Transformational Giving Doesn’t Need a Donor Database. It Needs a Life-Caching Service

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Ten months ago I did a series of video shorts on YouTube detailing the ins and outs of database development for Transformational Giving. I was so honored by the response, which mainly consisted of people emailing me and asking me if I had cancer, given that I lost fifty pounds since the last video I had recorded.

(And no, I don’t have cancer. I just stopped eating after dinner, and I make sure to exercise daily, even when I’m on the road, which is most weeks. Seriously, that’s it. It’s worth checking out the difference in the videos as my own personal Jim Morrison transformation in reverse.)

Though most technology pieces tend to have the shelf life of banana pudding (which I was apparently eating a lot of while recording those Mission Increase training videos), I think the database video content has worn well and continues to be quite relevant and watchable.

What has changed, however, is that in the YouTube training videos I was waxing prophetic about what a Transformational Giving database would look like, since none as yet exists.

That’s still true, but we’re definitely getting closer to the day when the TG database of the future becomes the TG database of the present. You just have to know where to look.

And the answer is, not in any fund raising magazine, God bless ’em.

That’s because Transformational Giving differs from traditional transactional fundraising in kind, not degree. So you kind of have to look elsewhere to find software that’s built to help nonprofits and their champions collaborate together to build publicly oriented pages that track champions’ progression to full maturity in the cause.

That’s why I was so excited to read the post at Springwise about a new “life-caching service” just entering Beta. From Estonia.

Now in beta, Estonian myHistro is designed to help users create and share stories from their lives with friends and family. Users begin by signing up with the free service either directly or through Facebook. From there, they place events from their lives on a timeline and a map, indicating other people who were involved and whether the story is private or open for sharing. They can also write a story summary. Photos and descriptions of events can be added for illustration, and friends involved in the story can add their own impressions. The result is a joint narrative that can be saved and replayed at will over time.

Before you plunge headlong into leading all your champions to set up their life-caching database pages at myhistro, let me spin you this cautionary tale:

I was going to personally illustrate how a champion’s record could be done TG-style in myhistro, and I figured it would be sporting for me to do this by setting up my own. I found the interface to be quite intuitive, and in just a very few minutes I had laid out my own story in quite impressive fashion–using photos, maps, and narratives to detail my path of growth in Christ–so far–in the Work of Mercy of remembering the persecuted church.

Then the site crashed and I lost all my data. My story disappeared down an Estonian sinkhole.

I guess that’s why they call it “beta.”

Anyway, even if it’s more vision than reality at this point, it’s a good exercise for you to visit and maybe even try to set up a record of your own. Maybe you’ll have more success than me.

But even seeing it–and spending a few minutes remembering through a social media record like this how God has guided Mrs. F and me in our own growth in one particular cause–leaves me hungering for a stable database platform like this to emerge, whether from myhistro or another quarter.

But I will continue to channel that hunger into blogging rather than banana pudding, since I already went down that road before, and it’s murder on one’s video presence.

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Against Random Acts of Kindness (But Only For the Kindest of Reasons)

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Pastor Foley

“Everyday Philanthropist” Nicole Bouchard Boles (whose Philanthropy For The Rest Of Us blog I always enjoy) reminds us that today marks the end of National Random Acts of Kindness Week.

To celebrate, I purport to write this, an upbeat, positive, hope-inducing, decidedly uncurmugeonly post entitled “Against Random Acts of Kindness.”

Who could possibly be against random acts of kindness, and why? It’s kind of like being against puppies.

Let me suggest three reasons, along with links to posts I’ve previously written that talk about each of the reasons in greater detail:

  1. Want to impact the world and yourself through giving? Then do not do more random acts of kindness but instead do fewer acts more deeply. Instead of paying for the Egg McMuffin of the car behind you in the drive-through, adopt a child, forgive (or pay off) another person’s crushing debt, or reconcile with a hated family member.
  2. You will no more become a kinder person through random acts of kindness than you will become a physically fit person through random acts of exercise. Instead, commit to predictable, recurring acts of kindness. It’s a much more likely inducement to transformation.
  3. Give to others a portion of everything you have personally received, and only what you have personally received. Each time you give you will be reminding yourself what a fortunate person you are, and you’ll be reliving a gravy day. Don’t “pay it forward,” in other words; instead, pay it backward–giving because you have received and giving a portion of what you have received.

