Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

I think one of the most challenging ideas for ministry leaders to wrap their mind around is that the job of fundraising can be (and should be!) an enjoyable part of our ministry work. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it! Fundraising enjoyable?? 

Instead most people think of it as tedious and that it feels much too self-serving to be enjoyable. What do you think?

There is no quick fix for changing your mindset if you’re in the camp that would rather distance yourself from the task of fundraising, but let me suggest a place to start…

Remind yourself daily: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!

I like how Jack Welch, CEO of GE, talks about leadership in his book Winning. He says leadership is not about you; it’s about the people who work for you. 

He goes on to say, “The day you become a leader, it becomes about them…Your job is to walk around with a can of water in one hand and a can of fertilizer in the other hand. Think of your team as seeds and try to build a garden. It’s about building these people.”

This is great advice for how leaders ought to relate to their staff, but consider how this applies to our relations with believers who come alongside us giving to and serving in the cause.

Might the work of fundraising be one additional way we can pour into people, helping them grow to full maturity in Christ?  Practitioners of Transformational Giving would say so.

Consider Paul and his devotion to those he was in fellowship with. He poured into believers so that they would grow in their faith and be presented “fully mature in Christ.” Maturity sounds good, but what does that entail and does giving fit anywhere in here?

Take a look at Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. He tells them, “But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.” We can gather from this that things such as faith, teaching, witnessing, studying the Bible, and concern for others are all crucial in the life of a mature Christian, but NONE are a substitute for the grace of giving.

Does Paul encourage giving because he has a goal to meet for his Jerusalem fund? Is it because he is short on funds? No. In his letter to the Philippians, we get a glimpse of why Paul sees such value in encouraging people to give. He says, “Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account.”

Giving is a good and important discipline for the believer, and is reflective of Christian maturity. Asking people to give is a good and important discipleship activity. When you fail to recognize either of these things, you will always look at asking as a selfish activity – a task to help you and your ministry and never the giver, and you’ll continue to hate it. 

And so I say, remind yourself daily: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU! 

TG, as we affectionately call it, is the foundational teaching of Mission Increase. As most of you know, we don’t teach fund raising practices from a traditional/transactional platform in our workshops and webinars, we teach fund raising from a TG perspective.

What in the world does that mean? Those of you who have been attending training for a while can usually articulate the meaning and application of TG, but not without choosing your words carefully and struggling to put it into language that resonates with those who understand fund raising. And even at that, really only grasp the basic concepts enough to explain them to someone else. Am I right?

So here it is, "Transformational Giving is a collaboration between you and God in which He infuses your corporate and personal assets with His grace as you offer them in the way He asks to the people and purposes that He directs."  Not exactly an elevator speech.

So let me break that down for you:

1. Transformational giving is a collaboration between you and God

Most of the time we think of giving as something we do. But the Bible shows us that when God is on the scene, giving is not something we do. It’s a collaboration between us and God that occurs at God’s invitation. There’s no such thing as an act of authentic giving that God’s not on in. Giving can’t start with us. It can’t be done just by us. It’s not us initiating anything, and it’s not even us responding to anything. It’s something that can only be done with God. Simultaneously. Giving is a dance with God.

2. in which He infuses your corporate and personal assets with His grace

—our money, our possessions, our time, our emotions, our passions, our creativity. Corporate assets are the valuable things we have through our associations with other people—our friendships, our networks, our influence. In TG, God fills those assets to the point of saturating them. What does He fill them with? His grace. So our money becomes something more than money (and not just more money). Our time becomes something more than time. Consider the boy with the fishes and the loaves: his lunch becomes something more than lunch. This happens in the actual act of giving—hence the word "simultaneously" above.

To infuse means to fill something in such a way that it completely saturates it. Personal assets are all the valuable things we have personally.

3. as you offer them

Transformational Giving is always an offering to God. It may happen through a nonprofit (or it may not), but it is always an offering to the Lord. So it is offered reverently, humbly, expectantly, worshipfully, without thought of return, and without preconception of what God will do with it. The moment it becomes rote, it becomes as refreshing as stale, warm Mountain Dew left in the car. We don’t look to the nonprofit to transform the gift. We look to God to do that.

