Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

After a month of consulting with many organizations about their fundraising banquets I have found that quite a few of them don’t follow up with everyone who attends their events.

Oh this would be great with Felicity Donor!

In a recent blog, Felicity Donor of the Third Sector, stated that charities should not waste their money on fluffy thank-you letters to donors. She also mentions that she doesn’t want to be patronized with a soft, fluffy letter thanking her for her help because she wants to make sure all of her contribution goes to the cause rather than money being spent on her.

Many of you agree and some of you partially agree with Felicity. You save money on sending thank you letters by sending them to a select group. You only send letters to those who give financially. You have said you don’t have time to thank everyone. Because they didn’t fill out a card the night of your event, you say you feel awkward about connecting with them. And the greatest majority have said I never thought about connecting with those who didn’t give much less what would I say to them?

Whatever your reasoning is, saving a dollar, only connecting with a select few, not having a plan or not having a clue who you should connect with, there is no excuse for not connecting with everyone who took the time to hear about your cause.  You not only owe it to yourself,  but to those who gave of their time to see what God might be up to in relation to your cause and even within their own lives.

As we shared in our fundraising banquets workshop, the good seed you sow in the lives of your attendees will produce a harvest. However, it is up to you to cultivate, fertilize, water and then allow God to bring the increase.

If you need help understanding how you should connect after your fundraising event, check with your local Mission Increase Giving and Training Officer about setting up a consulting call today.

Remember…The harvest is ripe in relation to your cause, and it is up to you to connect and equip your champions to make a difference.

Today’s blog post is a continuation of my post from July 6th about how to be an effective and confident speaker.

Let me start with sharing a little fact that astounded me about speaking in general... Michael Erard, author of Um, found that when we speak, “(mistakes) occur on average once every ten words...Next time you say something listen to yourself carefully.  You st-st-stutter; you forget the words, you swotch the sounds (and when you type, you reverse the lttres--and prhps omit thm too). The bulk of these go unnoticed or brushed aside, but they’re all fascinating, as much as for why they’re ignored as why they’re noticed.”

Hopefully reading that doesn’t make you more self-conscious!  Instead let it encourage you in that we all make mistakes in our speech (even after much practice), and more importantly, they mostly go unnoticed (whew!)

Now, last time I mentioned the need to practice your speech to build confidence, but having confidence in a poorly shaped story that lacks a strong message does you and your audience no good!

In talking about shaping your message, a great book to check out is Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath.  They lay out some helpful principles to develop a message that is “sticky,” or in other words, memorable and effective.  I won’t get into those here (just read the book!), but I will share what the Heath brothers call villains to a “sticky” message because  I see these making their way into so many speeches at ministry events I attend.

1. We often “bury the lead” of our story amidst a sea of information.  We want to share every bit of information we have at the cost of suffocating the most powerful and inspirational part of the story!  It’s probably safe to say you can cut at least 50% of your story without losing a thing.

2. We tend to focus on the presentation rather than the message.  Keep in mind it’s not about memorizing your script, it’s about knowing the key idea you want to convey and staying focused on getting that across.  What’s the big picture people need to see?  What one idea do you want them to remember after they hear you?  Bring that out strong and clear.

3. We force our audience into decision paralysis, meaning we share too many different and new ideas at one time. This often happens when we’re inviting people to get involved.  We invite them to give financially, we invite them to volunteer, we invite them to sign up for our newsletter, we invite them to come take a tour, and on and on and on.  Present ONE message, ONE idea, ONE call to action.

4.  Finally, we all have to contend with the Curse of Knowledge.  This is when you know things that others don’t know and you forget what it’s like to not know it!  I encounter this often when I hear people share their mission statement.  It’s so generic and broad that I haven't a clue what they really do on a day to day basis, or how to connect to it in any meaningful way.  Go back to the basics when you first learned about how your organization tackled the cause.  How did you explain it to your spouse or friend?  Talk to people outside of your organization, how are they talking about what you do?

If you begin to conquer these villains, you'll be well on your way to developing a great message that audiences WANT and NEED to hear. And that’s something to be confident about!  If you have a story about coming up against one of these villains, do share!

