Do the Word

Great things are happening over at Make It Transformational, the daily Transformational Giving blog created collaboratively by the Giving and Training Officers of Mission Increase Foundation.

Check out particularly L.A. Regional Giving and Training Officer Matt Bates’ post on how a local homeless shelter’s invitation to him to come down and share a meal with the homeless men was far more impactful than any brochure could ever be:

This invitation highlights a great marketing principle: invite people to participate in the tiniest little way in your cause, rather than throwing tons of information at them and expecting them to act on their own.  Rather than hand me a brochure and ask me to watch a dvd about all the great things they do, Proyecto Pastoral invites me to directly participate in the cause of loving and feeding the homeless.

It’s part of what we’re teaching this month in our Marketing Your Ministry workshops:

Printed brochures are dead. Long live “living brochures”–your champions who, equipped by you to comprehensively impact the cause, recruit others in their sphere of influence to do the same thing.

Northern California Giving and Training Officer Tracy Tucker puts it this way:

• Printed brochures describe the ministry…while living brochures embody the ministry.
• Printed brochures flaunt the accomplishments of the ministry…while living brochures validate the cause through their lifestyle.
• Printed brochures get attention via clever messages…while living brochures get attention via changed lives.
• Printed brochures have an impact limited to statistics or stories…while living brochures have an impact that everyone around them can see.
• Printed brochures get recycled…while living brochures get involved.

Concludes Bates:

I can’t remember the last time I told my family about that great brochure I just received from a nonprofit.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done this.  Have you?I can’t remember the last time I told my family about that great brochure I just received from a nonprofit.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done this.  Have you?

I can’t remember the last time I told my family about that great brochure I just received from a nonprofit.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done this.  Have you?

In Monday’s champion blueprint post, there’s a great line on organizational/champion relationships from Dare2Share‘s Spencer Cowan:

We are not pastors, friends or simply fundraisers to our adult Champions. A friendship can develop along the way but that is not our primary focus.

Transformational Giving (TG) principle #5 puts it this way:

A Transformational Giving relationship between a champion and an organization is primarily a peer-level accountability relationship, not merely a friendship or a mutual admiration society.

Ah, accountability! Other than sanctification, it may be the most nearly extinct of the core components of Christian discipleship.

Generous Mind Jon Hirst offers a great post on accountability and why it may be so scarce in contemporary Christianity.

Jon describes accountability as “our ultimate act of generosity”:

We are sharing with God, or with people in our lives, the account of what God is up to in our world and how we have responded. This type of generosity is the deepest and most significant because we are sharing about our eternal purpose.

It is one thing to share about your favorite movie (and that can be very significant if you share lessons you learned). But it is quite another to share your account of how God is using you and providing for you.

So why so scarce these days? Jon daisy chains six reasons:

Accountability is scarce because:

it requires that we give up freedom

giving up freedom requires trust

trust only grows in relationship

relationships take time

our time is doled out based on our priorities

our priorities need redeemed to be in line with God’s focus

• it requires that we give up freedom
• giving up freedom requires trust
• trust only grows in relationship
• relationships take time
• our time is doled out based on our priorities
• our priorities need redeemed to be in line with God’s focus

So why am I not generous with the account of my life and my actions? It starts with the fact that on most days I do not truly value the act of sharing what I know. My priorities are focused on entertainment, pleasure, accomplishment, and so on.

Why don’t we enter into mutual accountability relationships with our champions? Because we don’t value the act of sharing what we know. We value what we know. We want others to give money so we can keep doing it.

But sharing it to equip others to do likewise?

That’s a core component to discipleship…and it’s largely absent from the way we interact with individuals showing interest in our ministry. They’re likely showing interest in us because the cause is of interest to them. We’re likely to return that interest because we’re interested in their support as we impact the cause.

But mutual accountability changes the equation.

We build a support relationship with them, alright–a relationship where we support them as we equip them, by the grace of God, to impact the cause we both love. That’s what Ephesians 4:11-13 is all about.

“So when do they give me money?” is the most common rejoinder to that TG approach to relationship.

Answer:

They don’t give money to you. They give money through you as a part of the comprehensive discipleship process through which you guide them, in which you show them how to use all of their resources to impact the cause–including their money.

And let’s be clear: Getting them to give is not an act of carnival chicanery, where you shuck and jive in order to get them to write a support check , at which point you assure them, “Whoa! You really impacted the cause there! Thanks!”

That’s where mutual accountability comes in:

You need to ensure that their gift is not a substitute for them growing in relation to the cause but rather a result of that growth. In other words, they’re not responding to your financial need. Instead, they’re giving that particular gift because the experience, education, and equipping you’ve given them in relation to the cause has led them to discern, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (not the persuasion of your fundraising letter) that this is the way they’re called to impact the cause.

