Take the Guilt Out of Giving

A lot of financial appeals are motivated by guilt.  “If you do not give up your candy bar and pop, 3 children will die today.”  “Without your giving, I will not be able to go tell others about Jesus.”  And so on.

We have all heard them; maybe we have even said them.  But were they correct? Or should they have been said?  I struggle with the transference of guilt and knowing if it is even accurate.  But philosophy aside, let’s look at this method of funding up against the goal of giving being transformational.

In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 many of you know the servant who did not reproduce for the master was called wicked.  But note the attitude of the servant.  In Mt 25:25 he expresses his feelings about the master.  He was AFRAID of him. His whole motivation was not for change but self-preservation. 

Giving out of guilt is an act of self-preservation.  It says less about the lives we want to change and more about our desire to feel better about ourselves, or too relieve our bad feelings, or too calm our own fears.

Personally I do not feel guilt driven appeals are part of transformational giving. Rather as we grow in Christ we see giving as part of our discipleship journey.  So the desire to be Christlike drives giving.  If our giving is based on guilt, once the child is sponsored and the guilt is gone so is the giving.  But if the giving is reflective of the journey with Christ then the sky is the limit.

Dr. Steve DeNeff is his book SoulShift speaks to the servant in Matthew 25.  He shows the attitude of the wicked servant is one of a consumer not a steward. The consumer sees God as stingy and harsh and hopes to be blessed while hiding in fear.  The steward sees God as gracious and giving and wants to be a blessing to God.  This is a major difference.  The steward does not give out of fear or guilt, but out of relationship and blessing.

More About Stories?

It seems every time I turn a page in regards to funding these days there is something written about telling stories.  That’s ok, Jesus was a story teller.  We know we need to tell true and good stories.  I think the reason we see so many articles written about story telling is because so few do it well.

 

Nothing new has been written about telling stories that the generations before us did not write, but as with the any good truth, it needs taught repeatedly.  I came across yet another good piece on the role of stories in giving.  It mirrored teaching in the principles of TG so let me share it on this blog since the purpose is to advance the teachings of TG.

 

The article comes from ECFA.  It is by Bill Frisby and Dave Rippey.  They give 5 broad categories in helping people tell stories. One guideline they give is particularly in sync with TG.  It is this, “(A good story) places the giver into the ministry as an active participant.”  Great TG teaching.  The story is not just about you or your ministry, it is about the champion and his/her role.  The champion as a giver is part of the story.

 

Another well-defined need of what should go into your story is also highlighted in this article.  The authors show us that without Christ there is no story!  So the story must include the fact that nothing can be accomplished without God being a part of the story.  The end result is not the ministry, not you, not the champion…the end result is What Is God Doing!!!   Then we are responsible for following God and to be found doing what God is doing.

 

If you get caught doing what God is up to, guess what??...you will be transformed! God’s stories are the ones to tell to see people changed in their walk and in their giving.

As We Go

I came across an interesting challenge from our TG friend Eric Foley in his blog on discipleship. The focus of his blog entry was on not doing all our discipling at retreats or over a cup of coffee.  But rather imitate Christ and disciple people as you go.  Take people along and let the example you give on the journey be part of your discipleship training.

 

For example in the last few years of my time pastoring a church I stated taking some of the church members with me to hospital visits.  I did not train them to visit the sick; I just took them with me.  We all learned a great deal by doing it together.

So now let’s take this same principle and see how it fits TG.

The ‘programs’ we are seeking to fund (missionaries, sending agencies, rescue ministries, churches and para-churches) all have the same opportunity to bring people along in their transformation.  We can do this through imitation. 

Rather than just teaching about the powerful changes of the local soup kitchen, take them to the local soup kitchen with you. Rather than just teaching the church attender the power of visiting the sick, take them with you to visit the sick.  For a missionary serving on the other side of the world you may say, “I cannot take all my champions to the ends of the earth to experience the outreach.”  True, but remember serving the world with a servant’s heart is at the core of the Great Commission.  So show a servant heart serving with them. Seek ways to serve the champion not just for the champion to serve you. 

Allow your service to be a reflection of what you are teaching them when you do meet for a cup of coffee or speak from a pulpit. Reach out to others together. Serve as you go and imitate the heart of Christ to the champion.

