Do the Word

Big day here in the Foley household. Below you’ll find the press release that will come screaming across the wires today. I imagine I’ll be on Larry King by nightfall.

This blog won’t change, but my W2 form now has.

It’s surprising how little changes with this move, really. It gives me more time for consulting and writing (thank God–my book on Transformational Giving and churches is due out early next year, which means I really really REALLY need to start writing…any day now…). And I need to spend the summer thinking through the next step off the TG cliff in training for nonprofits and churches. All of this will be a hoot, and I hope we’ll get to do it together, you and me.

In the mean time, as I say hello to my cool new role at Seoul USA/.W, let me say the warmest of goodbyes to my colleagues at Mission Increase. It was genuinely, sincerely, unabashedly great fun. I am grateful for your blessing this new endeavor and will look forward to continuing to navigate and map the great ocean of Transformational Giving with you even as we sail for distinct new adventures. There be dragons there, but what fun would it be were there not?

Seoul USA/.W Announces Foley as New CEO

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Co-founder Eric Foley joins staff as “international ambassador of Transformational Giving”

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (June 7, 2010)—Seoul USA/.W, the international consulting firm for nonprofits and churches, announced today that co-founder Rev. Eric P. Foley has been named Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Foley joins Seoul USA/.W co-founder and President Hyun Sook Foley and Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel Matt Dubois on the organization’s three-person Executive Committee.

The appointment coincides with his resignation as Vice President of Training at Portland, OR-based Mission Increase Foundation.

“As CEO of Seoul USA/.W, I have been afforded the ideal platform to expand my writing, teaching, and consulting work to encompass churches and the international NGO community, even as I continue to broaden and deepen Transformational Giving practice and theory with nonprofits in North America,” Foley announced. “It means a great deal to me that I have the support and encouragement of Mission Increase Foundation to pursue this new role as international ambassador and advocate for the Transformational Giving principles and practices we developed together during the time I served as MIF’s Vice President of Training.”

“We appreciate Eric’s contributions to Mission Increase Foundation in his role as Vice President of Training over the last 4 years and the many nonprofits that he has impacted through his training,” said Dave Farquhar, Mission Increase Foundation President. “Mission Increase Foundation looks forward to continuing to develop Transformational Giving curriculum and encouraging nonprofits and helping them grow through our granting and training programs. We congratulate Eric in his new role with Seoul USA/.W and we also look forward to working together with Eric and Seoul USA/.W in developing and spreading Transformational Giving to new constituencies across the world.”

Seoul USA/.W

With offices in Colorado Springs and Seoul, Korea, Seoul USA/.W provides consulting to equip nonprofit organizations and churches to coach their constituencies to full maturity in Christ in the causes they represent. Foley’s blog is available at www.ericfoley.com.

Mission Increase Foundation

Headquartered in Portland, OR with offices in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Colorado, and North Carolina, Mission Increase Foundation (www.missionincrease.org) is a charitable foundation that transforms lives for Christ by providing grants and free training to Christian nonprofit organizations.

Here’s a news flash so old that it’s available on microfiche down at the county library:

[H]ouseholds in which members volunteer for charitable causes or at their church give more than twice as much money to charities than households with no volunteers.

That statistic comes from research undertaken by Independent Sector in 2001.

Why cite a statistic that is older than the lunch meat in our refrigerator at work?

Because the report was a tree falling in the forest that nobody heard.

And it still falls on deaf ears today.

Think about it:

• The single greatest differentiator between a person giving a lot or a little or even nothing at all…is whether they volunteer.
• Want to increase the amount your donors give…by FIFTY PERCENT? Get them to volunteer.
• Did you hear that? A FIFTY PERCENT INCREASE!!! What other tool or technique or strategy offers that kind of return?
  • Not wealth identifier indices.
  • Not underlining words the right away or leading with the right headline.
  • Even a 10 to 15 percent increase in your fundraising results over the previous year would be heralded as a hugely successful fundraising campaign. But FIFTY PERCENT??? Get out of here. That’s fundraising hall of fame level stuff.

Here’s the weird thing:

When Independent Sector published their report on that 2001 study, they didn’t even highlight that stat. They buried the proverbial lead, as it were.

So it’s not surprising that ten years later, most fundraisers still have never heard of that study.

So we quote it again here, in hopes that someone will notice.

Happy birthday, Independent Sector study. Here’s hoping that by the time you turn twenty, we nonprofits will have gotten your message.

I mentioned in my previous post that I was in SoCal emceeing a banquet for With This Ring last week. While there, I heard the best banquet speaker I’ve yet heard, Stan Patyrak from Living Water International.

I wish I had taped his five minute message (isn’t that why I paid $79 for that Flip Camera for anyway?), but there’s a clip of Stan on YouTube that will give you an idea of the brother’s content and cadence.

Learn two things from Stan:

1. The most powerful part of a speaker’s presentation are the pauses.

When you review a speech ahead of time with the speaker, don’t, um, just review the speech. Help them mark it up to note where they need to pause. Pausing electrifies a room. Stan does it less on the YouTube audio, but at the With This Ring banquet, people were hanging on his every pause…not his every word.

In the words of Sam Harrison, author of ideaselling (thanks for the link, Joanne Fritz of About.com!):

A few years ago, Edward Norton and four other actors participated in a discussion at the Directors Guild in Manhattan. The panel quickly adopted a rotation, with each actor commenting on film-related topics. When Norton’s turn, he would always pause before speaking. The audience awaited his words. Norton’s comments were no more profound than those of fellow panelists, but the pauses positioned him as the group’s sage. For your next pitch, pause before starting. Lock eyes with audience members. Build anticipation. Capture their complete attention–then begin.

And, banquet emcees, this sure beats you saying, “Alright…everybody…we’re gonna start now…if I can just get your attention, please…gonna start now…and, uh…everybody?”

2. Focus your speech on the cause, not the organization

Almost every banquet speech I’ve ever heard ends up being a paean to the organization hosting the banquet, e.g., “And that’s what’s so great about With This Ring”. In contrast, listen to Stan’s YouTube remarks. Note how delightfully little he talks about the organization he represents, Living Water International.

“Living Water,” says Stan, “is just a small part of this bigger thing called the Gospel.” But the main thing I want to talk about, Stan continues, is the question, “Why are people poor?”

Which topic, do you suppose, answers a question Stan’s listeners are asking on an ongoing basis?

1. What is Living Water International and why are they so wonderful?
2. Why are people poor?

Fascinatingly, I’ve only ever encountered Stan speaking at other organizations’ banquets. Brother doesn’t focus on promoting Living Water.

What banquet could you be at–what banquet should you be at–to promote the cause of which your organization is “just a small part of this bigger thing called the Gospel”?

Maybe you should call up the nonprofit that does almost exactly the same thing you do and offer to speak at their banquet [editor’s note: not about your organization, ya nut] or record a testimonial about their impact.

When you do, don’t forget to pause.