A shout out this morning to Tom Davis, CEO of Children’s Hope Chest. Tom’s first fiction book, Scared, goes on sale today. Tom’s previous books, Red Letters and Fields of the Fatherless, are both good reads for Transformational Giving practitioners.

Tom’s book coming out reminds me to encourage you to check out Children’s Hope Chest’s 5 for 50 site for a great example of an E (Engagement) level champion development strategy.

5 for 50 nicely lays out five lifestyle dimensions of champion involvement. It also embodies one of the hallmarks of E-level development, namely, that when a champion reaches the Engagement level it is virtually impossible for those around the champion to be unaware of his or her commitment to the cause. That’s certainly operative here.

One suggestion for improvement for this strategy as its laid out on the website:

After laying out the five lifestyle dimensions of involvement requested of the 5 for 50 champion, there is but one link, which leads to the donation page. The (clearly unintended) message that’s potentially conveyed to the champion?

The financial piece is the piece we care about the most.

Tom’s books demonstrate that nothing could be further from the truth for Children’s Hope Chest, which is why turning each of the 5 commitments into a drill-down link that offers further information and tools for each undertaking (and dropping out the separate/additional donate link) would more accurately convey the intent of the strategy while moving beyond challenging champions to equipping them via the site.

Regardless, a great Engagement strategy for growing existing champions.

(Side note: I would not recommend 5 for 50 as a Participation strategy for recruiting new champions. It’s not that it wouldn’t work–I’m sure the strategy draws its fair share of new champions–but rather that it’s better suited as a strategy for equipping champions to move from participation to engagement. You’ll note that one of the five commitments–inviting five people to join you on your journey–is a great embodiment of the Transformational Giving principle that new champion recruitment is the responsibility of existing champions, not the organization. And going on a journey with a committed friend is itself a great P-level step for a new champion. Great P-level steps, after all, are short-term, high touch, high yield, understandable with reference only to themselves, and synecdochic.  You can read more about creating effective P-level steps here.)