Basically we can take people deeper in their journey of transformation by getting our hands dirty and doing it with them.  In this we are discipling by example and using our actions for opportunities to reinforce the principles we teach.  Seeing us practice what we preach as we go is a key way to getting the message out of the building and into the street.

What's Your Story

I receive emails called McKaughan Musings.  Paul McKaughan is a mission expert, author, speaker, over 40 years of mission experience and writes for www.MissioNexus.org.

His latest email was on leadership and getting people to follow.  In this email he made some key comments that apply to TG.

Paul speaks of storytelling.  Here is one quote that really applies to TG and getting the champion involved,

“...if I can see how I can participate in the story, that really gets my blood flowing.”

Did you see what he says?  His personal participation gets him excited. Our stories must include participation.  Without the listener seeing his or her involvement, it risks just being another feel good moment that does not last past the evening news. 

He goes on to say, 

"I want to hear a story of how the world will be different, not merely how your mission will be different."

We need to take this to heart. It is not just about you the speaker, or about just John Doe, the listener, but stories should be about real change for Christ’s Kingdom.  Changes we can work on together. This directly relates to TG principle #4

A champion connects with an organization for the purpose of enhancing their mutual impact on the cause, not only to support the organization’s impact on the cause.

  

Paul gives a list of great questions that can be directly applied to your TG strategy.

• "Does the story require God’s action?"  - It better be bigger than you and the listener, because if we do it without God it is not His.
• "Is the story about the future, or merely a replay of a glorious past?"  - A story of the past is valuable if used in a way to reflect the plan and need for future work.  If it is just the past with no vision of the future, put it in your memoirs, but do not share it in champion raising.
• What are the stories people tell themselves and each other? – Think about this for a moment.  This is my favorite question. It sparks me to think of these questions. What stories do you hear them telling each other?  Is it a story that others will talk about?  One thing I have seen...if the story shows the need for God, displays vision for the future and includes ways for the listener to participate...people WILL TELL others!!!

Retention is the New Acquisition

Retention is the New Acquisition.  This is a quote from a good article in the Agitator, Flat Earth Fundraising: Catch & Release Fishing.  This is a quote we need to hear.

I work mostly with missionaries; there are a few churches and colleges, but mostly missionaries.  Missionaries may have mailing lists of 350, 500, 700 people.  Just think if a mailing list of 500 people all gave $15 a month.  This would be $7500 in monthly giving.  That would be $7500 per month without getting one new team member.

However the individual raising funds who has 700-500 names on a mailing list is the same one who says, “I need new donors and new methods for new donor acquisition.”  The response should then be, “You have a data base full of champions waiting to go deeper. Work to retain and migrate this group before we go fishing for more.”

In the same article the author touches on that some of our ‘churning out’ methods on our donor mills to get new donors simply leads to destructive patterns.  So instead of churning more and more what if we increased what, Adrian Sargeant and Elaine Jay call, donor loyalty.  They say, “Increasing donor loyalty by 10% today, increases lifetime value of the fundraising database by up to 200%.”  In TG language we would say…migrating/discipling champions in their journey of giving is the equivalent of increasing loyalty. 

So if increased loyalty of 10% produces an increase in lifetime value, think what adding the spiritual element of Transformational Giving will do for the believer seeking to follow God’s will.  Funding is not to be snatch and grab, or catch and release, but an act of faith in God.  The fund-raiser who is not focused on catch and release is the one who cares more for the giver than the gift, thus avoiding a destructive method of “churn and burn.”

I want to suggest before we start looking for more ways to raise funds, we first improve current relationships.  Care for the champion. Reciprocate loyalty. And share the discipleship journey with the person giving.  All of which will strengthen retention. 

Would you raise funds if you did not have to?

What if your agency hit it big?  What if a gift came in that positioned you as such that you would not have to fund-raise any more?  If this type of gift came in would you still do fund-raising? Most I ask this question say, “Are you kidding?  No way.”  Maybe this is why God does not give us these types of gifts? 

If giving is not about the gift but the giver, then why would we ever stop fund raising? 

Look at the feeding of the 5000.  Why take the boy’s lunch to feed the crowd?  Just have the people hold out their hands, say a prayer, and a loaf of bread and a small fish appear in everyone’s hands.  But this is not what Christ did. People ate because someone gave.

God created the system of giving.  Check out the Levites in the Old Testament and see how God chose to take care of them.