4. in the way He asks

If we listen carefully, God will always give us directives about our giving, and those directives extend far beyond ‘when’, ‘to whom’, ‘how much’, and ‘for what’. God will often give us detailed instructions as to how. ‘Throw the net on the other side of the boat’, ‘Go catch a fish and open its mouth’, ‘Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me’ are the words of a God who pays exquisite attention to detail. How we give is at least as important to God as what, when, and why, yet this is the dimension of giving that draws the least attention in contemporary practice.

5. to the people and purposes that He directs.

God calls us to give in ways that directly connect us with the recipients of our giving and with the cause. In TG, we don't give to charity; we give through charity. That is to say, organizations are not the recipient of our donations; they are the means by which we are extended to encounter the recipient and the cause directly. That’s God’s way. He came Himself to give Himself. He didn’t send an intermediary. He doesn’t want us to utilize nonprofits as intermediaries, because He is at least as concerned that we be changed through our giving as that the recipient of our gift be blessed.

I invite you to attend the September workshop entitled, "Dig Deep into the TG Toolkit: Discover the Tools to Turn Fund Raising Monotony into Ministry" and to invite your boss and your board to join you. We will help you understand the biblical framework and take you through the practical application of TG as it relates to your fund raising strategy. Maybe then, your boss will be able to explain TG to you!

Thanks to my colleague, Matt Baxter, who tipped me off to this news last week about a 29 year old man, Paris Powell, shot while helping the homeless in crime-ridden Oakland, California (notice two videos in the link- one at the top of the page and a smaller clip below on the left).  Powell was in his car around midnight, preparing to hand out home-cooked fish dinners to the homeless.  When a van pulled up to his car, Powell thought it was somebody in need - until five bullets were fired.  

He was shot in the head and died the next day, leaving behind his pregnant wife and three year old daughter, both of whom were with him in the car when the incident occurred.  Sadly, much of the emotions around the incident were not about the criminal who fired the bullets or the deplorable condition of that Oakland neighborhood and its residents in need, but instead around Powell's 'irresponsibility' as a parent who would choose to put his child in danger.

When Matt emailed the article to me, he asked a couple of transformational giving (TG) questions.  Is it TG to take your kids into a risky area to serve others?  Do you only serve if it's safe?

In Mission Increase Foundation workshops, I hear myself saying that TG is about discipleship, not dollars; it's about teaching 'normative Christian life' - knowing and obeying God's commands related to causes that are dear to His heart.  We often say that TG is about challenging individuals to take small steps forward in the cause, to take them out of their comfort zone, to grow them in their understanding of the cause as well as their relationship to Jesus.

Powell, from what I see in both video clips, was living out 'normative Christian life' as far as caring for the poor.  He was a picture of TG.  He collaborated with God to offer his assets (home-cooked meals) in the way the Lord asked to the people and purposes He directed.  Given that Powell had been doing this ministry for a number of years (& usually, it should be added, he was alone without his wife and daughter), I'd surmise that he was following a clear call from the Lord to serve.

For years, he had been making and giving food to the homeless in that Oakland neighborhood.  This suggests he was comfortable in that neighborhood.  He was also known - fondly, as 'Brother John' - by residents of the area.  One man interviewed in the earlier clip about the shooting said, while choking back tears, "He was a man of God.  He gave us food - and if he has time, he'll pull over and give us a prayer.  I don't know why these things happen to good people."

Like many of his Generation Y (or Millenial) peers, Powell was a 'Lone Ranger' do-gooder who wanted to directly impact the cause of homelessness to make a difference in the world.  According to his wife, they did this work in recognition that one day it could be themselves, instead, in need.  Powell was serving in an unsafe place - yes - but he'd been doing so for years and seemed comfortable in this routine.  Sadly, he received criticism for exposing his wife and daughter to danger at that time of night. Ironically, a similar tragedy - in that neighborhood - could occur just as easily in broad daylight while visiting a grocery store, gas station, or even sitting in your living room.

From my perspective, Powell was living out Matthew 16:24.  He died serving the Lord and others. His wife plans to continue his ministry, thus, he has given his family a wonderful legacy.  No doubt, Powell will be sorely missed, and especially in Oakland.

I hear this comment enough that I thought it apropos to write on it.  In fact, it came up in this month's workshop as we discussed ways that nonprofits seek to market themselves, one of which is to find a celebrity to speak for the cause.

We all know the success stories, like Lance Armstrong raising millions for Leukemia research, or Angelina Jolie raising millions for Doctors Without Borders and wonder (or dream) about who we might get to speak for our cause that would result in millions of new dollars (we'd even settle for a few hundred thousand).

