As if to underscore yesterday’s post on orienting concerns–those ‘worries’ that we bring to every question of theology and fundraising–there was a really clear illustration of the orienting concern of traditional/transactional fundraising (ttf) in the great post yesterday on Beth’s Blog related to measuring the fundraising impact of social media like Facebook.

TTF fundraisers twist in the wind when it comes to figuring out Facebook and Twitter and other social media because even telemarketing and door-to-door fruitcake sales are often still more potent income generators for nonprofits than Facebook. And this is a problem for ttf’ers, since as Betsy Harman is quoted as saying in the piece:

It’s still all about building relationships, telling your story, and taking potential donors through the process of cultivation, stewardship and solicitation.

There’s the orienting concern of ttf–organizational finances–rearing its head again: Everything is measured against its potential to generate income for the organization.

The challenge is, nowhere more than with social media does such a goal drive ttf adherents to drown in sorrowful and desperate tweets. Social media is tenacious and consistent in its resistance to this kind of income calculus. Yet ttf fundraisers can’t ignore that ‘everyone is doing it’–getting involved with social media, that is.

Social media simply resists to the core of its being you and I ‘taking potential donors’ (yikes! What a phrase) through ‘the process of cultivation, stewardship, and solicitation’.

Hard to ‘take’ anyone anywhere on Facebook or other social media. It’s a media that relies on giving something–in the case of our work, giving mentoring, counsel, networking, and interesting opportunities to connect with others to do with others what they can’t do on your own. Giving without thought of return because it’s in service of the cause.

TTF fundraisers totally understand the concept that social media requires a gift mindset. They just for the life of themselves can’t figure out what to do with it.

From Beth’s Blog yesterday:

The other thing to remember is that a lot of social media culture is built on the ‘gift economy:’ the notion that it’s a good idea to do things that are just good ideas. There’s no expected return when you do someone a favor, or when you take time to share research for free. You realize that it’s making the whole environment richer with your unique participation — you don’t expect anything else from it.

The problem for ttf devotees is that at some point they have to make things shift from the organization making a gift with no expectation in return, to the other person making a gift back to them. One always runs the risk of smacking of insincerity when you expect nothing on the way to expecting everything.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, in other words, are virtually impermeable to the orienting concern of nonprofit financial health. People on Facebook, in other words, could care less about the financial health of our nonprofit.

On the other hand, TG’s orienting concern–Is the champion/partner being shaped comprehensively in the image of Christ in relation to the cause?–is tailor-made for social media. Social media opens up opportunities to coach champions that are unlike any opportunities we’ve ever had before.

And we can port all of our TG agenda onto social media without Facebook friends feeling like we’ve baited and switched them. We can (and should) even talk openly about how to give to advance the cause, because our orienting concern is helping the champion comprehensively impact the cause, not the financial health of our nonprofit. People will actually appreciate it when we can coach them in how to use all of their personal and corporate assets to impact the cause.

At the end of the day, social media measurement is one more demonstration of the potency of TG when compared to ttf. TTF is left to hem and haw about how social media builds ‘social capital, goodwill, and influence‘…but it can’t figure out how to put that in the ttf fuel tank that only runs on dollars.

TG, on the other hand, is completely comfortable in the social media environment, since it’s designed to allow us to give all the things we are called to give: coaching, accountability, and opportunity.

Now having exposed the lack of clothesiness of the ttf emperor in relation to measurement, we turn next week to what the Bible has to say about measurement (an astonishing amount, actually) in order to ask:

According to scripture, what does God want us to measure anyway?

That’s the question that needs to drive TG measurement–and the answers turn out to be things that, while nothing short of spiritually revolutionary for us as Christian nonprofits, are remarkably do-able from a practical standpoint.