Do the Word

Two of my dearest friends and most respected colleagues recently paid a visit to the headquarters of a denomination that had in the past closed its churches to fundraising speaking opportunities from the nonprofit ministry my two friends represent.

Reason? The denomination only funds its own denominational projects, and support for those had been flagging. (Hmm… There’s a point to be made there somewhere…)

My two friends were visiting the denomination to share the nonprofit ministry’s shift from traditional fundraising to Transformational Giving.

‘We don’t want to come in to pursue money from your churches,’ said my friend to the denomination’s leader. ‘We really want to come in and help equip your churches to grow in this cause we share.’

He was cut off, however, by the denomination’s leader, who replied, ‘We all know you’re really just doing this to raise money.’

Wow! Talk about a challenging reply to field!

That’s why I always avoid saying to a partner or champion (or potential partner or champion), ‘I’m not here just trying to raise money,’ even though that statement is true. Individuals and churches are rightly skeptical of such an approach and will instead listen quite guardedly as they wait for the other (fundraising) foot to fall.

Or they’ll just cut you off and accuse you of rank dishonesty, as in the case of the denominational leader my friends encountered.

So how would I approach the kind of visit my friends made?

I would say this to the denomination leader:

According to Barna Group research, church members are shifting their giving away from churches and to nonprofits at an astonishing rate. Three years ago the average Christian was giving 84 cents of every donation dollar to the church. Today, that’s plummeted to 76 cents of every donation dollar, and the trend is accelerating.

I suppose it might be possible to try to stop this by blocking nonprofits from interacting with your church members, but I’m not sure how practical that is, since most nonprofits interact with folks by mail, email, banquets, and personal solicitation outside of Sunday morning. You might could take to the pulpit and discourage people from giving outside the church, but that might could backfire on you and strike your congregation as self-serving. These days church members are often more suspicious of church fundraising than they are of nonprofits, after all.

So one approach would be a partnership between your denomination and our nonprofit. Our approach is not to mine your churches like quarries. Instead, it’s to work with them to lay out plans to move their congregations to greater and greater levels of activity related to our shared cause. We’re quite honestly more troubled by the fact that the average congregation is more and more inert related to this vital cause than we are by whether a specific project of ours is funded.

So we propose laying out a plan with you denominationally as well as with interested local churches within your denomination where we help you work toward greater activity related to this shared cause. Giving will of course be a key part of that, since a mature cause-related program can’t be undertaken by congregations who don’t have a mature approach to funding. Fortunately we’re pretty good at that.

As regards funding for our own projects, as we draw up the plan with you and your churches and collaborate together on moving them to greater level of ownership in the cause we both share, we pledge to only bring up projects that are answers to questions that you’re asking–projects that you determine are important to enabling your congregations and your denomination to grow in full maturity related to this shared cause.

We think such an approach gives you the opportunity to reverse the trend Barna identifies, by making the local church the source of the best and most diverse set of opportunities related to this cause.

How would you feel about such an approach?

Not every denominational leader will say yes to such an offer, but should the trends Barna identified continue, I suspect that more and more will see the wisdom in this kind of collaboration and be willing to engage Christian nonprofits who are sincere in undertaking it.

The most popular question I receive regarding Transformational Giving goes like this:

‘OK, so I understand that fundraising is not the process but rather the result of the process of equipping a champion to get involved in the cause. So I’m working on getting my champions involved in the cause. But when do I let my champions know about my financial need for which I need their support?’

The question is super helpful because it helps us to identify two counterfeit versions of TG:

Counterfeit Version #1: TG means not talking about money

Some people, upon first hearing about TG, say, ‘Oh, yeah–I’ve been doing that for years. I build friendships with people and tell them what’s going on in my ministry, but I never ask them for money. I let God put that on their heart.’

News flash: That’s definitely not TG. In fact, it’s anti-TG.

First of all, TG isn’t about building friendships, nor is it about sharing your ministry. It’s about building mutual accountability relationships, and its about supporting your champions and equipping them to minister in the cause.

Second of all, the G in TG stands for Giving. If you’re not talking about Giving, you’re not talking about TG. We talk as much if not more about giving in TG as is done in traditional/transactional fundraising. We just talk about it really differently. More on that in a minute.

Counterfeit Version #2: TG means fee for service

Another way TG is misunderstood is when people think TG means that we bring up our needs after we’ve helped a champion get involved in the cause. Kind of like, ‘Now that you’re active in the cause, I need to let you know about my financial need. Can I count on you to make a donation?’ It’s the classic bait and switch: bait the person by supporting them…then turn the tables and ask them to support you. There’s a nasty element of guilt in there as well, if you think about it.

The Real Deal: TG invites giving at the point that the need belongs to the champion, not to the ministry

I never say to a champion, ‘I’m not here to talk about your money.’ Of course we’re going to talk about your money! It’s just not all I’m going to talk about, and when I talk about it, I’m not going to talk about it in a way that is nothing more than loosely veiled self-interest. I’m going to talk about it in a way that reveals me to be a trustworthy counselor to how you can impact the cause through the financial dimension of your involvement. (If the answer to how you can impact the cause is always ‘Send me more money’, please re-read the sentence about loosely veiled self-interest.)

The causes I talk to champions about require them to be ‘all in’, meaning that volunteering or learning or experiencing just isn’t enough if they want to seriously make a difference. Kingdom rule of thumb: if you want to impact the cause, count on God calling you to give cheerfully and significantly.

So when do you ask for money? When it fits into the involvement plan that you’ve helped the champion to draw up that equips them to be ‘all in’ in relation to the cause. If an ask is about the champion supporting your financial need, you’ve biffed it. If, on the other hand, your ask is really an answer to a question the champion raises because you’ve coached him to raise it on the way to maturity in the cause, that’s straight over-the-plate TG.

You up for some examples in the next post?

Fundraising is an inadequate way to explain the biblical framework for giving because it introduces a Kingdom nonentity–the nonprofit organization–and seeks to portray it as the locus of God’s activity.

By ‘Kingdom nonentity’ I mean that the New Testament introduces the church as the locus of God’s activity, revealing with it the impermanence of all institutions. (The church is precisely not an institution, of course.)

This doesn’t mean that the concept of the nonprofit org is in any sense unbiblical. But it does mean that equating Christian nonprofit and church in such a way that God’s promises to church apply 1 to 1 to the Christian nonprofit–which is such a common practice in the nonprofit world that it typically happens without anyone questioning it–just ain’t good theology.

In the biblical framework, institutions (like nonprofits) grow God’s people, and then the institutions ultimately become unnecessary.

In the traditional Christian nonprofit fundraising framework, God’s people grow institutions, and then God’s people ultimately become unnecessary…except, sadly, as sources of funding.

Some of [Jesus’] disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, ‘As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.’ [Luke 21:5-6]