Do the Word

Since this blog is all about Transformational Giving, and since Transformational Giving is all about being comprehensively formed in the image of Christ through what God commends in scripture, and since scripture commends the practice of gleaning (i.e., giving the poor and the alien the opportunity to harvest leftover crop portions), we were excited to see a story about a young gleaner named Corinne Almquist on ABC News.

The story doesn’t quite hit the biblical bullseye in that Corinne Almquist is not herself poor but rather a surrogate who gleans the food herself and then provides it to the poor:

Ideally, people who take free food from a food shelf would help with gleaning. But “that’s really a time issue,” she says. “Many of the people using the food shelf are working multiple jobs and are already struggling to find time to cook and feed their families. They don’t necessarily have time to come out and help pick.”

In an economy with a 10% unemployment rate it seems like there’s room for some further thought on that one, but we’ll leave it alone for now.

What is worth ruminating about for now, however, is that the article says Corrine received a one year fellowship (from Compton Foundation Inc. in Redwood City, California)  to practice gleaning and spread the practice within her sphere of influence, namely, Northwestern Vermont.

Almquist’s quest to introduce gleaning is “quite inspiring,” says Ms. Snow, who is acting as her mentor for the fellowship. “She has tremendous energy and drive and sees her potential to make an impact.”

So my question is this:

What could happen if churches began to see themselves as Transformational Giving foundations, granting fellowships to champions in their congregation with tremendous energy and drive to spread certain practices of biblical giving within their sphere of influence?

At present, churches see themselves as recipients of donations and tend to hire giving consultants (for example, capital campaign consultants) for the purpose of getting congregation members to give more donations.

But imagine a church providing a one-year fellowship to an individual within the congregation who has been faithful to practice a particular kind of Transformational Giving (say, for example, Corinne and her gleaning), for the purpose of enabling that individual to devote themselves full time to growing even deeper in that practice–and to spreading that Transformational Giving practice within the church and the community? (And don’t miss the mentorship component in all of that, by the way.)

Corinne, interestingly, does not appear to have started a nonprofit gleaning organization; instead, she works directly with farmers and food banks, individuals and idealogues, to glean and to encourage others to glean, to offer gleaned food and to encourage others to eat it.

She even includes recipes with the turnips she gleans so that people will know what to use them for.

Once churches overcome their institutional survival instincts (which, while completely sensible, are not completely biblical), they will be set free to set others free through Transformational Giving fellowships. And when they do that, who do you suppose will benefit the most from that practice?

The church, of course.

As TG Principle  7 notes:

In a church-based TG fellowship program, the congregational Corinnes would influence, mentor, and grow the other members of the congregation, with the pastor and other leaders influencing, mentoring, and growing the congregational Corinnes. After all, wouldn’t it make sense for the pastor and other leaders, instead of spreading their time out to try to teach giving to the whole congregation who may or may not be ready, to teach the Corinnes who can then reach many in the whole congregation who can then reach many in the whole congregation–a far more effective progression?

That’s 2 Timothy 2:2 in action…and that’s the basis for the (yet largely untested in modern times) practice of Transformational Giving training and transmission in the New Testament.

When it comes to fundraising, there’s transformational, transactional…and aversional?

Just in time for your year-end fundraising, ThinkGeek is now offering the SnūzNLūz Wi-Fi Donation alarm clock:

The SnūzNLūz uses the very complex psychological phenomemon known as ‘HATRED’. Basically it’s human nature to wish harm upon your enemies. Similarly, it’s human nature not to give your enemies gobs of cash so that they can grow big and dominate the world with their totally wrong, stupid and invalid point of view. ThinkGeek realized that. That’s why everytime you hit the snooze button, the SnūzNLūz will donate a specified amount of your real money to a non-profit you hate. The problem of sleeping in is solved.

The New York Times notes that you can select from more than 6,200 hated charities (ThinkGeek suggests PETA, the ACLU, The Wilderness Society, the GOP, Moveon.org, and the American Coal Foundation.)

And it’s easy to setup and use too! Just plug your SnūzNLūz in and either connect it to your network via the RJ45 jack on the back, or via WiFi (WPA supported) if available. Then simply configure via the embedded web browser configuration utility. From here it’s a snap. Simply select your online banking institution from the list of supported banks (currently over 1600 are supported). Supply your login information and then select your favorite HATED charity or non-profit from the included lists (over 6200 currently supported). Then plug in your donation amount per snooze incident ($10 or more), set the time, and alarm, and voila, instant time profit!

For all those who know traditional transactional fundraising has run its course but are reluctant to coach champions transformationally, the third way has officially emerged.

Truth:

“Giving” today is less and less synonymous with “giving to a nonprofit organization”.

This is the challenge for groups like Holden Karnofsky’s GiveWell and Charity Navigator, which dream of a day when donors can consult objective rankings of charities’ real world impact (and, presumably, invest their charitable dollars accordingly).

The challenge, simply put, is that to start with nonprofits as a “given”–the de facto social impact vehicle–is an increasingly dicey proposition.

That’s because there are so many gradations of cause-focused networks today that donation-driven nonprofits are but one of dozens of organizational structures seeking to change the world. Asking the question “Which nonprofit should I give to?” presumes that giving money through a nonprofit is of course the way we impact causes.

But is it?

Check out the Synovate study of people’s changing attitudes towards money in the recession. 80% of the global survey respondents “believed their generation had a responsibility to leave their country better off for the younger generation, even if it involves dramatically altering their lifestyles”.

Before we nonprofits start salivating too much, keep in mind that nothing in that response indicates that those 80% believe that the best way to leave their country better off than they found it is to give to a nonprofit organization.

Astonishingly little research has been done to quantify the amount of giving that happens outside of nonprofit organizations…but in your heart of hearts, do you really doubt that it dwarfs the most optimistic calculations of the money that clinks and clatters through 501(c)(3)s?

Thus, I want to introduce the concept of the “cause cloud”. Drawn from the concept of cloud computing, “cause cloud” is an image that suggests that in the future, the concept of meaning mediated by discrete nonprofit organizations will be seriously outdated, replaced by the notion of individuals, informal associations, and nonprofits clustering around causes and making their impact irrespective of organizational boundaries.

This will happen precisely because individuals are increasingly seeking platforms to impact causes directly and personally, not nonprofits to which they write checks in order to impact causes indirectly.

Check out this description of cloud computing from wikinvest.com, blur your eyes, and see if you can see in it the cause clouds of the future:

Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: “applications,” “platforms,” and “infrastructure.”

Cause cloud applications? Participation projects.

Cause cloud platforms? Nonprofit organizations.

Cause cloud infrastructure? Participation/Engagement/Ownership charts.

Get ready for the cloud.