Knowing that God wants us to give, helps lighten the burden of fund-raising. Using TG can transform the burden from being one of “I have to do this for my ministry account”, into a burden for others by thinking, “I need to do this for the spiritual development of others and myself.”  TG teaches the biblical truth that giving is part of our spiritual journey.  So exempting people from an opportunity to give would be like exempting one from being a witness for Christ.  The follower of Christ is to be as much a giver as they are to be a witness.  You may be God’s instrument in helping the believer to develop his walk in Christ through giving.

3 Simple Questions

There can be three easy questions you can have in your mind to help know the level a donor/champion is in his/her transformational journey. To refresh your memory of the transformational journey and its three levels of activity, Participant, Engaged, and Owner, you may need to click the level and see how these are defined.

The individual who is involved and begins to participate has answered the question:  “What can I do?”  This is the entry for us all.  We need to start somewhere.

The Participant who begins to ask, “Who else should do this with me?” is ready to function with the cause at the engagement level.  The sphere of influence is now getting bigger than the person and the project. 

The Engaged champion whose actions reflect the question, “Who else needs to know about this?” is now ready to be an owner and transfer the cause to others. Once the cause is being transferred, the individual has owned it is so much duplication begins.

It is really not hard at all to identify the level a champion may be functioning. Your role can be one to help the champion ask the next question to keep the involvement moving in a positive direction.  I fear some fail to disciple the champion because it seems too hard or cumbersome.  Hopefully these three questions help make the moving our champions simpler to understand.

Abandon Ship?

When it comes to money no one stays on a sinking ship.  It may be courageous for the captain of the Titanic to go down with the ship, but when we are talking bank accounts, and it looks like the financial ship is sinking, even the captain grabs a life boat.

In fund-raising many of our methods give the feeling that the ship is sinking.  Desperation sets in, we start using phrases like, “If you don’t…”, or, “without your gift I can’t…” The overall impression comes across as ‘the ship is going down’. Then we wonder why no one is inspired to give.  Would you want to board a sinking ship?

From Christian fund-raising to secular fund-raising the theme in teaching today is to stay positive. Negative impressions such as desperation, or ‘last push’ efforts lead to the conclusion that the ministry is in an unhealthy state. 

For those who strive to practice TG, being positive is not a gimmick, or a neatly packaged sales speech.  Rather, we are positive because our attitude is based in our theology.  That is, we believe in the abundance of God and we walk in a faith that God supplies our needs.  The ship is not going down.

Challenging people to give is a result of spiritual growth for all involved.  It is a part of ministry.  The giver sees that God is in control and provides for His work.

Being positive not only displays our faith in God, but also shows our belief in what we are doing.  If our needed budget is based in the activity of the ministry, then a positive image of the financial need displays the fact we are confident in the outreach.  When the funds are ministry active based and we use them for God, this allows us to confidently seek partners because it is not about us.

Don't Get Boxed In

Have you heard of the ‘4 rights’ in fund raising…the right solicitor, the right amount, the right project, and the right timing?

Well be careful because to make four right turns ends up making a square. Before you know it you are back where you started.  Do you ever feel that working in fund raising is always back to square one?  By that I mean, after the donor has given a gift you feel like you must start all over again to get a second gift.  Prayerfully, Transformational Giving can keep us from getting boxed in.

In TG the right solicitor is you with the Holy Spirit. So no one has to be excluded in seeking resources for God’s work.  TG is a God-thing.  Never do it alone.  Doing it with the help of God makes you the right solicitor.

In TG the right amount is not up to us!  The amount is a matter of obedience for the champion in relation to God.  Let God talk.   Challenge the champions to ask God for the right amount to give.  Let them see how giving is a spiritual discipline and like all spiritual disciplines, it is most effective when guided by the Spirit.  Seeing that the amount to give is up to God helps move giving beyond the budget and to the heart.

In TG the right project is defined by God.  Every believer has a role in the Great Commission.  Giving reflects the participation of the champion in the Great Commission.  I do recognize within the Great Commission there are causes; for example, helping orphans in China, or a clinic in South America.  God gives us all burdens and not all are the same.  So you may be talking to a champion that is not burdened to give to your call.  That’s ok.  As believers you and the champion share a burden for the Great Commission.  Celebrate that and assist them in growing this burden even if it not your cause.  Ask yourself, “Does my time with the champion discussing their cause advance the Kingdom of God?”  If the answer is yes, then allow God to bless their cause.  He will bless yours as well.

