Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

<<Note: read Part I of this series here>>

In my last post, I lamented the weaknesses of the metaphors du jour that attempt to describe the relationship between nonprofit organization and champion: recipient/donor, patron/artist, investor/business, and even friend/friend.  And I offered an alternative, that of doctor/patient.

In the spirit of moving backwards to move forwards, I’d like to revisit and skewer these current metaphors in this post, lay them to rest and heap shovelfuls of dirt on them so we can all move forward to some better language.

1. Recipient/Donor.  This metaphor is based on subtractional or sacrificial giving, in which the giver has less after the donation.  Think of organ donors: in a grand, sacrificial gesture, they give a kidney, and subsequently have one less kidney, while the recipient has one more kidney than they had before the exchange.

In contrast, Transformational Giving suggests that the giver, rather than being diminished, is actually enriched as a result of the gift, literally transformed from one thing into another, as God infuses the giver’s assets with grace.  The motivation and reward for giving is not martyrdom or to fulfill a civic or religious duty, but the transformation, the change from the one substance into another.

Additionally, this metaphor reduces the donor to one who donates, and thus perpetuates the notion of a professionalized nonprofit sector, in which the professionals at the nonprofit organization do all the work, and the amateurs sit on the sideline and “donate” in lieu of direct participation.  In Transformational Giving, we advocate that “champions (those who champion a cause) connect with organizations for the purpose of enhancing their mutual impact on the cause, not primarily for the purpose of funding organizations to impact the cause on their own”. 

Therefore, the champion is equipped and trained by the organization to do the work of the cause in their own sphere, not to stand aside and pay someone else to do it for them.

2. Patron/Artist.  The history of patronage is one in which wealthy and ruling classes supported the arts through commissioning works for specific purposes.  For centuries, and in different parts of the world, this system played a critical role in the advancement of the arts.

However, movies such as Amadeus and The Girl with the Pearl Earring dramatize the dark side of the patronage system.  In these stories, the artists (composer Mozart and painter Johannes Vermeer) feel intense pressure to compromise their artistic ambitions in order to satisfy the paying customer, and both are manipulated professionally and personally by their patrons, who recognize fully their authority.  At the end of the day, the patrons are paying for a service, and they will demand deliverables in exchange.

In the nonprofit analogue, nonprofits commonly suffer from “mission drift” as they stray from their core competencies and calling to chase after new sources of funding.  Or, they fall under the undue influence of their “major donors” who make demands that the organization feels obliged to meet.

Additionally, organizations feel compelled to thank the heck out of their patrons.  After all “without you, we could not conduct this very important work, and thousands would be forced to rummage in dumpsters, searching in vain for their dignity, etc.” 

Oh really? If your nonprofit organization ceased to exist tomorrow, there would be no other entity—no church group, no government agency, no complementary nonprofit, no disorganized, ad hoc band of citizenry-- who would gather together to pick up the slack? 

3. Investor/Business.  The “investor” metaphor has all the problems of the ones already introduced, plus a few more.

The practice may have fallen out of vogue recently, but there was a time when everyone from Peter Drucker to Max Depree to the intern at the water cooler was advocating that what the nonprofit sector really needed was to adopt practices and methodologies from the business sector, including the introduction of the concept of donors as investors. 

Now I can almost guarantee that I’ve worked for more dysfunctional, poorly managed nonprofit organizations than almost anyone, and therefore I can't deny the need for sound management in the nonprofit sector, but still, the nonprofit is not a business, and the champion is not an investor. 

Here are two reasons why:

a.    Businesses have accounting methods to determine a bottom line, but nonprofits do not.  Investment decisions are illuminated by profits, which can fairly easily be accounted by determining what was spent versus what was earned.  But nonprofits have an accounting problem, which is, how are we to determine the value of an international relief agency saving a starving African village, versus the value of a Chicago after-school program that prepares poor minorities for college, versus an arts program in New York that involves senior citizens in producing short films to enrich their lives?  Is it better to reach 1,000 teens for 15 seconds with a message about teen abstinence through a radio broadcast, or to mentor one teenage couple through an unplanned pregnancy?  There is no way of determining financial answers to these questions, therefore an “investor” has no useful information for making a sound investment.

b.    Investors are consumers, and consumer mentalities are not always conducive to growth.  We are all very accustomed to thinking like consumers, and if someone we’ve hired fails to perform, we take our business elsewhere, as we should.  But if you are learning something, it’s not always best to move on at the first sign of frustration or discontent.  Greater gains are often realized in the long run when we submit ourselves to the authority of teachers, and persevere in the learning process even when we don’t understand or agree with their methods.

4. Friend/Friend.  This metaphor of “friendraising” has taken root in recent years, and requires its own post.  So watch this space next week!