Set Free to Be Stronger

Do you ever feel that fund raising is draining?  Stupid question, right?   Maybe the better question is: Is it possible to do fund-raising without it draining the life out of me?  The answer: YES!

The next few posts are draw from a great article you can download for free by Henri Nouwen called The Spirituality of Fund-Raising.

The foundation of his teaching is in the love of God.  In the love of God we find what we need, and what we can give to those in need.  The nature of love is to give. Nouwen shows the common ground for the one who receives gifts and the one who gives gifts is God’s love.

Early in the article he addresses the idea of asking without fear.  This can be done because of the common ground is God’s love.  We can ask without fear is rooted in the fact that giving is a God-thing, not a people-thing.  People only give to others as a result of the image of God in them.  Without the image of God we would all be selfish (more selfish than we already are). But as His creation, made in His image, we love because of Him and giving comes from loving.  So, ask without fear!

Nouwen goes on to say,

“When we have gained the freedom to ask without fear, to love fund-raising as a form of ministry, then fund-raising will be good for our spiritual life.”
 

Wow, there is a lot to unpack from that statement.

• One: We can gain a freedom from Christ to ask without fear.  How liberating!!
• Two: Did he really say LOVE fund-raising??  He did!  We must see it as ministry.  If I love to be included in the ministry of God, then I can love fund-raising as part of His ministry.
• Three: It will be good for me!  The ‘good for me’ part is not because I get funds, but because my own spirituality needs it.  He said, “good for our spiritual life.”  My spirit grows in Christ as I minister for Christ.  Fund-raising is ministry. Therefore, I can do it in freedom, knowing it is ministry to Christ and to others. This liberating outreach then makes me stronger in Christ.

You do not have to be drained by fund-raising!!  Due to the common ground of God’s love being a giving love, you and your champion can be stronger at the end of the funding because when God is at the heart of our ministry all involved get TRANSFORMED.

Giving is for the Birds?

If ravens can feed the prophet, ( 1 Kings 17), and Jesus can makes the rocks sing His praises (Luke 19), is it possible we do not think of ourselves in proper perspective as to what we offer God?  After we give our offerings we feel good because we helped a need.  Truth is God could send birds to do it.  After we leave church and we have sung our hearts out we feel good about ourselves, when in fact rocks could have done it. (Please keep reading, this is not going to be as cynical as it sounds.)

Don’t get me wrong, God blesses the giver and the worshipper, but perhaps not for the reasons we think.  Many think we are blessed because of what WE did.  But God says our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64).  So our blessing is not because of who we are or what we do.  Our blessing is because of who He is and what He does.

The blessing is a result of participating with God in His work and becoming like Christ through His grace.  So the blessing is not based on the action but the heart.  Many at church sing God’s praises with a heart like a rock.  Others give to the needy with a heart no more bent toward God than the ravens.

The blessing is a result of pursuing God, not the pursuit of the blessing.  So when we pursue God “all these things shall be added unto you.”  I had a New Testament professor in college who was famous for repeating his favorite phrase to every class.  He always taught us to “reach for the Hand not the gift in the Hand.”

TG is not about what I am up to and not about what the charity or organization is up to.  It is about what God is up to.  In Eric Foley’s blog he makes a refreshing observation about what God’s focus is.  Even the title of the entry from May 13 speaks loudly.  The title is What Troubles God is not What We Do but ourAstonishing Lack of Interest in What He Does. Eric has this helpful insight at the start of this post:

Our contemporary spiritual myopia is most clearly revealed in our obsessive and endless debates about whether God is more focused on our actions or our beliefs.

Answer: Neither. Instead, God focuses on whether we are focused on ourselves or on him. He delights in those who are focused on him…

 

Giving, serving, living, are all to be focused on Him.  This fact from God’s word is so freeing.  I do not have to ask myself if I can afford to give, or if I should serve.  I simply have to ask God what He is up to and then dive in head first.

If God is giving through the birds, then I would rather get in line with the birds than be in a line where God is not.