In TG the right time is now.  With giving being a matter of faith and obedience, the time is always now.  This attitude can help replace desperation with urgency.  We are not desperate for funds if we believe in the abundance of God.  However, the spreading of the Great Commission is an urgent matter.  There is a big difference between being desperate and working with urgency.  Desperation says, “I need the money now. So you better give.”  Urgency says, “They need the Gospel now. So let’s obey and work together.”

Faith vs. Stewardship

Faith versus stewardship?? Seems like a misguided battle.  You may be thinking these two principles are so closely linked that I have created an imaginary battle by even stating it.  Maybe. Let’s see.

My current role in fund raising is from the perspective of a missionary agency.  So let me speak to what missionaries are currently seeing in the realm of giving.

In the month of May I have had the same conversation, via email or office visit, with three different missionaries.  The conversation is based on the fact that churches have stopped giving offerings.  A few years ago when a missionary shared at a church, the congregation usually gave a love offering to the missionary to at least cover the cost of coming.  Now it is all too common for a missionary to speak and receive no gift for their time, travel, or ministry.  One missionary said in his last 15 services he received two offerings.

I must admit that as a pastor myself, I am embarrassed when missionaries tell me churches do not give an offering to at least cover the travel to get to the church, or to pay for the time they shared with the church.  After all, the Bible does teach us to pay a worker his wages.

But what has driven the church to not take an offering to cover the ‘wage’ of a speaker? Or what has driven the members of the Body of Christ to stop giving. Many have even stopped giving to the local church itself.

Several individuals have told me their lack of giving is them being good stewards of what God has provided.  I completely understand adjustments in giving when jobs are lost, or income is down.  However to stop giving in the name of stewardship is not biblical and it pits stewardship against faith. 

Stewardship is needed and a must as a follower of Christ.  But the Christian's stewardship is in place to maximize his/her giving to God not to minimize it.  The believer purchases clothes and cars based on what he can afford.  Stewardship is the tool to guide the spending habits of the believer.  The Christian principle of stewardship teaches us to count the cost and not spend more that we can afford.  But remember spending and giving are not the same!!

Faith goes beyond figuring if I can afford an item or not.  Faith says that in giving, the question is not “What can I afford to give?”  Rather the question is, “What is God telling me to give?”  Many have stopped giving in the name of being good stewards.  This is actually bad stewardship.
To stop giving is more a testimony about a person’s faith, not his/her stewardship.  Remember Transformational Giving Principle 1: Every act of giving is first and foremost a statement about the faithfulness of God

Even though it does not appear that faith and stewardship are opposites, misguided applications of these principles has too often pitted them against each other.  God’s desire is for our stewardship to be guided by our faith.  They are to work together.  God may regularly tell you to give more than you can afford, but it is not more than he can provide.  Therefore giving is a matter of faith.  Faith then guides our stewardship.  I would go so far to challenge you that stewardship without faith risks turning into stinginess.

Opening Up

This post is a follow up of the post on April 11, 2012 regarding the access of information available to our champions. A result of all this information being available we looked at the fact that the ministry agency/ church, now must put the information into context rather than just add more information to the pile.

The result of information being accessible is a desire (spoken or unspoken) of those who come to the church or the agency in order to serve to be part of an open system. So this begs the question, what is an open system?

For starters it turns the ‘seating arrangement’ around so that now the champion/donor/volunteer is the ‘performer’. Our friend Eric Foley describes it as allowing the champion to be on stage not the agency. So the focus changes from us to them.

An open system demands cooperation rather than exclusion.

An open system of ministry integrates the lay worker and professional worker in a way the recipients may not see the difference.

An open system is one of partnership not individualism.

I have grown up in systems that are not only closed systems, but also teach close systems. The issue is we live in a world that longs for open systems. It is not an easy switch but it must be made. Thankfully, in my limited experience, I am seeing many ministries I work with and several around me see the value of opening the ministry system to be inclusive and cooperative.

You know when Guttenberg printed the Bible the Church was forced into rethinking the dispersing of God’s Word. No longer did just the priest have the Bible. The Bible could now be in the hands of the lay person and they could gain knowledge without the Church. I am sure that was a scary shift for every priest. But who wants to go back to that. Praise the Lord we all have access to God’s Word.