(It might be tempting to think that random acts of kindness are the first step into a life of predictable, recurring giving, but–let’s be honest–a lot of times it ends up being an inoculation against further generosity, just like going to the gym once a month can often be followed by a celebratory swing by Coldstone Creamery because “I’ve earned it.”)

See? Not a curmugeonly thought in the bunch. Go hug a puppy, and then let’s see if we can make every week Predictable And Recurring Acts of Kindness Week.

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What is Your Nonprofit Against? Here’s My Own One Word Answer…

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Pastor Foley

I liked Scott Goodson’s What Is Your Brand Against? post today in HBR so much that it leapfrogged the whole stack of other things I liked about which I had planned on writing. A quick excerpt should suffice to infect you with equal enthusiasm:

Here’s a modest suggestion: If you really want to show the world what you believe in and stand for, how about telling us what you stand against?

Recently, my agency StrawberryFrog launched a new campaign for smart car that was rooted in this kind of oppositional thinking. We understood that the smart car brand stands for some pretty good things: efficiency, economy, reduced environmental footprint. But put way, it sounds rather dull and predictable.

By defining instead what smart is against — over-consumption, excess, thoughtless behavior — we began to craft a statement with more of an edge. As we boiled down the idea some more, what emerged was a simple yet powerful declaration of principle, stating that we are “against dumb.” It felt a little more gutsy and provocative than your typical ad line, which may be why the campaign immediately drew press attention. At the same time, by giving customers something to rail against (everything from gas-guzzlers to oversized Venti lattes), the campaign created a vocal community of smart car advocates. In a short period of time, the brand more than quadrupled its audience.

Of course the temptation of the nonprofit and church sector is to respond with predictable enemies, e.g., Our organization stands against hunger… Our church is steadfastly opposed to sin… We stand against illiteracy in all its forms.

True but hardly shocking stuff, that.

And it’s true that in many ways it comes so naturally to us nonprofit and church types to talk about what we’re against that we’re often faulted by the world for it. “”You Christians are so negative. You’re anti-everything. And you definitely hate gay people.” In fact, an ad campaign from the United Church of Christ played off this very tendency quite successfully (watch sample “banned” commercial here).

But isn’t this all the more reason to think carefully and creatively (and, I might add, with greater theological precision) about what we really are against?

“Love the sinner and hate the sin,” for example, is a fascinating quote from Mahatma Gandhi, not Jesus, and I’m not sure it’s ever caused anyone to respond by saying, “Ah–thanks! That really clears things up!” and nodding knowingly.

And by saying that we are “against hunger” (or illiteracy, or halitosis, or a whole host of other ills), have we really distinguished ourselves at all? Who, after all, is for hunger?

But if we were to say, for example, that we are against the defacement of the image of God in human beings, we’d perhaps enter into a far more interesting conversation about hunger.

So take a few minutes today to think about what your nonprofit–or you, or your church–is against. I found the exercise quite stimulating and clarifying, ultimately concluding that what this blog is against can be stated in one word:

Professionalization.

Or, to be a bit more long-winded, this blog–and the Whole Life Offering branch of the Transformational Giving family tree–is against the professionalization of ministry, which, among other things, has led a generation of nonprofits to conceive of fundraising as asking for money to support their professional ministers and ministrations.

In contrast, this blog proudly contends, with Ephesians 4:11-13 as its rallying cry, that all Christians are called to full maturity in Christ, with Christian leaders tasked by God to serve the Holy Spirit in that equipping. It contends still further that fundraising should be fundamentally rethought as a way of raising a pool of funds that individuals and groups draw on jointly to finance their shared endeavors to further the cause, with organizations (churches and nonprofits) serving as platforms for, not the doers of, those efforts.

Feel free to practice in the Comments section, below, about what your own organization is against. I’ll be happy to give you feedback on your effort.

And I promise not to “love the poster and hate the post.”

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