Do the Word

I finally decided to pull Jeff Brooks’ Donor Power Blog off my list of recommended blogs.

It’s not that I don’t like any of Jeff’s posts. I do. It’s just that more and more of his posts remind me of anti-smoking sites run by tobacco companies; that is, even the phrase ‘donor power’ smacks of the way a marketing exec would put the best possible face on an industry that purports to help people find self-actualization through checkbook charity.

(The link in the preceding paragraph is to Jeff’s post entitled Donors are figuring out how to shut you up, in which Jeff criticizes Charity Navigator for its YouTube video, which shares tips for reducing unwanted solicitations. Jeff calls Charity Navigator’s approach ‘more than a little irresponsible’.)

While I still enjoy Jeff’s posts generally and will continue to read the blog, I simply can’t recommend it in general any more because of my disagreement with the basic relational premise Jeff implies between nonprofits and individuals. The question, ‘What is the relationship between the nonprofit and the individual?’ really is the key question of the hour in our corner of the vineyward.

In Jeff’s Three Laws Of Fundraising post/Fundraising Success Mag column this past week, Jeff posits the following relationship equation:

Here’s the deal: Your donors don’t support you because you’re the coolest organization on the block. They support you because they are cool. And you are just cool enough for them to consider inviting you into their circles. You are the trembling, grateful newcomer hoping to be allowed to hang out with the cool donor.

In Jeff’s relationship equation, the cool donor supports you because they are cool. And you, the trembling, grateful newcomer, are aw-shucks grateful for their vote of confidence, not to mention hopeful that they might introduce you to more of their cool friends who can support you because they’re cool, too.

That’s a far cry from our contention in Transformational Giving that the relationship between individual and nonprofit is a mutual accountability relationship, not a friendship or a support relationship. (That’sTG principle # 5, if you’re keeping score.)

We’re going to be devoting this week on the blog to talking further about the relationship between individual and nonprofit. I’ve been doing a little detective work on the subject and discovered some absolutely fascinating clues historically as to why the relationship has taken the shape it has, and how things weren’t always this way…including an early 20th century antecedent to Transformational Giving whose approach was wiped out by the rise of the modern fundraising era.

Stay tuned.

But for today we de-list Donor Power Blog from our list of recommended sites. But we do have a new site to add:

Make It Transformational–the new daily blog by the Giving and Training Officers of Mission Increase Foundation.

Take a sec to click over to this second daily TG multivitamin. I’ve previewed the posts that will appear in the blog’s inaugural week. As you read daily, you’ll see that these aren’t trembling newcomers happy that you’re cool enough to invite them to your RSS feed.

They’re mutual accountability change agents, ready to urge you on–and be urged on by you–to replace Donor Power with real Transformation.

We’ve been writing all week this week about ethnic fundraising as a crucial question facing Transformational Giving (TG), since, unlike traditional transactional fundraising (ttf) which views ethnic fundraising as simply one potential vehicle among many to raise funds to cover the budget, TG takes as its purpose the coaching of champions into the fullness of Christ in relation to the cause God has given us to advance.

But since TG stresses that the champion is responsible for advancing the cause in his or her sphere of influence, and since more and more of us are a part of more and more homogeneous spheres of influence, we have to ask:

Who is going to reach the people who are not like us?

Do we need to add some kind of artificial corrective to TG that says, ‘Reach the people in your sphere of influence, but then also try to reach a few folks who aren’t like you so that your cause can fully spread’?

I never like to start making addendums to TG that way. It reminds me of the astronomer, Tyco Brahe, who preceded Copernicus. Despite the mounting evidence that the sun and stars didn’t revolve around the earth, Brahe insisted that not only did stars follow cycles around the earth, but that the unusual movements that made it seem like they didn’t were due to something called ‘epicycles’ and ‘epicycles upon epicycles’.

If your system requires epicycles, that ain’t good.

So, since TG is nothing other than an exposition of what the scripture teaches about being fully formed in the image of Christ, before we add any ethnic fundraising epicycles, let’s ask:

Does the Bible have anything to say about how and why causes spread beyond the immediate, homogeneous sphere of influence of champions?

The answer is clearly, emphatically:

Oh my. Yes.

Turns out the whole New Testament can be understand in light of this phenomenon. It is, in a very real way, a textbook and a description of exactly how and why Kingdom causes spread to people who are not like us.

• Halfway through Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel‘. By the end of the book he’s saying, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations‘. Is this a strategy change–an epicycle?
• The Apostle Paul portrays it as an intentional development. Writes three chapters about this, in fact: Romans 9-11. Even says things like Romans 1:16–‘I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of salvation for everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile‘.
• Note the consistent approach Paul takes as he spreads the gospel. First he visits the synagogue and shares the message for as long as he can (see, among many examples, Acts 14:1, Acts 17:2, Acts 18:4). As he is rejected, he then turns to take the gospel to the Gentiles.

So what’s the lesson here as relates to reaching beyond our homogeneous sphere of influence?

It’s what we do next if and when own sphere of influence rejects us, which, as Paul points out in Romans 9-11, typically has God’s purpose beyond it in spreading the cause.

Permit me a personal example:

You’ll recall that my wife and I founded Seoul USA going on a decade ago. One division of Seoul USA is Voice of The Martyrs-Korea, tasked with spreading the message of the persecuted church to South Koreans the way that Voice of The Martyrs-US is tasked with spreading the message to Americans and Voice of The Martyrs-Canada is tasked with reaching Canadians.

But here’s the problem:

South Korean churches are cool to VOM-Korea because it is non-denominational, and its leader is a layperson, not a pastor. For South Koreans, there’s another term for a non-denominational ministry led by a layperson:

A cult.