Let’s see the shift in today’s information age with excitement not with fear. If we allow our ministry to shift from a close system were just the ‘pros’ do the work to an open system, we can be part of this new era of a ministry reformation.

What would an open system look like for your ministry?

Too Much Information?

“I know something you don’t know.” This familiar playground chant really is just the beginning. We all learned early that information is power. We may not say it in the same way as adults, but as we grow older the truth of information being power never goes away.

This is not to say it is bad. It is just true. How people use the power of information is what makes it good or bad.

In today’s world, power is accessible by more people than ever because the information is out there. With the web and blogs and whatever the next generation invents, we all know that being informed is not longer an issue. (Some champions in your ministry may have more info about what is happening than you.)

No longer are the ministry professionals the ones who have a ‘corner on the market’ of information. So when we do our web sites and brochures if all we are doing is spitting out info, we are not telling them much they do not already know. In an information age, our champions have information overload. If all we do is give more information we risk not moving anyone forward in their discipleship journey.

What is the role of the ministry in light of all the information out there? We have the opportunity to provide context for all the information the champion already has.

Let me give you an example:

John Doe lives in EveryTown, USA. EveryTown has the population of about 300,000 people. His mom, Momma Doe, lives in SmallVille, USA; population 5000. Momma Doe hears on the news about a shooting in EveryTown. She reads about it in the newspaper and sees it on the Internet. (Don’t kid yourself, Momma Doe does have Internet, I can prove it by all the forwards of cute little kittens she floods my inbox with every Monday.)

Momma Doe is worried her son John is not safe living in the ‘big’ city. So she calls to ask him to come home. Momma Doe has the information, and it sounds awful, but she does not have the context of the information. So John’s job is to put the information in context. He tells his mom that the shooting was not anywhere near where he lives and works. The shooting was in the drug district, it was the result of a drug deal gone bad, and it happened at 3:00 AM in an all night bar. So John will stay safe so long as he does not frequent the all night bar at 3:00 AM in the drug district and avoids getting involved in a drug deal gone bad.

John put the information in proper context.

Providing context is a great way to help your information sharing now move the champion forward. Once the info is placed in context we can begin to engage the audience at an equipping level that helps them know what to do with all their info. Most everyone has info, not everyone knows what to do with it.

So as you are moving someone forward in Transformational Giving and they say, “Why are you serving in that region, the information I read is that they all are evangelized?” You now have the opportunity to provide the context for the information.

The information a champion knows is not a threat to us, but an asset. First it shows they care enough to be informed, so jump on that and go on the journey with them to give context. Then help them act on what they know.

Transformed Philanthropy

“Russ wanted the Russell Berrie Foundation to make a difference, to make his philanthropy count,” said Angelica Berrie, president of the Russell Berrie Foundation. “Giving is not just about writing a check. It is a relationship between those who have the means to touch people’s lives and the causes that inspire their generosity. In the process, we are transformed by acts of loving-kindness.”

The above quote is from the Russell Berrie Foundation and their focus on transformational giving. Not bad stuff. However, let me challenge this statement by laying the Christian principles of TG on top of this.

I am not saying the quote from Ms. Berrie is wrong; I just want to tweak it. So let's look at it phrase by phrase.

• "Russ wanted the Russell Berrie Foundation to make a difference, to make his philanthropy count,” Good point, no one wants to think their giving was a waste of resources.
  


• “Giving is not just about writing a check.” Amen. More people need to hear this and believe it.
  


• “It is a relationship between those who have the means…” Here is where I would like to ‘beef up’ the thoughts of the RBFoundation’s idea of transformational giving. “It is a relationship”, I love that part. The statement about ‘people with means’ can be taken wrong if we are not careful. We all have means, not just the wealthy. Not the same amount to be sure, but if giving is not just about writing a check then transformation giving is for. Everyone has something to GIVE. (Check out When Helping Hurts to see that everyone has something to give.)
  


• “to touch people’s lives and the causes that inspire their generosity.” As this blog looks at TG we look at the Christina view point of giving being part of following Christ, so this portion of the quote takes a different turn when thinking of giving being part of our stewardship. What if we said, “to touch people’s lives in ways to communicate and inspire their generosity as an act of obedience to the teachings of Christ.” Giving is Christlike, therefore giving changes the giver in that it is a result of the character of Christ breaking into a fallen world. Also by looking at our generosity as an act of obedience it takes the focus off us and puts the focus on what God is saying and doing.
  


