Front Porch General Contractor?

Hey everyone,

Mik has been working on how to make sure that the Front Porch actually becomes a reality. In his assessment, there are just too many specialized tasks to expect an all-volunteer force to accomplish everything. But God is moving...

Daniel Keeslar is a member of Second Baptist who has done a lot of volunteer work for us already, trying to get us off to a good start on this project. He has two decades of experience in contracting, and over one decade in commercial construction, but right now he's between projects. After several hours of conversation with Mik, with Michael Ngo, and with me, we are all feeling pretty positive about the following proposal:

The Core could hire Daniel to be the general contractor for the Front Porch construction. He would be there on a full-time basis, finding the best materials for the best price, communicating constantly with Michael, managing the budget, overseeing the volunteers and hiring sub-contractors for specialty work. The proposal is that we would pay Daniel a $6000 flat fee, and that Michael would pay for the work done by any subcontractors.

Over the next few days, Daniel will be working up a budget to present to Michael, and by Thursday the 19th Michael will decide if he approves of this arrangement. Honestly, I think he will. All this planning is putting us behind our projected construction schedule, but I am convinced it will help us finish the project in a much timelier, more quality manner.

There will still be plenty of room for volunteers to fill in the gaps, so we are still very thankful for all the people willing to help. But that still leaves the issue of finding the $6000 to pay Daniel. First of all, I would like this to be a 3-month project, and I am hearing that this is probably a reasonable expectation with the addition of a full-time professional contractor. So here's an idea: We have the funds right now to pay him $1500 up front. At the end of each month (and the completion of the goals set for that month) we could pay him another $1500. I trust Daniel with an arrangement like this, because he has shown a very clear commitment to seeing this project happen, whether or not he can have a professional role in it, and he has the personal endorsement of Second Baptist pastor John Marshall.

Now we have to ask ourselves how to produce $1500 a month. This is a question we would have to face anyway, since we will have to start paying a larger utility bill as soon as the building is finished, and we'll want to be getting used to finding that kind of money in order to be ready to start paying rent in the late summer.

A little less than a year ago I asked several families if we could each commit $100 a month to the Front Porch project. At this current time, I think we can easily get 5 or 6 monthy commitments of that size from within The Core, some of which can be as much as $200. I would like to set a goal by the end of November for The Core Team to be giving $1,000 every month toward the Front Porch. I think this is pretty reasonable. When you consider that we have several individual donors from outside The Core, plus a $100 per month commitment from South Haven, $1500 doesn't seem like such a huge number anymore.

All this to say... please pray about the agreements we should make to see the Front Porch through to completion, and pray about how you can help personally, whether it's by finding money, giving money, giving your time, or anything else. And add your comments, as well.

Thanks!