Do the Word

This month at our free Mission Increase Foundation workshops, we’re teaching on a truly Christian approach to Planned Giving.

I’m certain my phrase, “truly Christian approach”, will draw ire from Christian Planned Giving professionals, who will be quick to protest, “Are you saying my approach is not truly Christian?”

To which I will respond with a story.

On an recent airplane flight, I sat next to an older woman who spent the entire flight knitting.

As the flight was reaching its conclusion and we were directed to return our seat backs and tray tables to the upright position etc etc, the woman said to me, “Excuse me, but do you fly often?”

“I do,” I replied.

“My original flight was cancelled, so I’m not sure if my bags will be on this flight. Do you know what I need to do if they’re not?”

I explained to her that all bags are tossed into The Formless Void, in which there is much Gnashing Of Teeth and from whence no bags have ever been known to return.

Well, that and how to find the United Airlines baggage counter.

She thanked me for my help and apologized saying, “You’d think I would know this by now, but I haven’t flown much since I got back from Papua New Guinea in 2001.”

That perked my interest, since I’ve never known anyone who had ever been to Papua New Guinea before except for missionaries. And, indeed, it turned out that this woman, Sally, had been a missionary.

Before her husband had left her.

I expressed my sincere sympathies and asked her a little bit about what she has been doing these days.

She cares for her children and grandchildren and still thinks a lot about missionary service.

“Why not get back out on the field?” I asked.

She explained that her husband was the one who had had the college degree necessary for the kind of language work that they were doing, and because she herself didn’t have a degree, she, though a thirteen year missionary veteran, was not be eligible for language service.

At baggage claim, it turned out that her luggage had actually arrived on an earlier flight, so she departed in the company of her daughter and son-in-law, appearing genuinely happy to be among family.

“Have a good visit, Sally,” I offered in closing. “I will pray that your best years of service are ahead of you.”

“Yes, thanks,” said Sally. “I pray they are, too.”

Sally is God’s planned gift for some Christian nonprofit. Any practice of Planned Giving that can’t make sense of that statement isn’t a very Christian practice of Planned Giving after all.

In last week’s column on apologies, we talked about how to apologize.

Today we examine for what nonprofits should be apologizing.

Rick Newman’s What GM can learn from Toyota’s humility concludes that the occasions on which a company apologizes conveys company standards quite loudly and effectively to the company’s customers…and to the general public.

Newman contrasts the reactions of GM and Toyota to the losses both have sustained in the recession.

First, Toyota. The auto giant posted an $8.4 billion loss in the fiscal year ending in March, with sales on track to decline another 18% this year. Staggering numbers to be sure, but, as Newman notes, no worse than the industry average in this recession. Further, analysts predict Toyota will continue to gain market share over the next several years, becoming the first foreign automaker ever to sniff the top sales spot in the U.S.

Yet the reaction of Toyota’s CEO Akio Toyoda is telling:

Toyota’s CEO, Akio Toyoda, said at a recent news conference that his company is “grasping for salvation” and is deep in the grip of long-term decline. “Toyota has become too big and distant from its customers,” Toyoda said grimly. Then he apologized for losing money and letting down the motoring public.

Contra GM, notes Newman:

Apologizing for missteps helps explain Toyota’s success—and Detroit’s decline. It’s hard to imagine an American CEO apologizing for much of anything, and GM, Toyota’s biggest rival, has done the opposite for years, hyping even the lamest products. GM famously predicted it would claim U.S. market share of 29 percent sometime in the early 21st century and reach earnings of $10 per share. Instead, its market share has dwindled to about 19 percent, and the company recorded historic losses before declaring bankruptcy. For 20 years, GM has maintained that eight divisions—five more than Toyota—was the right number, until it was on the verge of bankruptcy, when four divisions suddenly seemed like the right number. And, of course, former CEO Rick Wagoner insisted that bankruptcy would be ruinous, instead pleading for an open-ended lifeline from the federal government; four months after declaring bankruptcy, GM seems to be doing OK.

Despite receiving that $51 billion lifeline, notes Newman, GM has never apologized. Instead, emerging from bankruptcy, its new motto is, May the best car win.

It all begs an important question for us nonprofits:

For what do we apologize?

It’s obvious that we should apologize when we fail to remove a deceased spouse’s name off the mailing label.

But what about when we fail to make a genuine difference in the cause?

When I served as President of the Los Angeles Mission, I can recall seeing statistics showing that the number of homeless people in the city of Los Angeles had actually increased during the time the Los Angeles Mission grew from a $120,000 annual budget to a $21 million one.

At the time, I took a GM-like approach to it all, comforting myself by looking at the soaring number of shaves, showers, nights of shelter, and rehab program graduates we were providing.

Now, looking back, I wonder what would have happened if I had taken the approach of Akio Toyoda. Can you imagine the headline in the Los Angeles Times:

Homeless Shelter President Apologizes to Los Angeles Residents
“More homeless people are shaved and showered, but we haven’t made a dent in the homeless problem in the city of Los Angeles”

All of us nonprofits occasionally do dumb things to our champions. Maybe we accidentally keep sending mail under the name of a deceased spouse even after the surviving spouse called, wrote a change request on a reply card, and sent a death certificate. Hey, these things happen.

There’s a message in there somewhere.

While you’re contemplating that message, have your staff closely review the free materials presented on these two sites:

• http://www.perfectapology.com
• http://www.sorryworks.net

Both sites contain dozens of extremely relevant examples. I’m in the process of training a ministry how to deal with complaints from champions, and I’ve assigned them to pick one of the examples and commit to trying that approach out in the coming month next time they encounter a “nasty” call (funny we characterize them that way).

Why not commit to the same exercise yourself?