As Jon notes in his post, that kind of relationship takes time….and it goes far deeper than friendship. You’ll know that you’re in track building that kind of relationship if the champion you’re coaching begins relatively early on in the process to coach champions of their own in relation to the cause…instead of just bringing them to you to coach, too.

Yesterday we shared a blueprint for champion development from Spencer Cowan at Dare2Share Ministries.

Today Partner Development is center stage.

As we mentioned yesterday, “partner” refers to churches and organizations (essentially, formal networks) that we are coaching to full maturity in our shared cause.

One of the most exciting figures to watch in the area of partner development is World Gospel Mission‘s Todd Eckhardt.

Here’s Todd’s Partner Development Department blueprint.

Do crib liberally, dear reader; this is exceedingly good stuff.

(Note that World Gospel Mission uses the phrase “CMS”, or “Champion Migration Strategy”, as their name for the Transformational Giving process.)

Partner Development

Purpose:  To equip our partners in fulfilling their Biblical role in the Great Commission.

To achieve the stated purpose we will:

• handle the partner in the context of serving the partner’s mission goals.  We will always keep in mind how God may use us to increase the maturity of the partner and their view toward missions.  We will strive to help them define their role in the Great Commission and then do what we can to help them fulfill this role
• interact with partners at the level of transformational giving
• assist partners in overcoming barriers that prevent them from fulfilling Great Commission

The following are practical steps to be used by the Partner Development Officer (PDO) to achieve our purpose:

• Ask questions about the current partner’s mission program.

Operate in the context of serving their mission goal. (Sample questions to ask Partners)

“How can we serve you?”

“Why do you want a missionary?”

“What ministry do you need our missionary to address with your group?”

“When WGM leaves your group what would like to have seen happen?”

“What would you identify as a success as a result of our serving you?”

“Where would you like your group to be in relation to [X] discipline of missions activity?”

PRAY

• Listen to what their needs are

PRAY

• Identify needs of partner in the area of the Great Commission

• Make every touch strategic

Following the information gathering stage that you do through questions and listening, develop intentional steps that you can take in serving the partner.  Then make every touch with the partner intentional according to your plan. People have steps in mind but rarely a strategy.  Be strategic.

Did I mention the need to PRAY?

• Identify passions of partner

As you work with partners their passions will rise to the top whether they were ever stated or not in the listening stages of your information gathering. Help flesh out if their passion equals their Biblical call. Are they being obedient to the call or simply following a passion? They are not equal.

• As the PEO strategic plan unfolds for the partner the following ‘paths’ will take shape in building a strategy for the partner

Move through the PEO process

• Participation
  • Project oriented
  • Short-term high touch events/projects
  • High yield events/projects

Some Examples :

–          Concert of Prayer

–          Small project from Great Co-Mission Catalogue

–          Work team

–          Fund raising event

–          World Go Manual

–          Gospel Outreach Weekend (GOW)

• Engaged
  • The partner equips others beyond short-term projects to the cause.
  • Move beyond one regional project to causal activity

Some Examples:

–          Work team leader training

–          Partnership with national church as follow up from a short-term team

–          Use Great Co-Mission Catalogue to teach Stewardship principles

–          Duplicate international work team in local area (If team went to Honduras to help street kids, help street kids in own town or a US city)

–          Move from Concert of prayer to small group prayer times for the Great Commission

–          Teach World Go Manual

• Ownership
  • Supporting others to advance the cause
  • Provide tools to the partner and to help them partner others
  • Transfer of cause

Some Examples:

–          Nappanee Missionary Church having church members serve on the board of the AGC Baby Center

–          Pastors teaching other pastors about GOW

–          Adavance Volunteer Network service

–          Butler, GA getting other churches involved in the dump in Honduras

Commentary on migrating churches with the above guidelines in mind:

1. Everything we do is to be done in context of serving
2. Grow the partner during the process not WGM, and avoid the myth that activity equals growth.
3. Work with a goal in mind
4. Keep thinking of next steps
5. KEEP STEWARDSHIP AND GIVING AS PART OF THEIR MIGRATION.  We must not fear finances while at the same time not making them a false ultimate.
6. Keep the Biblical mandates always in the forefront and build your language around the Biblical call of service to achieve the Great Commission.
7. Every partner will enter the process at a different level, so meet them where they are.
8. Help the partner do locally what we want they want to do internationally.
9. Come as a gift to the partner.  Work to be sure they are richer when we finish than they were when we first met them.

Cautions about giving:

1. CMS does not remove presentations about getting funded.
2. Giving is great but not enough. Prayer is great but not enough.  Going is great but not enough. All three must be in place therefore it is appropriate to broach the need for giving.
3. The need for giving must come out of the Biblical call to stewardship not our need to get funds.