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.