Looking up

An old hymn celebrates that when we turn our eyes upon Jesus the things of this world grow ‘strangely dim’.  I often think of this line in times of trouble.  But reality is: this truth needs to be lived regularly not just in hard times.  Think how life on a daily basis changes for the believer when the day is spent looking up to Christ.

There is a small book on giving called Plastic Donuts.  Jeff Anderson is the author and he tells of the joy he and his toddler had one day when she gave him the plastic donuts from her play kitchen. Watching the joy she had as she looked in his face as she gave him these toys donuts changed his view on giving to God.  One quote from his book says,

“After the plastic donut encounter I had with my daughter, my views on giving changed. I saw more clearly why the joys of giving seem so elusive. It is hard to experience it without looking up to the Father. Often instead of looking up with my gift I was looking down.”

That’s when the word to the old hymn hit me.  Turn my eyes upon Jesus in all I do, and the things of this earth will dim. In other words LOOK UP into the Father’s face.

Teaching TG and living it can help people look up to whom they give, not down to what they give from.  Look up to Christ not down at the check book.

Maybe look at it this way…in finances we always look at the bottom line.  That’s ok we need to see the bottom line (I am a bottom line kind of thinker myself). But to see the bottom you always have to look down, that’s why it is called the bottom.  May God help our giving to be turned upside down and we look up first before we look down at the bottom line. 

You know Jesus already taught us to turn our thinking upside down in the Sermon on the Mount.  Let’s do some upside down thinking in giving as well.  Rather than the bottom line determining our giving, allow God to determine our giving.  Look up first! Instead of a bottom line giver become a topline giver. Turning our eyes to Jesus will dim the things of earth, even the bottom line.  So when you give, look up.

Teach "First Fruits"

I had the privilege of attending a leadership conference this month.  Good stuff.  There were a lot of seminars on fund raising.  I was encouraged to actually hear the word “transformation’ used frequently.  There were many seminars with good principles on TG.  It was great to get affirmation that TG is the right track. Several presenters were helping others to see the TG is not about the agency or the project but about the giver.  So I was encouraged as I learned more.

 

Unfortunately there were also some discouraging seminars as well.  For example one had a lot of TG talk, but no TG action.  The data they encouraged you to gather from the giver was being done in the name of relationship building, but the purpose was to just get more money.  But there are lessons to be learned even in the ‘transactional’ seminar.

 

I learned that the purpose is the key!! I learned that we must walk-the-talk and not just talk-the-talk.  The talk of TG cannot be artificial.  The goal must remain focused on ministry to the giver, and trust in God to give the increase.  This focus helps us not be phony.  This purpose must be revisited daily to keep it genuine.

I also learned the need to keep the focus on the ministry not the money.  Focusing on ministry means I help the giver stay focused on the depth of God’s work, not the depth of their pockets. One presenter mentioned our biggest competition is the rising cost of gas and milk.  I humbly and whole heartedly disagree.  If the focus is on God’s ministry and the champion’s role in ministry, we need not panic when gas prices go up. The Bible teaches that giving comes from our first fruits.  I was discouraged with the talk on disposal income and how the rising cost of living eats away at disposal income which means less money for ministry.  If the ministry of God is based on what is left over, we are all in trouble.  But I believe that the ministry of God is done with the first fruits.  And God honors the champions who give their best.  Since when is God’s work restricted by the price of oil and milk?

 

Since TG is based on the theology of God’s abundance and not a God of scarcity, the champion’s disposable income is not the issue.  Focusing on disposable income reduces giving to a choice between the movies or giving. The champion does not have to decide between giving or going to the movies.  The reason:  when giving is done out of obedience it is an issue of stewardship, giving from our first fruits.  So when all bills are paid and the champion has $10 left in her pocket she is not torn between the movies and the ministry, because the ministry was already  ‘paid’ with the first fruits, not the left overs. Transformational living frees giving from being disposable.

