Do the Word

You know the intrinsic problem with fund raising?

It’s that we try to mediate meaning, instead of equipping others to make meaning.

What I mean by this is that we identify a good cause, we share it with people, we ask them for money, they give it to us, and then we send them a letter saying, ‘Oh, you should have seen little Timmy’s eyes light up when we gave him that new computer we bought with the money you sent us!…’

That’s meaning mediation. That makes us the middleman. The meaning goes through us. Instead, let champions communicate with champions. Let champions ask other champions. Instead of jumping in and doing the work, stand on the sidelines and coach. Offer them tools. Challenge them. Most of all, set them loose and stay out of their way.

Go back to the rich young ruler story in Mark 10:17-27. Jesus looks on the rich young ruler and loves him. How many people are in that scene? Two? Ah – but what about the poor? What about the people who buy the rich ruler’s possessions? What about the entire network of souls that the young ruler will touch if he follows Christ’s command?

Jesus doesn’t tell the man to abandon all that he has and then follow Jesus. He tells him to get in touch with some folks along the way.

If the man does what Jesus tells him to do, the man will actually be building a network. Then what was at first a two way communications loop between Jesus and the man will quickly become an n-way network drawing together people who have probably never spoken before in their lives: Jesus, the rich young ruler, the poor, potential buyers of the rich man’s possessions, and many, many more whom they meet on The Way.

‘One thing you lack,’ said Jesus. ‘Go your way, sell whatsoever you have (presumably to somebody; several somebodies in fact), and give to the poor (whom you probably have never yet met), and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross and follow me.’

And don’t be surprised if there are some other folks following along behind you as well.

Here’s a pop quiz:

When you send out a fund raising letter to your donors, what do you want them to do with it?

If your answer is, ‘Send it back to me with a check in the conveniently provided postage paid business reply envelope,’ guess what – that’s the wrong answer.

‘Huh?’ you may say. ‘But what else would you want them to do with it?’

First, whatever we send to our donor/champions, we should want them to send it on to somebody else. We don’t want them to simply write us a check. It’s great if they do, but what we really want them to do is to take that letter and share the involvement opportunity it describes with everyone they know – and we want them to co-own and collaborate in the execution of the vision, not just enjoy how nicely we describe it. We want them down at the coffee shop saying, ‘Larry, I know your family doesn’t always enjoy the Christmas holidays because of all the conflict and strife – I have this Peacemaker Calendar that really helped my family last year, and I want to share it with you now…’ And the year after that, we want Larry sharing the calendar with his network of friends.

Second of all, we should want fewer and fewer of the fund raising letters to come from us and more and more of the fund raising letters to come from them. From them to them. I don’t want my recipient to stop at bringing Larry into the circle; I want him to go out and find people who need help, and send ­them letters asking to make a donation through me. I want to transform him into someone who is an active agent for Christian change – to turn him from a blank file in a donor list into a living, breathing servant of the Lord.

‘Oh, I know what you’re talking about,’ you might be thinking. ‘That’s a Sponsor Get A Sponsor program. We’ve done that before.’

But ‘Sponsor get a sponsor’ is not what we’re talking about. Sponsor get a sponsor is fine as far as it goes – it’s one of the best ways to create more two-way communications loops. (I’m describing the kind of campaign where each donor gets a stack of envelopes and letters, and we ask him or her to hand-address them and give them to everyone on their street or neighborhood.) This is a generally effective approach, and it gets even better responses than the very best direct mail approaches, because most people are automatically willing to consider what their neighbor has to say.

But the weakness of this, without a transformational foundation, is that once the new sponsor is ‘gotten’, they just go into the same two-way file – their relationship is with the ministry, not with the man or woman who personally brought them into it. Instead of taking over the relationship, it should be left in the hands of the recruiter – with the ministry constantly giving these agents tools and ideas to communicate with our new ministry partners. We want to be in the loop – we just don’t want to be the loop.

Forget friend raising and relationship building! Forget getting people to support you! Forget building a network with you at the hub! Focus instead on observing existing networks, and then injecting meaning into them, with you as the convening mechanism, the agitator, the play-by-play guy, the buttonholer.

Our failure to do this points to the most fundamental problem with traditional fundraising, which we’ll disclose in the next post.

Remember the story in Mark, Chapter 10, beginning in Verse 17? It’s the story of the rich young ruler. It goes like this:

And when he (Jesus) was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, ‘Good teacher, what small I do that I may inherit eternal life?’

And Jesus said unto him, ‘Why call me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.

You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not kill. Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honor your father and your mother.

And he answered and said unto him, ‘Teacher, all these have I observed from my youth.

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, ‘One thing you lack: go your way, sell whatsoever you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross and follow me.’

As a development professional, do you know what’s most interesting to me about this story? It’s how differently Christ sees the rich man, from the way that development professionals would likely see him.

Usually, we don’t see a lack when we look at a wealthy person who desires to live a righteous life – we see an opportunity, instead. Can you imagine the response of a development-professional Christ to the young ruler?

Well, if you want to be perfect, I have put together a great brochure with some of our key ministries that could really use your support, and here are some fantastic testimonials from folks I’ve healed. Here’s a testimony from a Gadarene man, we took care of a livestock problem he was having and now he sings our praises night and day. This woman here was on her fifth husband before she enrolled in our Living Water Marriage Refresher course, and you can sponsor more fifth wives like her for just 800 denarii apiece…hey, where are you going?

But Jesus didn’t focus on what the young ruler could do for his ministry. Instead, he perceived that the young ruler had a lack – while righteous, he had lived primarily focused on himself, and he was feeling an aching void. It wasn’t that the poor needed the young ruler’s money – it was that the young ruler needed to give his money away.

And that’s the seed of Transformational Giving, which will begin to sprout in our next post.