Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

Even seasoned practitioners of Transformational Giving lose their way sometimes.  Whenever I do, I return to the TG definition.

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. Read MIF VP of Training Eric Foley’s post on the TG definition here.

That word ‘collaboration’ is the one that differentiates TG from most other fundraising.  Collaboration is the start of the PEO road.  And ultimately, collaboration with God is how champions are nurtured and grown on their road to full maturity in Christ relative to any cause.

But here’s the problem.  Most champions are asleep at the wheel.   They are suffering from Sleepy Champion Syndrome (SCS) — a contagious disease they might have caught from you.  Are you permitting or encouraging champions to participate in your cause with little or no collaboration?

Are your champions awake to God’s calling for them or are they sleepwalking? Is your development program based on enabling your champions to interact with your organization while on autopilot? The harsh reality is that many of the secular fundraising practices the Christian nonprofit community has embraced are poor impersonations of donor development.

Think about it — opportunities to sign up for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), monthly receipt packages full of information about what the organization has accomplished, fundraising events that parade big names across the stage while hoping to collect big checks in return for the show — your champions can do all that in their sleep.

But God intends more for them. He has meaningful work for them to do.  Yes, even heroic work that will transform them. But your champions can do nothing heroic while sleepwalking!

EFT has always bugged me a bit, but now I know why.  EFT is the epitome of autopilot. Sign on the dotted line and watch my funds transfer to the organizational bank account.  I don’t even have to think about it.  But, isn’t thinking about my giving part of the point?  Some may say that EFT is a helpful tool for champions who need to learn to give more regularly. Granted; for some the discipline of regular giving may equal growth. But, when it is automatic, I fear the tradeoff is too steep.

With EFT, I can delude myself into believing that I’ve done something good. And to some degree, I probably have given the statistic that the majority of Americans give less than 3% of their income. But giving more than most Americans won’t transform me. With EFT I don’t even have to write the organization’s name on a check, let alone speak to a homeless person, share my faith, or challenge a young woman to consider alternatives to abortion. Those activities may all be somewhat scary but they are also very enlivening because they require collaboration with God and an infusing of His grace. 

EFT is just one way champions catch SCS.  So, dear ministry leader, I implore you, don’t be party to permitting your champions to sleepwalk. Determine today to wake them up and offer them meaningful opportunities to impact your cause. If you do, I predict that they will call you on the phone and ask for more.

Looking for a place to start?  One of the best ways to snap your champions out of autopilot is to change the way you respond to their gifts.  Our workshops this month on Thanking and Receipting and in July on banquests will challenge you to consider ways to wake up your champions. Register today.