So when the Seoul USA board met last week, we discussed a variety of alternatives:

• We could appoint a ‘pastor representative’ for each denomination
• We could declare a denomination for VOM-Korea
• We chould approach major pastors in an effort to win them over and have them pronounce us credible

This is a major issue, since 10 of the 11 largest churches in the world are located in Seoul, South Korea. That’s a lot of potential champions and partners!

Now, all of these ideas the board suggested are possible and in fact quite feasible. But Seoul USA’s stated purpose is to equip outcasts to reach other outcasts like themselves.

And that’s what VOM-US President Jim Dau, who is one of the Seoul USA board of directors, exhorted the board to remember. He then got all scriptural and pointed out how every open door that VOM/Korea has had has been to North Koreans.

Conclusion?

God is holding closed the door to South Korea at present while laying the welcome mat out in front of the North Korean door. Or, stated more directly: VOM/Korea can and should begin by reaching North Koreans in South Korea, not South Koreans.

This raised the question:

‘But South Koreans have all the money. North Koreans are broke! How will we raise money?’

I knew at that moment we were in the rarified air of TG.

To the Seoul USA board’s credit, they decided to approve Jim’s recommendation, trusting that if we follow God’s will for our organization, the Transformational Giving of North Koreans will do abundantly and exceedingly more than the quantifably juicier gifts from South Korean churches could ever do.

We’ll keep you updated and let you know how it all goes.

In the mean time, take a closer look at the New Testament for coaching related to ethnic champion development. By following New Testament principles (and Pauline coaching principles) to their logical conclusion, you may end up with your very own Seoul USA experience, as God reorients your champion coaching program around an ethnicity so far out of your sphere of influence that it could only be God!

As we’ve previously discussed in this blog (and in greater detail in my Coach Your Champions book), P/E/O–or Participation/Engagement/Ownership–is the workhorse of Transformational Giving (TG). P/E/O is the process of coaching the champion to grow in the image of Christ by deepening the character and nature of their involvement in the cause in which God has given us to labor, by the power and advance preparation of God (a la Ephesians 2: 10) and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

P/E/O has a different goal than traditional/transactional fundraising (ttf). In P/E/O, giving is one of the results of discipleship…but the goal is ever increasing transformation into the likeness of Christ.

When you study most ttf models, there is a lack of vision as to what the ‘donor’ becomes as a result of the ‘cultivation’ process…other than a bigger and more frequent giver to the organization doing the cultivating.

That’s what’s so fascinating about Jessica Chao’s Continuum of Philanthropy model, which Diana S. Newman details in her brilliant book, Opening Doors: Pathways to Diverse Donors. Chao’s model is neither ttf nor self-consciously TG or Christian, but it’s plenty instructive.

Chao originally authored the model to demonstrate the three stages that Asian-American immigrants pass through on their way to philanthropic maturity.

• At the Survival stage, immigrants ‘share resources–money, goods, skills, and information–with family members and peers. For most the struggle is to establish a home and some foothold on the economic ladder of opportunity.’ Note that from the very outset, generosity is neither a product of disposable income nor primarily conceived of in terms of cash donations or gifts to formal charitable organizations.
• Immigrants reach the Help stage once they’ve established a financially and emotionally stable platform in their new country. At this point–almost instinctually, says Chao–they feel a desire to give back, particularly to children and extended family members, but also to the wider ethnic community of which they’re a part.
• At some point, immigrants move beyond simply responding to need. They ‘begin to visualize the ideal community’. This quest takes them beyond their ethnic communities and organizations and drives them to connect with mainstream organizations–not for the purpose of supporting those organizations but rather for the purpose of supporting their vision of the ideal community by drawing the mainstream organization into their sphere of influence. (Echoes here of Transformational Giving principle #4: A champion connects with an organization for the purpose of enhancing their mutual impact on the cause, not only to support the organization’s impact on the cause.

Graphically, Chao’s S/H/I (Survival/Help/Invest) model looks like this (microscope not included):

While Chao’s model is quite a bit different than the P/E/O model, both have in common what Newman quotes Paul Schervish as calling ‘an inclination [for individuals] to be producers rather than simply supporters of philanthropic projects’. Schervish notes three motivations inherent in that orientation:

• Hyperagency, or ‘the ability to set one’s own agenda’;
• Identification, or ‘the donor’s ability to identify with the recipients of the contribution, both personally, and globally’; and
• Association, or ‘the social networks in which donors learn about the needs of others, both within and beyond their local communities’.

So as we seek to study the scriptural model for generosity and giving and philanthropy, it’s fair to ask, Which gets us closer to the biblical mindset: the Western majority ethnic population focus on the wealthy among us giving a portion of our excess through institutions, or the non-majority ethnic focus on personal philanthropy as a comprehensive process of maturity and growth (i.e., we’re talking more than money here) that’s characterized by hyperagency, identification, and association?

Judge for yourself as you consider the Apostle Paul’s description of the giving of the Macedonian churches in 2 Corinthians 8: 1-7 (noting that, fascinatingly, hyperagency, identification, and assocation figure prominently, as does the comprehensive nature of giving that goes far beyond money):

And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will. So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

So where does all of this lead?

Well, we began the week asking the question, ‘If PEO involves us spreading the cause in our sphere of influence, how do we ever reach people who are not like us–people who are geographically, racially, culturally, and economically different?’

All week long, we’ve been looking to ethnic communities to lay the groundwork for the answer to that question. We’ll look forward to tying it all together tomorrow.