Are $$ the sign of success?

What a silly question to ask fund raisers...are $$$'s the sign of success???  Of course they are.  But wait.  Perhaps that is not the best question to ask.

Let's start with a more basic question before we jump to the jugular.

Are you doing fund raising or are you doing ministry?  If your fund raising is not part of a deeper ministry, this blog is not for you.  This is not to condemn anyone. This is just a different approach. Different is different not wrong.

So, if you are still reading,  I am assuming you answered...I am doing ministry, not JUST fund raising.

If you are doing ministry then stewardship/giving is part of the work but not all.  Therefore in TG, getting dollars is only part of the story not the entire story. Here is one way of setting goals my development teams uses in training.  This helps see the entire story and go beyond dollars to ministry.

If support raising was a college course,  what would an “A” look like?  No one takes a college course without getting a syllabus in order to know what to do to get an “A”.  All the work done in the class is done with the final grade in mind.

 

So here is what the syllabus might look like.

Fund Raising Syllabus

Goals of class

1.      Mobilize current champions to deeper involvement

2.      Enlarge team with new champions for The Cause

3.      Hit budget (Doing 1 and 2 will lead to #3)

How to accomplish class Goals

Plan

·        Fund raiser set goals for their work

·        Identify Champions activity according to PEO

·        Identify a few champions to work on migration goals with them

Implement Plan

·        Activity must align with class goals

·        Activity needs to align with CMS principles

·        Activity needs to be regular!!!

Evaluation

·        Success is measured by the goals of the class stated above.

·        Monthly identify what is working and what is not.

·        Evaluation is done collaboratively with a coach.

Transformational LIVING

As I travel and teach Transformational Giving, either in the US or internationally, I continue to see the common theme in this teaching that rings true for every believer.  That theme is based on the activity that comes in living for Jesus when He has transformed the heart. When Christ has transformed the heart, the believer gets active.  This activity comes in a variety of ways based on the touch of the Spirit in the believer’s heart, but none the less, activity happens.

This is why Transformational Giving is about so much more than dollars.  Giving the dollars is a small part of living a life that reflects the transformational work done by Jesus in the heart of a person.  What God gives is the power to live a transformed life that becomes active for His Kingdom.  Giving of dollars is critical to God’s work, but it is only part of the story.

I recently read something in Andy Stanley’s’ new book Deep & Wide that helps clarify that ‘doing something’ is key to our spiritual walk.  He says,

“Jesus taught for a response. He taught for a life change.”

Life change…is this not another way to say Jesus taught for us to be TRANSFORMED.

Stanley goes on to say,

“He (Jesus) didn’t come to simply dispense information….Jesus was after active, living, do-the-right-thing faith.”

Jesus was after change in living not just change in thinking.  Jesus renews our mind, but if the renewing of the mind does not change the actions of the follower, has the mind really been renewed?

You can learn that God is a giving God.  You can learn that to give reflects Jesus.  But if you never become a giver yourself, how has this knowledge you’ve gained changed your heart?

I am not a fund-raiser.  But I called to assist others by helping them live transformed lives for Jesus Christ.  And I love seeing people reflect Christ.  Giving is a KEY part of reflecting Christ, so I am more than comfortable with teaching about giving.  This is far different from fund-raising. 

Basic fund-raising is about the dollars.  Too often it is about the dispensing of information and not about seeing change.  Transformational Giving is about the donor not the dollar.  It is about teaching activity, about teaching the “active, living, do-the-right-thing faith.”  So when all is said and done, TG is only a part of teaching others about Transformational Living.  If you want to call this fund-raising, I am fine with that. Because when lives are transformed TG happens, and this is the kind of ‘fund-raising ‘I can get behind.

What to Measure - Part 2

I want to follow up from the previous post by joining Covey’s’ lead measures’ in 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) to Moore’s ‘scattering matrix’ in Seize the Vuja De .  Let’s see how these concepts reflect each other in what we measure.

A goal in fund raising is the income.  So this is the lag measure: what you measure when you are done. It is also a gathering matrix because it is what you take in. But we said “A goal in fund raising is income”, not THE goal. In TG the goal is greater than the dollar amount; it is lives transformed through giving.  Hitting the dollar amount is a portion of the goal and the easiest to measure.  But in order to measure transformed lives we have to have lead measurements that help us see if we are scattering the message not just gathering the money. 

