History of Best Christian Workplaces Institute

The Best Christian Workplaces Institute emerged out of a partnership between a woman with a novel idea and a human resources leader with 20+ years of experience, which included running “best places to work” programs in the Pacific Northwest. Several years ago, Helen Lee was a student at the F.W. Olin Graduate School for Business at Babson College, taking a course on Strategic Human Resource Management. It was the first time she heard the concept that an organization’s human resources can be its greatest source of competitive advantage. Having previously worked at a number of Christian organizations, she found herself wondering how good these companies and ministries were at nurturing their employees. Thus was born the idea of conducting a survey that would highlight those Christian organizations with exceptional people practices, similar to the Fortune Magazine's annual feature on “The 100 Best Places to Work.”

Through John Pearson, CEO of what was then the Christian Management Association, Helen was introduced to Al Lopus, a member of the CMA President’s Leadership Circle and a Managing Consultant with Watson Wyatt. Al had designed and led similar surveys in Oregon and Washington states and had the expertise necessary to design a survey specifically for Christian organizations. Together Helen and Al founded Best Christian Workplaces Institute (BCWI), a human resources research and consulting firm, with the mission of making Christian organizations the best places to work in the world. Working in partnership with Christianity Today magazine, where Helen had previously served as an editor and writer, BCWI created the first Best Christian Workplaces survey, which was conducted in the fall of 2002. The results from this survey were announced at the Christian Management Association conference in February 2003 and appeared in the April 2003 Christianity Today cover story. The survey was the largest ever conducted on the attitudes of Christian workplace employees, with 8,700 employees participating, representing more than 15,000 employees in 85 organizations.

Since then, BCWI has been refining its employee survey and reports. Now Schools, Churches and Missions organizations with overseas missionaries can take advantage of specialized surveys.  A Canadian survey has been sponsored by the Canadian Council of Christian Charities. The employee survey is now accessible to Spanish speakers. In addition, a 360 Leadership Review Survey is available.

The team at BCWI has taken the survey results and used them to create articles and resources to help leaders of Christian organizations improve their culture.

As a result of this landmark work, BCWI has helped numerous organizations gain a clearer picture of their workplace environment and take steps to be better stewards of their human resources. BCWI looks forward to continuing to serve and improve Christian organizations through its future research and consulting projects.