Problem is, we are all too tempted to overemphasize the success of these types of endorsements while underestimating the extreme unlikelihood of this happening for our organization. More importantly, we often fail to see how putting any energy in this at all takes our eyes off the real goal for the parachurch--helping Christians mature spiritually as they interact in community around kingdom causes.

First, let me help you get realistic about a celebrity endeavor...A great article in January's Ad Age by Peter Daboll reported on a study that found "big names don't pay dividends."  The title of the article was "Celebrities in Advertising Are Almost Always a Big Waste of Money" (no hidden meaning there!)

A few things worth noting: 1)Today's consumer is more likely to be influenced by someone in their social network than a weak celebrity connection. 2) Today's consumer is informed, time-compressed, and difficult to impress, and IF they are influenced by ads it is because they are relevant and provide information they were looking for. 3) Today’s consumer doesn't want to have products pushed at them, even from a celebrity. 

The bottom line is that the study empirically showed that a celebrity has little to no impact on an ad's effectiveness. In fact, regardless of gender or age, ads without celebrities out-performed ads with them.

If that doesn't shake your longing for a celebrity then I'm not sure much will!  But, let me take it one step further.

Consider...has our great Lord and Savior called you to the position you're in now just to extract money from people's wallets?  Of course not!  Even if you were able to raise millions and millions of dollars from people to support the cause, what gain is it if none gave with a heart toward God?  What gain is it if through their giving people didn't come to know Christ more deeply, or see him more clearly?  If we keep our eyes focused on the right things then we'll realize that the amount of money we raise, or the amount a person gives, is never the object of importance.  Like the widow's mite, or like Zaccheus, or like the Macedonians, it's all about the heart and mind being transformed.  It's about giving generously, whatever that looks like for each of us, as we rejoice in who Christ is and eagerly serve him through the gifts we've been given.

As a church or parachurch leader, do you find the time to read blog postings and news updates on the internet as well as watch relevant video clips…on a daily basis?  In talking with many leaders, it seems a nearly impossible task to stay current on issues of interest - be they trends in philanthropy, non-profit management, the state of the church, or fundraising, marketing, and accounting developments, to name a few.

That’s why I’m a big fan of iGoogle and have frequently thought that ministry leaders unfamiliar with this easy tool deserve some friendly nudging to give it a try.  If you’re already using iGoogle and find it useful, I challenge you to coach one or two people in ministry to set up their own iGoogle homepage.   If you’re not using iGoogle or a similar tool, then read on and let this be your friendly nudge!

iGoogle is a personalized homepage.  By creating a customized homepage  – a task that will take only a minute or two and you can continue to build your personalize page over time -  you will immediately have quick access to regularly updated content that you find relevant and valuable.    Let me be clear – this type of homepage allows you to access - in one centralized location and when the timing suits you - content from many different internet sources. 

Instead of trying to regularly remember and find the time to visit ten or twenty different websites to get news, you can set up your iGoogle home page such that RSS feeds - regularly updated works including headlines, blog postings, audio, and video - come directly to this central location in an easy-to-scan format.  Plus, you’ll have all sorts of options to get everything from weather to recipes to stock quotes to news headlines sent directly to you!  Once your homepage is set up to receive automatic updates, you’ll see the value in de-cluttering your inbox by eliminating assorted email and e-newsletter subscriptions. 

Click HERE for simple instructions created by Google to set up your own iGoogle page.

Click HERE for specific instructions to add an RSS feed to your iGoogle homepage.

To get started with your iGoogle page, below you’ll find some RSS feeds - in no particular order – which I recommend:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review - http://www.ssireview.org/articles/
• Duke Divinity Call & Response blog - http://www.faithandleadership.com/blog
• Blue Avocado - http://www.blueavocado.org/frontpage
• Presentation Zen - http://www.presentationzen.com
• Greg Stier's blog - http://www.gregstier.org/
• Katya’s non-profit marketing blog - http://www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com/
• Beth’s blog - http://www.bethkanter.org/
• The Agitator - http://www.theagitator.net/
• Seth Godin’s blog - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/
• Burk’s blog - http://www.cygresearch.com/burksblog/

Please comment if you have other RSS feeds to recommend.  Hopefully you’ll find these feeds and this tool to be helpful and time-saving.  And like we say at the end of each MIF workshop, 'you can do this!'