• “In the process, we are transformed by acts of loving-kindness.” So true, but as followers of Christ both giving and teaching about giving flow from God changing givers as a result of obedience. Loving-kindness is from God. This is why the act of giving is transformational.

Time Spent

You know how the Beatitudes seem to turn everything upside down: blessed are the poor, the meek and so on? Well, the biblical roots of Transformation Giving do the same.

One part of TG that seems to be the reverse from the norm is how we spend our time. We often think our time should be spent with the crowds and a lot of big meetings. In fact for missionary who travel to churches, often get discouraged when the crowd is small.

And what about those fund-raising dinners? We always want the numbers for these to be high. That’s ok. We want our church services and banquets all well attending: nothing wrong with that sort of thinking. But if that is where our thinking ends, then we probably are not doing very well fund-raising and we certainly are not being transformational.

I know missionaries who Sunday after Sunday have a full schedule of meetings with good crowds and yet they are under-funded. So the solution is...better find more meetings? WRONG.

Look at how Jesus spent His time. Did he spend time with the crowds? Of course he did. Did the crowds produce followers? Yes. But look at the time spent with the crowds versus the time spent with the disciples. And look at the time spent with the 12 and see how he even took more time to spend with the three, Peter, James and John.

The lesson here is not to ignore the crowds, but rather if the message is to go beyond the ‘wow’ of the public presentation, discipleship in smaller groups must happen. Jesus spent time developing a few to influence the many.

There is a lesson in this for TG. If all we do is focus on the crowds and meetings and never work to develop individuals in their journey we risk failing to be ministers to the giver, and become just offering takers.

I had one missionary couple tell me that the last time they were in the states to do fund-raising they only had a few Sundays off for the whole year and they did not get their budget raised. They asked for a new way to reach the champion this time home. We talked about TG. So in their first four months home from the field they focused on pouring their lives into 4 local churches that support them. They attend prayer meetings and lead small groups for these churches. As a result of their investing time in a ministry of discipleship they told me they have pick up over $400 of new monthly support. They have also had friends from the churches give them more personal referrals for new contacts than they had the entire time they were home last time.

Passion

I have not met many people who say, “I love to raise funds!” However, we all work among people who must raise funds. Fund-raising is often seen as the necessary evil. Many wish we could just skip it and get straight to our ‘call’. But God has not allowed me or most of you to find gold in the backyard, so we fund-raise.
What I love to do is communicate God’s Word. What a thrill to see the Word of God enter the heart and mind of someone and watch God use it to transform them into His character. In fact, when given the chance to share I do it with passion, because God is doing so many great things.

Here is an observation I received from a champion regarding passion and funding.

When I listen to the passion of a ministry presentation my heart is stirred. The presenter communicated so well what God is doing and I was on fire. Then they asked for assistance to help fund it and I was ready to get on board. But as they spoke about money, all the passion left and they became ‘squirrely’ and apologetic. I did not give. I thought to myself that if they cannot be passionate enough about my role in giving and are embarrassed by it, maybe God has another direction for the burden in my heart.

After hearing this I thought to myself, “Am I apologetic when talking about funds?” I shouldn’t be. Why? It is because God has called all of us to give. Giving is like any other spiritual discipline, it needs to be taught and presented with passion. Spiritual disciplines bring us closer to Christ. Giving is not any different.

I do not love fund-raising. I do love to communicate God’s Word. So I don’t fund-raise. I communicate God’s Word. God’s Word commands His followers to be givers. So I communicate the need for this spiritual discipline to be part of the believers walk. I can do this with passion. No ‘squirrely’ or apologetic presentations, but passion about the believer following the commands of Christ.

Their Story

Part of discipleship others is telling your story. Having a new disciple tell her story is a key part of the journey with Christ. In fact when you disciple people, you help teach them that they are now to be a witness. We teach them to tell someone else about Christ.

Look at Mark 5 and see what Jesus tells the man from Gadarene to do after the demons were cast out

18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed
begged to go with him. 19 Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own
people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had
mercy on you.” 20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how
much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

Jesus asks him to tell his story. The same holds true for when giving to God transforms our walk.

