Do the Word

I resonate with most everything that Katya Andresen writes, including her recent trend alert post, Impact is the new black.

Says Andresen:

For a select group of funders and major donors – and perhaps mainstream givers, someday – you must show real, measurable impact in a way that enables you to be judged on a social ROI or compared to other causes in effectiveness.

And further:

All funders want reporting. Some foundations and major donors want data on nonprofit impact organized in a way that allows them to compare and contrast charities – or to choose high performing nonprofits.  They are interested in social ROI.  But this is a small demand relative to overall giving.  Most individuals are far too lazy and rushed to want that degree of information.  The vast majority of people give because they care (it’s emotional) and only need basic confirmation that their money will make a difference.  They aren’t going to spend a lot of time analyzing their charity’s performance – heck, they may not even do that with their 401k.  The desire for data on impact or ratings will only gain traction on a grand scale if the insights on performance are reduced to a simple star system or Consumer Report-style bubbles.

My reply:

Necessary…and yet not sufficient.

• Habitat for Humanity continues to grow not only because of impressive social ROI but because they stick a hammer in your chest and tell you it’s your responsibility to build a home for those in your community who don’t have one…and they can show you how to do just that.
• Kiva.org continues to grow not only because of low overhead and high impact but because they create a platform where you can be an international lender…something you can’t be anywhere else.
• Even in child sponsorship for organizations like World Vision and Compassion International, sponsors are clearly making a choice for a kind of impact that can’t be fully quantified through social ROI…but that extends into personal ROI as well.

Impact, in other words, must be measured on two axes. One is social. The other is personal. A nonprofit can attend to first supremely well, providing reports that prove that it is at the head of its class in social impact…and still go out of business. Happens every month, especially in this recession. No one has yet postulated that impact and funding are directly correlated, despite how much our common sense might like to believe they are.

After all, plenty of inefficient (and sometimes even dishonest!) nonprofits are still doing quite well these days, thank you very much. We could chalk this up to slick advertising and the gullibility of some donors in the general public. But far more likely is the possibility that there are a group of nonprofits that fare poorly on the social ROI axis but quite well on the personal impact axis. Such charities can–and should–be exposed, and usually are.

But while we should condemn such charities, we should not praise ones with high social ROI but negligible personal impact. Donors don’t. The law of the donor jungle says that over time, such charities will fall by the wayside as well.

What’s necessary and sufficient for future nonprofit success?

High social ROI plus high personal ROI. Two forms of impact, not just one–that’s the new black.

Our brothers and sisters over at Christian Leadership Alliance are taking a bit of a different approach to Planned Giving than we talked about in our post yesterday. They’re offering a free webinar on Planned Giving for “busy Christian professionals like you”.

Here’s the description:

Did you know that 11,000 family-owned businesses will be sold in the next 7 years valued at over $4.6 trillion? That 91% of America’s wealth is in the “big jar” called Assets (only 9% of America’s wealth is in the “small jar” called Cash? And that most ministries spend most (or all) of their time pursuing gifts in the small jar?

I couldn’t recall the “big jar” of Assets and the “small jar” of cash being described in the Bible, so I did a quick concordance search on those terms and unfortunately came up empty. Perhaps I am using a different translation.

In any case, while I was searching, I did discover a references to jars in the Bible, 1 Kings 17:

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe [a] in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”

2 Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”

5 So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

The Widow at Zarephath

7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the LORD came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.” 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

12 “As surely as the LORD your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’ “

15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe [a] in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”

2 Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”

5 So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the LORD came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.”

10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

12 “As surely as the LORD your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’ ”

15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.

Funny and certainly impractical that Elijah’s ministry was sustained by a widow’s jar of flour. If Assets compose 91% of wealth and Cash composes 9% of wealth, I imagine that widow’s flour jars must be pretty statistically insignificant. I sure hope Elijah is able to tune in for the CLA “big jar” webinar.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

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.