In the 4DX book one example is a lady who is a top seller in a shoe store.  The statement made about her is, “The manager knew what she did differently.  She would get lost in the customer’s world.”  This lady would notice what the customer was wearing, offer options to fit their style, ask what they did for a living, etc.  In other words it became about the customer’s need for shoes not the stores need to make sales.  Sound familiar. 

TG is based on the need of the champion not the need of the agency.  If this principle is key in the selling something as temporal as shoes, just think of the importance this principle can play in helping someone in their discipleship journey of giving.  TG happens when it is about the champion’s bottom line not ours.  The beauty is, God then adds fruit to the agency’s bottom line when the champion is transformed. 

So you have a budget to raise.  Your board or someone is monitoring the bottom line.  But what should you monitor.  In TG with a scattering matrix let me suggest a few items you and your leaders can be measuring:

-        Did my encounter with that champion leave them richer than they were before, i.e. Did it add value?

-        Did I give the champion what they need to get involved?

-        How many have I equip to tell others about the outreach?

-        How many of my champions testified that they shared the outreach with someone else?

-        Are people passing on what they learn?

-        How many champions are moving forward in their discipleship journey, i.e. How many are migrating from Participation to Engagement, Engagement to Owner?

Granted, this list is harder to measure than the bottom line.  But remember the bottom line is not just to get funded.  Part of the bottom line is to grow champions for the Cause. So we also need to keep in mind, how many we bring with us on the journey, not how many report back to about the journey.

I would love to discuss these measurements.  Drop a note if you have a comment or question.

Growing

Transformational Giving can pop up anywhere.  In the last post I mentioned Paul Borthwick’s book, Western Christians in Global Missions. As I read this book I see Transformational Giving principles popping up all the time.  But this is only because Transformational Giving has far more to do with our spiritual walk than just giving our money.  As believers we are to live transformational lives (some call it The WholeLife Offering).  So TG is one key component of Transformational Living.

 

Borthwick reflects this truth in a chapter of his book called “Sacrifice-Not Just Generosity”.  He touches on the old truth that is “it is often easier to be financially generous than personally sacrifice.” (page 143. Western Christians in Global Missions). This truth is a big reason I am an advocate of our giving being transformational and not simply a transaction between parties. 

 

Borthwick goes on to say that issues facing the world today are not solved by generous checks.  They are solved by long-term work and sometimes sacrifice for the endeavor God has laid on our hearts. To illustrate this teaching Borthwick uses examples that are straight out of a ‘Participate-Engage-Owner’ type thinking.  Let me give you a few quotes he gives as examples in his book.

In our world long-term sacrifice grows as we get involved.  It can progress

·        From dedicating thirty minutes a day to pray for the nations of the world, to building cross-cultural friendships, to going to serve in a multicultural organization

·        From going on a short-term mission trip to reach children in a poor barrio, to supporting a child for forty dollars a month, to becoming a social worker dedicated to serving children.

 

You can see how these examples reflect the teachings that TG gives in regards to moving our champions from participants, to a level of engagement, to being owners of the cause.

 

A key word for our spiritual journey and in TG that Borthwick uses above is GROW.  Growth is a long-term venture.  One-time shots at it do not make it happen.  I do not plant new grass seed and expect to mow my lawn the next morning.  Our activity in God’s work must grow.  And what is planted today does not bloom by morning.  However, with work, progress and maybe even sacrifice we see fruit in the long-term.  So don’t bail out early.  Stick with your champions and be the example for them that long-term activity in their cause is where the growth is.  Help them Own it.

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!!!

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.

Help Get a Champion Started

Getting started can sometimes be the hardest part. After all once an object is in motion is it easier to keep it going. A big question for funding today is getting the ‘bodies at rest’ in motion. How do we get the person who is not even at the Participation level to get going?

With all the fears today about money and budgets, small steps can become a helpful way for new givers to see that their faith in God is not misplaced. However the small step in giving must be linked to relationship or discipleship if it is to help the champion move from getting involved to staying involved.

The other day I met with three young men who have a burden to be part of the solution. One mentioned he has always had a burden for missions and has supported missions. However he is not at a point that he can give funds regularly. (Unfortunately many ministries make the champion feel if they cannot give regularly they are not ‘on board’. This is unintentional but it tends to happen.) So he did what we want every champion to do…he found others ways than just dollars to give. He created a website with a vision to help others like him to start a pattern of giving.