We spend most of our communication with donors and champions in telling them what God has done through their gift. Nothing wrong with this. This type of ‘reporting’ is good accountability. But it is one way communication. Let’s create two way communication.

The one giving to the ministry also has a story to tell. He needs to tell others how giving changed his walk. You have the opportunity to build a ‘stage’ for the champion to broadcast his story.

• Start by asking the champion to tell you her story.


• Then assist her in broadcasting the story. Perhaps tell the champion’s story in your next blog or newsletter.


• Finally coach her to tell this story she just told you to others.
  

Transformation is too important to not be talking about. It is also too big for us to talk about by ourselves. Get others talking. God likes it when we talk about Him!!

Safety Tested

In college I had a friend with a Volvo. Honestly, it was an ugly car, but his parents got it for him because it was the safest. Personally I would rather have a sports car than a safe car. Sports cars are good looking, safe cars, well, are not. Why does safe have to be ugly? I want both safe and good looking.

TG is both. It is good looking and safety approved. Let me explain.


What happens to giving when the economy crashes? We assume giving crashes too. But does it have to?

What if the champion’s giving is because they see the outreach as his or her own and not yours? For example let’s say the champion sees feeding the homeless as her own responsibility not the local rescue mission’s responsibility. The champion needs the local rescue mission to get the meals out, after all not many homes are equipped to feed a few hundred people a day. But the drive of the ministry is as much the champion’s as it is the rescue mission.
Therefore when the economy crashes the champion keeps giving because it is his call, her ministry. The ministry is a part of who they are because of what God does in the champion’s life through obedience. It is seen as the champion as a shared ministry.


When giving is a result of shared ministry it transforms the champion as much, if not more than the agency, mission, church etc. This is the ‘good looking’ part of TG. So when a champion is looking for a giving model to test drive, TG catches his eye like the sports car catches my eye. But TG is also safe in that it depends on God and His provision and is not dependent on the stock market or external economic influence.

TG is safety tested, because it works regardless. Multiple stories are out there of champions who give even in tough times not because the giving is done out of a disposable income, but because it is done in obedience to God. This is why it is important to build your giving on TG and why TG needs taught.

Eric Foley calls this ‘recession proof’ giving. I like that. My bank cannot even offer recession proof guarantees.

Sometimes it just takes a small adjustment

Be careful not to slip into transaction when the pressure is on to get to the funds now. The method of “10 more donors at $10 a month” can end up being just about YOU. This old method can become stale and ‘me’ focused quickly if we are not careful, because by itself it does not move folks to transformation. A few simple tweaks of this appeal can move this to transformation.

But before we tweak it let's look at the dangers of it without looking for transformation.

Dangers using this appeal in your newsletters:

• Keep in mind that the majority of the ones getting the letters (email) already give monthly so this type of appeal may be preaching to the choir.
• This appeal tends to be all about the missionary and not about the champion.
• This appeal fosters no involvement outside of cash.

So we need to move this appeal to transformation…

1. The time has come for the “O’s” on the mailing list to get different info than the rest of the list. For example the “O” can receive an email the week before the general email saying something like, “Next week we will be sending an update to the team. In this update we will be asking the team to rally together for the last bit of the financial part needed for the ministry in ..wherever.. Let’s join together in prayer this week as God prepares the hearts of those who will receive the coming update.” This now gets the “O’s” mobilized. Then they can also receive the general letter to so they can see it firsthand.

2. When the general letter goes out it needs to move people to action greater than giving. For example it could state, “For those already assisting in the financial goal of the team, ask God what may be next for you. If the Lord shows other ways you can help the cause we would love to hear what God is doing in your journey.”

3. When the general letter goes out it needs to focus on the team and the champion rather than language like “We need or I need only 25 more donors” The “I need” once again makes the champion a spectator not a player.

Example of the tweaks to the “We need only 25 more donors at $40 per month and we can get to the field.” appeal.

“As we all have been working these past few months to mobilize the Gospel for _____, here is an update on how we are doing. To have the ministry extend to _____, $$$$ are needed to reach the financial portion of the outreach goal. So as a team let’s trust God as we work together to see Him provide. One way God can provide is for this need to be shared. For example, the need would be met by 25 new champions at $40. Pray about what God would have you do or whom God would have you talk to about being part of the outreachto _____.”

This is just an example. There are several ways this could be presented. Maybe you could even attach to an email a coupon the champion could print and use to recruit others.