave me that I now share with a lot of people.        

00:14:09
            

It's a book by Craig Groeschel, and it's called dangerous prayers, and it centers around David's prayer. You know, know me, try me, test me, know my anxious thoughts. And when you really start to pray that out, you know, all I'll say is, buckle up, buttercup, because God's, and it may not be how you expect. And that has been a real eye opener for me because, you know, if I serve with his heart, then I don't have to worry about the results. And, and that's what I think makes a difference, doing what we do in ministry.        

00:14:49
            

Yeah, yeah. That is the differentiator, right. It's not just, oh, well, it's a checkbox of, I have to meet with these people or these people. It's really that stepping out in faith, saying God, at the end of the day, the results are yours. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the work, I'm gonna stay busy.        

00:15:02
            

But like, the results are up to him at the end of the day. And that's what makes it a lot of fun and a little bit scary. That's for sure at times. So, Cory, if people want to. Yeah, go ahead.        

00:15:12
            

I was going to say, I'll tell you, that's the hardest lesson I learned. I came from results in making things happen, and what I learned in doing this in the christian world, in the nonprofit space all I can do is tell the story. It's up to the Holy Spirit to move somebody. And that's hard because I want instant results. We're in the microwave society, right?        

00:15:36
            

And that's been a tough lesson to learn. No. And I think it's one that every one of us as leaders have to continually learn, right? It's not one that we ever, it's not one that we ever get over. It's a daily, like, you know, as soon as we think we've arrived there, it's like God pulls us back and says, no, no, no.        

00:15:52
            

You're still thinking it's all about you. I'm going to humble you again and take you back up the mountain. So, man, I so appreciate you sharing the wisdom, insight, what you've learned both in corporate America but also now at bucket ministry. Cory, if people want to connect with you more, what's the best way to reach out? LinkedIn is probably the easiest way or you can to email me@coryphebucketministry.org.        

00:16:15
            

And that'd be the two best ways to get a hold of me. Awesome. And if folks want to learn more about Bucket ministry, I'm guessing they can check out bucketministry.org, comma, google it, type in their browser, however they want to look at on social media. Cory, thank you so much for taking the time today. It's been a lot of fun.        

00:16:30
            

Always love getting to hear from really smart, thoughtful people in the christian nonprofit land. And this absolutely is not disappointed. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks, Matt. I appreciate it and hope you have a great day.        

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