Two of my dearest friends and most respected colleagues recently paid a visit to the headquarters of a denomination that had in the past closed its churches to fundraising speaking opportunities from the nonprofit ministry my two friends represent.

Reason? The denomination only funds its own denominational projects, and support for those had been flagging. (Hmm… There’s a point to be made there somewhere…)

My two friends were visiting the denomination to share the nonprofit ministry’s shift from traditional fundraising to Transformational Giving.

‘We don’t want to come in to pursue money from your churches,’ said my friend to the denomination’s leader. ‘We really want to come in and help equip your churches to grow in this cause we share.’

He was cut off, however, by the denomination’s leader, who replied, ‘We all know you’re really just doing this to raise money.’

Wow! Talk about a challenging reply to field!

That’s why I always avoid saying to a partner or champion (or potential partner or champion), ‘I’m not here just trying to raise money,’ even though that statement is true. Individuals and churches are rightly skeptical of such an approach and will instead listen quite guardedly as they wait for the other (fundraising) foot to fall.

Or they’ll just cut you off and accuse you of rank dishonesty, as in the case of the denominational leader my friends encountered.

So how would I approach the kind of visit my friends made?

I would say this to the denomination leader:

According to Barna Group research, church members are shifting their giving away from churches and to nonprofits at an astonishing rate. Three years ago the average Christian was giving 84 cents of every donation dollar to the church. Today, that’s plummeted to 76 cents of every donation dollar, and the trend is accelerating.

I suppose it might be possible to try to stop this by blocking nonprofits from interacting with your church members, but I’m not sure how practical that is, since most nonprofits interact with folks by mail, email, banquets, and personal solicitation outside of Sunday morning. You might could take to the pulpit and discourage people from giving outside the church, but that might could backfire on you and strike your congregation as self-serving. These days church members are often more suspicious of church fundraising than they are of nonprofits, after all.

So one approach would be a partnership between your denomination and our nonprofit. Our approach is not to mine your churches like quarries. Instead, it’s to work with them to lay out plans to move their congregations to greater and greater levels of activity related to our shared cause. We’re quite honestly more troubled by the fact that the average congregation is more and more inert related to this vital cause than we are by whether a specific project of ours is funded.

So we propose laying out a plan with you denominationally as well as with interested local churches within your denomination where we help you work toward greater activity related to this shared cause. Giving will of course be a key part of that, since a mature cause-related program can’t be undertaken by congregations who don’t have a mature approach to funding. Fortunately we’re pretty good at that.

As regards funding for our own projects, as we draw up the plan with you and your churches and collaborate together on moving them to greater level of ownership in the cause we both share, we pledge to only bring up projects that are answers to questions that you’re asking–projects that you determine are important to enabling your congregations and your denomination to grow in full maturity related to this shared cause.

We think such an approach gives you the opportunity to reverse the trend Barna identifies, by making the local church the source of the best and most diverse set of opportunities related to this cause.

How would you feel about such an approach?

Not every denominational leader will say yes to such an offer, but should the trends Barna identified continue, I suspect that more and more will see the wisdom in this kind of collaboration and be willing to engage Christian nonprofits who are sincere in undertaking it.