ASI, as a grouping of Adventist business persons seeking to advance the mission of the church, will always be first and foremost an organisation where we expect to give rather than to receive benefits. Indeed we could say, ASI, is a platform for Adventist business persons to give towards the mission before any other benefits can accrue to the business person. However, we have worked out a cocktail of benefits that will flow to the business persons as they participate in ASI activities. These have been grouped into:
- Supporting the mission of the church.
- Supporting Adventist businesses.
Supporting the Mission of the Church
Our grouping of business persons will encourage and seek to support the mission of the church in the following ways:
- Organized support for God’s work - only through coordinating work can the impact of business people be felt in the church. Our primary goal as ASI is to support the mission of the church globally. To ensure the support offered is impactful and visible, ASI will bring together resources from members and use the funds in selected church projects. Rather than be a “lone ranger” in God’s work, we invite you to partner other business people, pool resources and support the church in an impactful way.
- Funding evangelism programs
- Resource mobilisation (from members) – there are some us who will be able to bring together teams of financiers for specific church projects. ASI will provide an opportunity to such persons to work in our grouping in a coordinated and structured way.
- Donate skills for evangelism projects - Specialised skills offered on evangelical projects based on member-donated skills
Supporting Adventist Businesses
There are countless benefits that will flow from our network to the business directly as a result of participating in ASI. We have summarised the benefits as listed below but we know that more will accrue to those business that participate in our network than we are even able to articulate here. ASI a member of ASI, here are but a few of the benefits we expect you to access from our network:
- Networking – ASI will provide you with the opportunity of meeting and sharing ideas with other Adventist business persons. ASI will create formal interaction platforms – opportunities for business persons to network and share ideas and experiences.
- Opportunity to support each other’s businesses - ASI will offer countless opportunities for you to showcase your business and get support from fellow Adventists who until now may not have known what line of business you are into.
- Training – ASI is the place where we sharpen our business skills. We intend to run various business master classes led by successful. There have been requests already for training sessions to be run on such aspects as how to draw up a business plan and such training courses will be available for our members. As a member of ASI, you will have the chance to request the association to organise any training courses that you require to sharpen your business skills.
- Seminars and information sharing on business opportunities including exports. Our network has people with proprietary information on various aspects of business which information can be shared in formal platforms. As Zimbabwe enters a new phase in its economic history, ASI is poised to contribute through ensuring that our members have the most current and most relevant pieces of information for business growth.
- Mentoring and supporting upcoming businesses – our chapter intends to create a fund to support the most deserving upcoming business persons having understood their business plan. Where our fund falls short, our support for project should render them bankable as banks have found “group” lending to yield better loan performance than individual lending. Our mentoring teams will utilise the skills base within our membership to provide mentoring opportunities to those persons seeking such help.