Do the Word

Traditional/transactional fundraising usually defines lapsed donors as those who gave a certain number of gifts over a certain period of time before failing to give for a subsequent period of time.

If that’s a lapsed donor, then the opposite is pretty obvious: a donor who continues to give a certain number of gifts in a certain period of time.

In this way of thinking, the opposite of a lapsed donor is an active one.

Sounds sensible. But is it?

You know me well enough to know that the reason I ask the question is because I intend to turn the traditional/transactional answer on its ear. What may surprise you is that it’s going to take this whole week to do it.

Fortunately, the fact that a multiple-day answer is required doesn’t mean that we have to slog through four days of arcane nonsense before we get to something meaningful. Instead, if I do my job right, we’ll be having major a-has every day this week. The length of the answer is due, in other words, not to the complexity of the question but rather to the degree that it is so close to the heart of God.

To understand this, we have to turn immediately to scripture, where two verses in particular serve as the biblical ‘bookends’ when we talk about lapsed champions.

In 1 John 2:19, John writes, ‘They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had really belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.’

In Luke 15:4, Jesus says, ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?’

These two verses bookend a very different shelf on which the question of lapsed champions sits.

On the one side, John’s statement helps make clear something that is obscured in most discussions about lapsed champions, namely:

Most individuals labeled as lapsed champions (or donors) by an organization really shouldn’t be classified as lapsed at all.

 For John, and by extension in Transformational Giving, we recognize an entire category of people who were never ‘of’ us, though for a while they were ‘with’ us.

In TG, we call these people Participants.

They may do projects with us. They may give through our organization. They may even be around  for some period of time.

What they don’t do, however, is engage with the cause through us.

As a result, we don’t use the term ‘lapsed’ to describe them. Participants, in other words, don’t lapse by definition. They participate for a time (sometimes even a long time) and either become engaged with the cause, or they just stop participating.

Turn now to the other bookend.

Notice Jesus’ language. It doesn’t speak of a sheep lapsing or wandering.

It speaks of a shepherd losing a sheep. 

As such, TG turns the question of lapsing on its head. Rather than seeing it as a characteristic of the sheep, it sees it as part of the responsibility of the shepherd.

It’s a great fundamental observation:

Sheep wander. Shepherds bring them back.

So when we talk about lapsed champions in TG, we’re talking about you bringing back those who were of you and who have now wandered, as champions are prone to do.

Since this is a very different way of thinking about the question, it stands to reason that we’re going to have a very different way of going about the process–a way so different, in fact, that the opposite of a lapsed donor will quickly be seen to be something more than simply active.

More in tomorrow’s post.

Just finished recording the Mission Increase Foundation DVD on reactivation of lapsed champions. I’ve always liked the subject, but teaching the material really choked me up emotionally in ways I wasn’t expecting.

In next week’s posts I want to share some specific thoughts and counsel from that workshop regarding the reactivation of lapsed champions (the DVD should be ready in two months, Lord permitting, and there’s still time for you to register for the live workshop and next month’s labs all across the MIFsphere).

But what I wanted to highlight today about the subject really does center around the subject of emotion; namely:

What emotion do you feel when you think about champions who have lapsed from involvement in the cause through your ministry?

Do you feel like…

This video clip?

Or do you feel like…

This video clip?

There’s  a lot of recession-motivated talk these days on blogs and in fundraising books and mags about how reactivation of lapsed donors is an efficient, cost-effective way to generate net income more efficiently than new donor acquisition.

And it’s all true.

But when I hear lapsed champions being talked about in that way, I can’t help but be reminded of that first video, above.

And I don’t say that from any high horse. That’s the way I thought about lapsed donor reactivation as recently as a few years ago, as one of my staff reminded me when they showed me the “We haven’t heard from you in the last year, and frankly we’re concerned” letter I had recently recommended to ministries.

But one can’t study Transformational Giving in the Bible without being absolutely whalloped by the reality that God is the God of lost sheep. For crying out loud, Jesus even defines His mission as one of lapsed champion reactivation when He talks about being sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

So in preparation for next week’s posts on lapsed champions, I invite you to join me in praying that God gives us a heart more akin to the second video noted above rather than the first.