Here is a part of his story… A missionary was visiting him once and mentioned that one of his methods of evangelizing was buying guys coffee and talking faith. So the champion said, I could help pay for one of these coffee meetings. The missionary said this would be a huge help and from this small idea the champion was being part of evangelism on the other side of the world. Then this got him thinking, what about the others from my generation who could help in similar fashion. So a website was born.

http://www.forafriend.com/ is a website for the champion to get started. They can pledge a gift, like a cup of coffee, a DVD, a Bible etc. Then from this site the champion hears back from the ministry telling them when the gift was used. Also the site gives the champion opportunity to drop the ministry emails and encouragement. It has the tools built in it for transformational giving. In other words, the gift can become an opening for discipling the champion to greater things in the Cause.

One Size Does NOT Fit All

The last three post we did a flyby of the three levels we can disciple donors/champions in the cause. We have champions who are at the Participation level, Engagement level and Owner level. Now as we think of the champions in these levels of their journey, we begin to see that our communication cannot afford to be a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Think about the champion who is an owner of the work. They assist in funding, they rally people for prayer and even get others to go on a team or volunteer. Now think of the newest members of your support team. They are just learning the ropes of what is means to be mission active. The idea of being involved on a regular basis is still churning in their mind. Should these two types of champions receive the same communication? Not if the communication is speaking into their need not your need.

TG is about the need of the team member and equipping them for the journey. Most champions are in one of these three levels of activity. The time has come to write communication in at least two, if not three different ways. One letter needs to target the “P” level champion with challenges for them. The second letter could be a letter combined to target the “E” and “O” level champions. This letter is more involved and shares deeper aspects of the ministry and how the champion can continue to be an impact.

Each communication needs to incorporate a challenge. Certainly the challenge to the “E’s” and “O’s” would be different from the challenge to the “P’s”. A good starting point to move your fund-raising into a transformational giving focus is to divide your champions according to their level of activity and then target your communication accordingly. This then reflects the champions need and where they may be in their journey. Now you become a part of their growth in the team and thus we see the discipleship of giving impacted.

The days of one mass newsletter to all level champions, ie. one size fits all, needs to be a strategy of the past.

Moving Forward

We see that Transformational Giving has a discipleship element to it as the giver grows in her relationship to God. Any move of obedience deepens our walk with Christ, giving does this as well.

In TG we see there is progression in this discipleship journey. In the next few posts we will touch on a possible way for the institution to track and strategize with the giver to actually disciple him in giving.

For those who are regular readers of Eric Foley’s blog these next few posts may be review.

At WGM we define the movement of the giver, or champion as we call them, in three stages. The first stage is what is called a PARTICIPANT, or simply “P” level. This is the champion who usually works with you at the follow level:

- Project level
- Short term
- High touch/High yield
- Understandable without knowing you or the agency.

An example is the Christmas Shoebox Project you may do at Christmas. My church does these and the large majority do not even know that Samaritans’ Purse is behind this. It is a single project that is very short-term. It is easy to do with high involvement from the champion.

Another example may be a mission agency’s work team member. They go do a project. It is short-term, maybe two weeks. The project is very high touch and high yield as well. And a team member can go to a mission field and help missionaries without really knowing much about the agency they work with.

Every ministry needs “P” level activities to engage champions. Everybody has a role they can play and the “P” level activities are great levels to get involvement. TG will not happen without involvement that goes beyond check writing.

Perhaps a good exercise is to identify the “P” activities you offer the champion.

Don't work for just tips

Money is not the end all gauge to successful Transformational Giving but it is a big part of it. After all ‘Giving’ is in the title so finances must be a portion of the measurement for success.

In the magazine Outcomes David Willis discusses what he calls a Vision for Generosity. In this issue he distinguishes between what he calls ‘tipping’ and giving. Tipping happens when we simply exchange information. So tipping is the equivalent of an offering for you after a service. Then you leave the church and that is all you ever hear from the church and their members. The offering sometimes is just a ‘tip’ for coming. The tip is based on your ‘service’. (Pun intended). Good service good tip, bad service bad tip. Tough way to fund a ministry uh?

Giving is more than tipping. Giving happens when participation and engagement occur. Giving goes far beyond the dollar. The dollar is part of it but it goes further. It is action based not spectator based. It is relational. We are developing people not accounts. Your account is a portion of the fruit but not all. (ie. Transformational Giving) Remember, works produce fruit, not fruits produce work.

I would encourage all of you to read the Fall 2010 issue of Outcomes magazine. It is all over Transformational Giving.