Do the Word

Had a great meeting this morning with Mission Increase Foundation National Senior Giving and Training Officer (SGTO) Tracy Nordyke and Colorado SGTO Suzanne Dubois to stake out new Transformational Giving (TG) territory in preparation for January/February’s workshop/lab series on Engagement.

The question:

How can ministries coach champions to move from participating in ministry projects to being comprehensively engaged with the cause?

Or, in TG vernacular:

How can you coach champions from P to E?

One of the realizations we had today was just how much Engagement in TG is like engagement in man-woman relationships and marriage and, you know, such.

Consider two possible paths a relationship might take:

A couple goes out on a date. They like each other. They go out again. They still like each other. They think, “Hmm… What more can we do?” So they decide to sleep together. They still like each other. They think, “Hmm… What more can we do?” So they move in together.

In TG parlance, we have an expression for this:

P + P + P + P ≠ E

In other words, no number of Participation projects combined together can ever equal Engagement.

Now, consider a second relationship path:

A man and a woman go out on a date. They like each other. They go out again. They still like each other. They go out on four or five more dates. They really like each other. The man begins to think, “This woman really is becoming a major part of my life. I want her being in my life to be the way my life normally is from now on.”

So they get engaged.

Notice what happens in this “P to E move” known as engagement:

There is a conscious, explicit, intentional moment at which the man moves beyond a series of dates and encounters and recognizes that there is a gradual change in his identity that is developing due to his relationship with this woman, and he desires to formalize this into a state where his normative identity is no longer singular but as a couple.

No different in Transformational Giving. No different at all.

Most ministries, sadly, prefer to sleep with their donors. They fear making a commitment–after all, that may cost more than it generates in revenue! So they reduce everything to a series of Participation activities: banquets, fundraising letters, emails, newsletters…solicitations. Even when they “do lunch” with a donor, it’s really foreplay for an ask. Seriously. They’re looking for the least they can give in order to generate the most in return. Interestingly, they find themselves attracted to donors who think the same way.

And when the relationship doesn’t work for one or the other party, they do just what cohabiting couples do in real life: They split up, move out, and look for another partner who really cares and really understands their needs.

But in TG the move from P to E is an explicit, covenantal move. The champion has touched the cause through the synecdochic, E-in-P core of the Signature Participation Project. Something touched them that won’t leave them alone, and now they want to go deeper.

So what’s a ministry to do?

Most ministries see no alternative to leading the champion through another project, and another one after that, each designed to bring the champion one step closer to that form of charitable whoopie known as writing a check.

But there’s an alternative, you know:

An explicit covenantal relationship with a champion (an engagement!) in which we pledge to support the champion–to equip them via experiences and education to grow in the likeness of Christ in relation to the cause.

Like an engagement, it’s important to enter into it at least a little starry-eyed, believing that this champion the Lord has given us can do greater things than we have done, by the grace of God. Heck, that’s even biblical.

Interesting what happens when you get engaged to somebody. You stop thinking, “What’s our next date going to be?” You stop thinking in discrete chunks of time. You recognize that not every encounter between the two of you is going to be positive. You even fight sometimes, and then you make up. You start dreaming together about changing the world even.

And you make an exclusive commitment to each other.

In charitable terms, that doesn’t mean that you become the only nonprofit the champion gives to. But it does mean that it’s wholly appropriate to say, for example, “Look–if you’re serious about wanting to make a difference in ministry to North Korea, you’re going to need to stop spreading your giving around to four or five different NK ministries. And it’s not about the money. It’s about you making a commitment to let us coach and train you in a particular way of thinking about this cause so that you learn, first, to think like us, and then, next, you take our thinking to the next level with the next generation of champions in this ministry.”

And–by the way– can you see where this precious engagement is leading?

Love. Marriage.

Then lots and lots of babies, otherwise known as moving from Engagement to Ownership.

A shout out to Joanne Fritz for pointing out the article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that asks:

Is now a good time to start a nonprofit organization?

Well, is it?

If you’re contemplating starting a nonprofit or becoming a missionary and you find yourself thinking, “Somewhere out there, there must be a foundation or some folks with money willing to support me to work on this super important cause that I really love and am quite good at,” then please know that now is a really bad time to start a nonprofit or become a missionary.

And so is next year.

And the year after that, should Jesus tarry.

That’s because the day has come and (thankfully) gone where running a nonprofit or becoming a missonary meant finding people to pay us to do the meaningful and super-important work we love.

(For those holding out hope for a major donor prince to come, Tom at The Agitator affirms in his post last week that large gifts are the ones likely to rebound the slowest in the current recession. And as we’ve chronicled before, the new mantra for traditional transactional fundraisers is “it will take more resources to raise smaller and fewer gifts”.)

So why do I say “(thankfully) gone”?

Because scripturally, Ephesians 4:11-13 outlines a clear relationship between Christian workers and the body of Christ.

It is, indeed, a support relationship. But it’s the opposite of the relationship that’s typified Christian workers and the body of Christ in the modern (and now moribund) nonprofit era.

In the modern nonprofit era, the body of Christ has been called upon to support (professionalized) Christian workers who do the heavy lifting of the faith.

Contrast this with Ephesians 4:11-13, where Christian workers are called to support the Body of Christ, developing ordinary Christians in the causes close to God’s heart, training them to walk in the works He has prepared for them (not us) to do since before the foundation of the world.

