Because of my role as co-founder of Seoul USA, I typically receive quite a few inquiries from people asking me, ‘How can I help North Koreans?’

• One inquirer asked about painting the churches of NK defectors in South Korea
• Another wanted to know if it was possible to sponsor underground NK churches in NK and China
• Another wanted to raise money to buy a truck for the NK folks who do our Gospel balloon flyer launches

These are all seemingly laudable intentions, and I know with certainty that they were offered with unmixed motives. The NKs are sorely oppressed. Who wouldn’t want to help?

Interesting thing, help.

As a general rule, we help those who were perceive to be less fortunate than we are. And because we perceive the individuals we seek to help to be less fortunate than we are, it colors the way we offer help and the types of help we offer.

The following questions would lead to two very different answers and courses of action:

1. How can I help the North Koreans?
2. How can I help impact the things North Koreans care about?

Transformational Giving (TG) is first and foremost a submission to what the Scriptures teach us about being shaped in the image of Christ. One of the coolest things about TG (and, more completely, the Scriptures) is that giving is grounded in identification with the recipient, not pity. For example:

• Leviticus 19:34 says, ‘The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.’
• Hebrews 13:3 says, ‘Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who were mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.’

Were modern fundraising letter writers to pen Leviticus 19:34, I suspect they would have written something like this:

Treat the alien well. After all, you’ve got a lot to be grateful for, and it’s tough being an alien. Here’s a tear-jerking story of an alien that will cause you to say, ‘Man, compared to this alien, I have no troubles.’ Your gift of $15.70 can provide education and shelter for one alien for a week.

And who wants to be a persecuted Christian? Modern fundraising moves us to help the poor persecuted folks. Interestingly, however, the call in Hebrews is to remember them as if you were there with them.

Identification. Not sympathy prompting help.

(And if you find yourself asking, ‘So you’re saying we shouldn’t help these folks???’, please scroll back up to the two numbered questions noted about a dozen lines back.)

Fundraising today is largely an effort to drive people to help, based on sympathy. Transformational Giving can be fairly thought of as an effort to encourage us to bear one another’s burdens, based on identification.

Eikenberry reminds us of one of the progenitors of such an approach in the nonprofit world:

Jane Addams, founder of Hull House.

Hull House was a settlement house in one of Chicago’s most menacing neighborhoods. Addams (who came from quite an affluent background) didn’t commute in to Hull House from the suburbs. She moved there. And she called others to as well, bringing ‘the affluent and the poor in contact with one another by attracting idealistic, college-aged, upper middle-class youths to settle in por neighborhoods or, at least, to volunteer some time.’

Addams believed that ‘social ethical action should be done through people working together cooperatively, rather than through individual action.’

How did that happen?

‘To move from an individual ethics to a social ethics, Addams believed, one must immerse oneself in the direct experience of life as lived by people of all backgrounds.’

In other words, the more we know people, the more we move from ‘helping’ them…to helping impact the things that are important to them, and to us, because they are important to God.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that your champions have to move into the neighborhood your ministry is seeking to impact (though it doesn’t necessarily not mean that, either.)

When I served simultaneously as pastor of an urban church in Houston, Texas and director of men’s ministry at a local rescue mission, I brought five graduates from the mission’s rehab program to live next to the church and become members of the congregation. (Interesting term, members.) I should have written a book about what happened as a result of that experience–what happened to the five guys, what happened to the church, what happened to my wife’s Mercedes (her sole remembrance of her affluent pre-Eric life as a fashion designer in LA), and what happened to me, too.

Or when I served as President of the Los Angeles Mission, identification meant shifting from serving a meal to the homeless (who, in such a situation, can only respond with a kind of bowing, scraping, obsequious gratitude) to preparing, serving, and eating a meal with homeless men, women, and children.

See, when we invite speakers to share their testimonies, when we send out direct mail letters with tear-jerking stories, we encourage people to sympathize…and to offer help accordingly.

But when we help the ‘helper’ and the ‘helpee’ to work together cooperatively on issues of joint concern, passion, and calling, we encourage people to identify…and to be transformed accordingly.

In what ways can your ministry help its champions work together cooperatively with the subject of your ministry’s cause on things that are important to God?

P.S. Check out this page of Hull House champions. From Leo Tolstoy to HG Wells, individuals were challenged and changed by partnering with rather than pitying the subjects of Hull House’s focus.