In the midst of preparing for our upcoming workshop on Fundraising Banquets I spent some time considering a few passages in the Scriptures related to celebrations and various banquets, but in particular passages concerned with that great banquet which all those in Christ wait for expectantly. The culmination of all redemptive history and the realization of our Father’s original intent, namely, to make His permanent dwelling place (to tabernacle) with his children. In so doing I found Rev. 19:6-9 to be particularly outstanding. Consider this… 

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
   and give Him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
   and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
   with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said [2] to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Someone may ask the question, why is the glory to be given “to Him”(v.7) (clearly referring to the Lord our God (v.6)) when it’s the Bride that has “made herself ready"? Is no credit due her?

The answer to that question is found in v.8 when the text says, “it was granted her to clothe herself” in such a fashion.

By whom? By God!

So how is the Bride made ready for this great event? By clothing herself “with fine linen, bright and pure.”

Interestingly, what does the text say these linens are? These fine linens are the “righteous deeds of the saints.”

Again, by what power did she clothe herself with these linens? By walking in the righteous deeds that God has granted her to walk in.

So, when we do our righteous deeds (or works prepared beforehand that we should walk in- Eph 2:10) all heaven erupts in praise to God because the Bride is making herself ready.  

Ready for what? Ready to be joined to her groom AND to enter into the greatest celebration of all time.

So, what does this all mean for us, and what might the implications be for our banquets? I would suggest that it re-casts our banquet to serve as an introduction of sorts. An introduction, in that it invites The Bride into a mini celebration which reflects the once for all celebration that awaits all those in Christ. But even more, in that it calls the Bride to prepare herself for this great banquet by adorning these brilliant white garments. And how will she do so? By walking in the “righteous deeds” that God has given her to walk in.

Again I ask, how might this impact our banquets? Perhaps we should consider as we pray and plan, what does God want our champions to do to at or as a result of our banquet to make themselves ready for that day? I firmly believe that God has given our champions more significant work than merely writing checks. If the bride is to be ready she must make herself ready. And she can only do so, at least according to this passage, by obediently walking in the works that God has given her to walk in. So, what is that meaningful work? And are we calling people to it?

My conclusion, banquets are more important than I thought…especially if we have the picture of Rev. 19 in mind.  

Can you guess what the number one human fear is?  The dark?  No, that’s #12.  Dying?  No, that’s #7.  Heights?  No, that’s #2.  The number one fear is... public speaking!!

Of course, trying to find the source of this survey is difficult and it’s questionable as to how scientific it was when taken (for example, my greatest fear is running out of peanut M&M’s, but I digress...), so we need to take it with a grain of salt.

Yet, regardless of whether or not public speaking is the #1 fear, I think we can all agree it IS pretty high on the list.  Even when someone agrees to speak publicly about something there is a natural fear going into it, and a question about how effective one will be when they speak.  And this gets to what I want to talk to you about...

Public speaking at your events!  Too many times I have seen ministries recruit volunteer speakers to share their story, to talk about their involvement in the cause, to make an ask, or even to MC the event, only to have it be a very stressful experience where they are only half as effective as they could have been with a little prep work.

Because of that, my next few blog posts are going to be dedicated to helping you and your volunteer speakers to be the best you can be when on the stage.

First off, we have to address this fear.  Hear me...having fear is OKAY so embrace it!  Ian Tyson, a stand-up comedian, said “The body’s reaction to fear and excitement is the same...so it becomes a mental decision: am I afraid or am I excited?”   Address your fear directly and early on and decide how you’re going to channel it.

Second, practice your speech, then practice some more, and of course, practice.  Frankly, if I asked people how important practice was, 100% would say VERY important.  YET, we don’t do it nearly enough (if at all!).  I like Scott Berkun’s take on why he practices his speeches.  In his book Confessions of a Public Speaker, he says “I don’t practice to make perfect, and I don’t memorize...my intent is simply to know my material so well that I’m very comfortable with it. Confidence, not perfection, is the goal.”  (Side note: this is a great book you need to read!)

And that leads into the third point we need to discuss, which is WHAT is it that your practicing?? To have confidence in a message that is confusing and convoluted is not good!  But, you’ll have to wait until next time to learn about "shaping the message.”

(BTW, for July, MIF is presenting a free workshop on Fundraising Banquets where we’ll be talking about speaker effectiveness, so check that out to expand on what I’m sharing here.)

I’m blogging to let you know about a major Mission Increase Foundation change!   And it’s a great one!   In 2010, MIF will be offering one-on-one coaching as follow-up to all workshops.  Here’s how it works…   You attend a workshop in your local area.  Go to www.missionIncrease.org to check the listings for workshops in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington State, Arizona, and coming in March – Raleigh, North Carolina!   After attending a workshop, you express your desire for...

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