High calling, that.

And, fortunately,  the nonprofit world–the secular perhaps even moreso than the Christian, sadly (for evidence, see Manny Hernandez’ post on transitioning from social media cloud to nonprofit org)–is catching up with it.

So if you find yourself thinking, “There is a cause close to God’s heart in which He has grown me to maturity in Christ; I want to coach the people in my sphere of influence in that cause, equipping them by the grace of God to also grow to maturity in Christ, and serving as a supportive platform where they can give and serve impactfully in a mutual accountability relationship with me,”  then now is a great time to start a nonprofit or become a missionary.

This site isn’t a bad place to start learning to do that.

Here‘s where I’d recommend you begin.

Thanks to Sean Stannard-Stockton for the key to unlock an article or two for free from the subscription-only Alliance Magazine vault. Even if I had had to pay $35 to read the free Regranting: smart humility? article by Jacob Harold, I would have gotten a better deal than poor 7-year old Olivia.

Olivia, as Harold describes (and Stannard-Stockton corroborates in a parallel piece), gave her “life savings” to the Gates Foundation, which, apparently after no small amount of internal discussion and debate, graciously condescended to accept the gift. According to Patty Stonesifer, who was serving as Gates Foundation CEO at the time that Olivia’s gift arrived,

Do you say no to a 7-year-old girl, but yes to Warren Buffett? One way or another, she did convince us to do some deep thinking.

Deep thinking, indeed.

Harold (who, it is worth noting, is a Philanthropy Program Officer at the Hewlett Foundation) describes the pros and cons of “regranting”–donors like Olivia giving foundations like Gates their money based on the conviction that a foundation is going to do a better job of determining to whom the money should be given.

Writes Harold:

In the US alone, there are over 97,000 foundations and grantmaking public charities. About 5,000 of them have paid staff. Like all institutions, they vary in effectiveness. But in that group are some superb professionals – people with decades of experience on the world’s most complex social issues, who are plugged into vast networks that include the best of the old and the new, the North and the South. They are not necessarily smarter, but they are better positioned to make philanthropic decisions than an average donor – no matter how brilliant that donor may be in her day job as a teacher or doctor or cabinetmaker.

My my my…

I know, I know: I’ll sound paranoid if I protest that it is unfair that the criteria of judging who is more effective in tackling the world’s most complex social issues, teachers/doctors/cabinetmakers or superb granting professionals, is determined by the super granting professionals themselves.

And I’ll sound simply ignorant if I contend that these superb granting professionals’ vast networks featuring the best of the old and the new can be aced out by a motivated chap sitting at a computer and utilizing the vastly more vast informal networks available to motivated chaps sitting at computers these days.

And I’d sound downright Luddite if I suggested that professionals in established foundations may be at a disadvantage compared to small, lithe, barely legitimate local organizations and networks, once one thinks about overhead, paperwork, and the ability we have to convince ourselves of just how effective we are at darn near anything when money’s involved. (Have you ever, for example, seen even a single foundation declare defeat on a major social issue after they’ve made it their granting focus for three years? How can that be? Doesn’t that make you just a little suspicious?)

But let me be as gracious in conceding each of the above points as the Gates folks were in agreeing to receive the contents of dear Olivia’s piggy bank.

Instead, let me focus on just one issue:

Why would a foundation that receives donations from individuals not measure whether donating to the foundation made the donor wiser and better equipped to tackle the world’s most complex social problems than they were before they made the donation to the foundation?

In other words, I grant that most foundations don’t place the same value as I and Mission Increase Foundation do on the impact giving has on the giver.

But ought it not to matter at all?

Fans of regranting would contend that Warren Buffet and seven-year old Olivia exercised “smart humility” in giving their charitable dollars to the Gates Foundation to dole out. They would contend further that because the Gates Foundation knows better how to spend those dollars, the world will be a better place than if Buffet or Olivia spent those dollars themselves.

But do you really believe that?

What might have happened if Buffet attempted to give his billions to Gates, and Gates rejected them, saying, “Warren, there’s one thing that could impact the world more profoundly than you giving me $40 billion to give away. And that’s you learning to become a philanthropist capable of effectively giving away that $40 billion yourself.”

Heck, what might have happened if Gates rejected Olivia’s life savings as well?

What if he had said, “Olivia, let our superb professionals train you not only how to give away that $35 yourself but also how to give away more than money so that your hand (which always ought to come attached to any money you give away) can ever more skillfully and personally make an impact on the most complex social issues facing your generation.”

As it is, what has Olivia learned?

Before you answer, it might be good for you to have a close look at the strict guidelines under which the Gates Foundation is willing to accept donations from individuals.

• Will Olivia be able to direct her $35 to a particular cause of interest to her that Gates is tackling? Nope–gifts cannot be designated.
• Will Olivia find out where her $35 went? Negatory–gifts go to the general fund, and reporting about individual donations is “not tracked”.
• Can Olivia be sure that her $35 will be spent before she dies? Er, no–the foundation does not make a commitment to spend monies in the same year they’re received. It may take them quite a while to get to spending that there $35.

So what has Olivia learned?

That changing the world is best left in the hands of the pros. Along with your check, of course.

Shame on you, Gates Foundation.

And better luck with your next $35, Olivia.