It’s with such a heart that tools, techniques, and strategies lose their luster and fade to black, and we tuck the airplane ticket in our shirt pocket and head out to the door to renew a broken relationship, not focused on generating cost effective net income.

As we’ve talked about in a previous post, in Transformational Giving  ‘champion’ refers to an individual whereas ‘partner’ refers to a corporate entity like a church.

And as we talked about in another previous post, coaching partners, especially churches, is a core TG function.

And as we talked about in another another previous post, World Gospel Mission is hard at work transforming their champion and partner coaching into full-on Transformational mode–a process they call their Champion Migration Strategy, or CMS.

I love WGM something fierce. They are setting a brisk pace for mission agencies around the world. What’s more, they’re humbly serving as public learners for the rest of the missions community, sharing everything they’re learning and experiencing along the way.

Like the following email from the Rev. Todd Eckhardt, selected to lead the new Partner Development division. Todd’s writing the book on Partner Development each day on the job, because that book hasn’t been written yet. Todd’s email is mandatory reading if you’re interested in coaching partners. The speed with which he’s picking up on TG and imparting it to his team of three Partner Development Officers (PDOs) is absolutely pulse-quickening. I love the guy.

Check it out:

Today is another ‘installment’ of your PDO training.  Ok, training may not be the best word, but this email is more info as we shape and build this new department we call Partner Development.

Let’s do a quick review to keep clear some misconceptions about CMS and the PDO role.  I want to keep these before us so that as we build this thing our foundation is solid.

•         We are not chaplains to churches. Our ministry is to stay focused on the role we have and that is equipping churches to fulfill their Spirit-given role in the Great Commission.

•         We are not hand-holders.  Keep the biblical principle of not casting pearls before the swine in mind.  At risk of this being taken out of context I mean that if they do not want what we have to offer, move on.  Let’s spend our energy on the churches that are on board and wanting to grow rather than spinning our wheels to convince others they need us.  In short…help those who want help.

•         We are not a fee for service department.  This means we do not migrate and help them grow in missions with the hopes that our effort will produce income.  What we want to produce are mission active congregations.  When this is done right the resources will be a result of the movement of God.  This helps keep our motives directed toward migrating and not offerings.

•         While not a fee for service we also do not shy away from monetary issues.  A church’s giving strategy is just as important as their going and praying strategies.

Remember what we are, is a gift to the church.  We have come to deposit ministry into them, not to take ministry from them.

In our last email forum we concluded with helping a church by asking two questions:

1.       Why

2.       What is your next step in missions

Now we keep moving things forward by helping the church see they have responsibility beyond what might just interest them.  An example would be a church that loves Honduras and the Farm.  All they want to do is help the Farm.  Your role as an equipper is to celebrate this burden while then asking them how are they doing in other parts of the Great Commission. Perhaps speak to the under privileged in Africa or around the corner. Take the Rich Young Ruler…He expressed to Jesus his faithfulness in following the commands.  Jesus did not condemn this but drew him into seeing there is more to his spiritual journey than checking of the 10 commandments every night before bed.  We want to help churches think of what they may be lacking in their part of the Great Commission.  In other words we can equip them in becoming more mature in their mission undertaking.

The coaching of church then can be done in the following 4 ways to help them move into more mature approaches toward global outreach:

1.       Use Biblical language to describe the cause and our role in it.

2.       Ask them what they are to do about the cause.

3.       Discuss the barriers they may face as a congregation to their response to #2.

4.       How can we assist them in moving toward #2 and overcoming #3.

Do not feel we have to be the answer to all their barriers. But I am confident God has equipped us to assist in overcoming some of them.  Also do not be afraid to network.  What I mean is, if you have had a church overcome a barrier that another pastor has mentioned, get these pastors talking.  Network churches together in achieving the cause.

Well I think that is enough to chew on for this email.  Feel free to fire back questions and/or comments.

Next time we need to being to help churches define for themselves if they are a P,E or O

God bless!!!

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Go Todd go!