Restore the Joy

Scott Rodin has written a short novel called, The Third Conversion.  It is a quick easy read based on the move from being transactional to transformational in giving.  He shows how this shift in the life of the giver impacts the needed shift in the life of the fund raiser.

The book is an enjoyable story reflecting the principles of Transformational Giving.  It is a helpful example of how you may be able to change your conversations with those who give.  He shows both good and bad encounters.

Following a bad encounter, Rodin has one of the characters of the story dissect what went wrong.  He observes that the reason the encounter went wrong was opportunity was missed.  Not the opportunity for the gift but an opportunity for ministry.  Here is what he says, “We had the opportunity to help them recover the real joy of giving in a God-pleasing way, to develop hearts that are rich toward God and blessed in their giving.”

What I love about this quote, is the focus on the “joy of giving”.  Do you believe God’s Word when He says it is more blessed to give than receive?  Every Christian worker I work with says yes to this question. Do you believe there is joy in giving? Again the room says yes. However, a good number of those who need to raise support back off the money question when talking to champions.  So if you back off the money issue, but you believe it is more blessed to give, then is it fair to say you may be in a position of robbing the champion of a blessing by not addressing the opportunity to give.

Maybe we do this because we do not see giving as a joyful event.  Perhaps we have approached giving as a “tax” not as a gift.  It is April and it is tax time.  Those who owe wait until April 15 to send in their forms.  I have been in churches who approach the offering time like a tax payer approaches April 15.  Let’s stop this attitude.  Giving is a joy. 

Two things can happen to change this way of thinking. 

• First, start with yourself.  You become the cheerful giver.  Experience the joy of giving personally.

• Second, pass the joy on to others. (You cannot pass on what you do not possess.)  Teach others about the joy in giving.  Help them recover the joy of giving in a God-pleasing way.

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.

What to Measure - Part 1

In Transformational Giving the question of what to measure always comes up.  One thing we know is we will always measure income in fund raising.  But since TG is about moving champions deeper in their journey and commitment to the cause, should measuring the journey be as important as measuring the income?  And if so how do you measure it?

There are two different resources I have come across that have helped me learn about measuring.  Each resource points to the need to measure BOTH.  Income measurements are important, but so are activity measurements

One teaching about measurement comes from Steve Moore in his book, Seize the Vuja De. Moore discusses a ‘gathering’ matrix as opposed to a ‘scattering’ matrix.  The gathering matrix is what we take in, i.e. gather.  It measures things such as: How many people attend church?  How much money did we collect?  How many souls were saved?  Etc.

 The scattering matrix is different.  It does not focus on what comes in but what goes out, i.e. what we scatter.  It may measure activities such as: How many people from our church shared their faith this month?  How did we invest our income to impact the Great Commission?  How many believers did we training in evangelism? So we shift our focus to what is coming in to what is going out.

The beauty is, if we are effective in scattering it impacts what we gather.  This may sound familiar since the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 9 that those who sow generously reap generously.

Another resource that mirrors Moore’s ‘scattering’ matrix comes from the 4 Disciplines of Execution.  The authors of this book mention lag measurements as opposed to lead measurements.  Lag measurement measures what has already happened. It is called lag because it is after the fact and can no longer be influenced. This is a similar concept to the ‘gathering’ way to measure.  Lead measurements are different.  They are fluid and can be influenced because they are measurements of activity during the process not the results at the end. 

An example from the book is airline safety records.   The lag measurement is 100% of the planes landed safely.  But how do you get these lag measure results.  Well you have a pre-flight check list that you can control.  This checklist is measured while it happens.  And when done properly it produces the desired result.  So the ‘scattering’ matrix you measure is not the number of planes landed safely, it is how many pilots are properly doing their preflight check list.

So for a church, ‘scattering’ measurements may look like this:  Not just how many pastoral visits the church staff made, but how many church members are being equipped for visitation and doing visitation. 

This entry is the ground work.  The next entry we will look at how all this can impact measurements in TG.