Last night when I and my fellow passengers aboard United Airlines flight 5830 were stuck on the Indianapolis tarmac for two and a half hours in a plane whose air conditioning was broken, WGM’s Tim Rickel texted me:

Start chanting ‘Passenger Bill of Rights. Flight attendants love that!

Passenger bills of rights. The brand new Credit card bill of rights. Even an Arena Football League Fan’s bill of rights. The concept of bills of rights that provide individuals protection from thoughtless and predatory practices by the organizations with which they do business is certainly gaining steam.

There’s even a Donor bill of rights, which, among the dramatic blows for donor liberty that it strikes, asserts that the donor has the right:

V. To receive appropriate acknowledgement [sic] and recognition.

Hm. That’ll change things.

The interesting thing about bills of right is that they are generally drawn up in situations where people recognize the need to protect a group considered less powerful from a group considered more powerful, usually in the context of a transaction. That’s certainly the feel of the donor bill of rights, which boldly and provocatively asserts that the donor has the right:

X. To feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful and forthright answers.

(Sadly, implementing that one would indeed be an improvement for many ministries.)

Very few husbands and wives draft bills of rights. Other than a few wacky websites, there are not many Christians’ bills of rights. And the one and only ‘friend bill of rights’ was posted on the web earlier this week.

(Pretty good piece, really, though the assertion that as her friend she has a right to ask you ‘to give/receive help moving, driving to/from the airport, and always a place to crash when coming from out-of-town’ does give me the briefest of pause for thoughts. But I digress.)

Generally, if a relationship is transformational (marriage, friendship, membership at a church) and it’s entered into voluntarily by parties, bills of rights just don’t cut it. Sure, they protect against grosser transactional abuses. But one tends to (or ought to) have higher hopes when one marries than avoiding grosser transactional abuses.

That’s why not many bills of rights are found in the scriptures. What is found therein, however, are covenants. What’s cool about the word ‘covenant’ (or berit in the Hebrew) is that it bespeaks two entities on the same side. Synonyms for the word include ‘league’ or ‘confederacy’–a far cry from anything gross or transactional.

Transformational Giving principle five says:

A Transformational Giving relationship between a champion and an organization is primarily a peer-level accountability relationship, not merely a friendship or a mutual admiration society.

A peer-level accountability relationship bespeaks a covenantal relationship, a league, a confederacy focused on accomplishing a cause. And that is indeed the nature of the relationship between the champion and the organization/development officer in a Transformational Giving context.

The simplest form of covenant between the champion and the organization is the champion map–the P/E/O (Participation/Engagement/Ownership) annual plan drawn up collaboratively that identifies the areas where, using the Scripture as a guide, the champion and organization discern that God is calling the champion to grow in the coming year. The implied covenant behind the champion map is this: The champion commits to the growth plan. The organization commits to holding the champion accountable to the plan as well as coaching the champion, with the grace of God, to achieve the growth envisioned in the plan.

(For more on creating champion maps, check out the Coach Your Champions website. Heck, you can even buy the book.)

But the concept of the champion/organization covenant goes even deeper.

A champion/organization covenant is not:

• a statement of faith
• a credo
• a mission statement
• an annual plan
• any one of the fifteen other things nonprofits are taught that they’re supposed to have and probably do but no one can find them because they’re never used

Instead, a covenant defines what and how champion and organization are holding each other accountable to in service of achieving the cause they both share.

Check out these two sample covenant-type docs from nonprofit ministries (neither of which, interestingly, refer to these as covenants, despite them being reasonably good examples of the same). Kudos to Mission Increase Foundation/Arizona‘s Jonathan Roe for the tip.

Note the nature of the language. It’s not a ‘Here’s what you’re responsible for; here’s what we’re responsible for’ approach. There’s no we/you split.

Further, unlike the Donor’s bill of rights, there’s more than money being comprehended here. In fact, the primary category is cause, not money. That doesn’t mean money doesn’t fall under the covenant. Far from it. It means that giving through the organization is the result, not the purpose, of the relationship.

Take a look first at this covenant from Son Life Ministries in Wheaton, IL:

1. Christ commanded me to make disciples–it isn’t an option.
2. Christ–through His life–modeled for me the process of fulfilling the Great Commission. Making disciples involves seeking the lost, establishing believers, and equipping workers: An ongoing balance of winning, building, and equipping priorities, programs, and relationships.
3. Dependence upon God–through his Word, prayer, and His Holy Spirit–is essential to fulfill my part in His Great Commission.
4. The Great Commission is my individual responsibility. In its most critical and basic form, the Great Commission is peer-to-peer, friend to friend and expands from me to the ends of the earth.
5. My love for God and for others motivates me to Great Commission living.
6. The church is God’s chosen vehicle to assist and equip me in the fulfillment of this God-given responsibility.

And how about this piece from our friends up the road at Denver Seminary?

1. We are committed to training people for diverse ministries in and alongside local churches.
2. We are committed to upholding teaching as the professors’ primary task.
3. We are committed to promoting the maximum utilization of faculty gifts of leadership and scholarship to serve God’s redemptive purposes.
4. We are committed to providing graduate level education in which scholarship is placed in the service of ministry.
5. We are committed to applying in the classroom adult education principles which wed relevant theory to the practice of ministry.
6. We are committed to employing biblical truth in critiquing and addressing cultures.
7. We are committed to fostering the moral and spiritual formation of students.

So why all the fuss about a covenant? Why add another document to write on top of the mission statement, vision statement, statement of faith, monthly bank statement, and statement to the press?

Because a covenant is your key to determining mutually with champions when they lapse…and how you will respond.

Tomorrow: the grand finale of our series on lapsed donors.