Do the Word

Imitating anyone or anything typically draws lawsuits more than praise in individualistic Western culture. It sure draws a lot of kudos, however, if you read the New Testament.

In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul writes, ‘Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ,’ and in 2 Thessalonians 3:7, he adds, ‘For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example.’

But the grandaddy of all the imitation verses is this one from the pen of Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:15-17:

In Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

What has me all blogified about this today was an email from Mission Increase Foundation Los Angeles Regional Giving and Training Officer Matt Bates, who was water-cooling it with two of our Giving and Training Officers, Tracy Tucker in Northern California and Jonathan Roe in Arizona:  

We had a nice discussion about the concept of imitation and how that should impact ministries’ decisions to hire directors of development.  If they really commit to TG, then they will look for mature champions of the cause with the skills and passion to lead others on a discipleship journey—more of a pastoral bent than you would usually find in a typical development candidate pool. 

I couldn’t agree more. I’m dying to receive correspondence from a ministry I support that says:

In Christ Jesus I became your coach in this Kingdom cause we share for the sake of the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my Director of Development whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of how I approach the cause in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach to each of our partners and champions.

Did you hire your development director because they were a mature champion in your cause? Normally these are the folks we put in “program” positions, not in the development department!

Unless, of course, we come to recognize that the frontline of any nonprofit ministry is always the development department.

What would a job description for a Development Director look like if it were based on 1 Corinthians 4:15-17?

For your download here–susa-dopacd2–is the first DOD job description of which I’m aware that is self-conciously styled around that verse. I wrote it for Seoul USA, the ministry my wife and I co-founded.

(The Seoul USA Director of Development position is now ably filled by Amy Karjala, whom we love, who is faithful in the Lord–she helped write the Coach Your Champions book, after all. She reminds our Seoul USA champions how my wife and I approach the NK cause in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what we teach to each of our partners and champions…)

And from Thailand comes a welcome check-in from our pal Rick Clark of Team International, who notes:

Barna has documented that 80% of American church attendees believe that it is their job to equip the pastor to do the work of the ministry. Most churches in the States (and many overseas) have Ephesians 4:12 upside down.

So if 80% of church attendees figure they’re there to support the pastor’s ministry, would it really surprise us to find that at least 80% of Christian donor/champions figure their purpose must be to support the executive director and accompanying nonprofit organization as said ED carries the heavy freight of the cause?

And would it surprise us were we to discover that at least 80% of Christian nonprofit ED’s aren’t actively attempting to dissuade their donor/champions from that view?

The nonprofit apple doesn’t fall far from the church tree.

Fortunately, Greg Stier is in the 20% that rolled down the hill.

His organization, Dare2Share, is right-siding Ephesians 4:12. Check out this month’s ‘Mission Mobilization Tool’–a 17 minute video that challenges and equips Dare2Share donor/champions to mobilize one teen to ‘shred the gnar’ with all the teens in his or her sphere of influence.

Most donors don’t want to evangelize kids, let alone train kids to evangelize other kids. Many would gladly rather pay Greg to do this instead; after all, he’s so much better at it than we are. And we’re all kinda busy.

But if we read Ephesians 4:12 when we’re not standing on our heads, we see that the Bible nicely precludes this option. Which is why I hope you watch Greg’s video not only as a great and scalable example of coaching champions (large organizations, be very slow to let yourself off the coach your champions hook), but also as a personal challenge for you to equip a teen in your sphere of influence to share the Good News.

Jeff Brooks from Donor Power Blog just posted his newest monthly column for Fundraising Success, What Goes On In The Mailbox? Jeff lists all the things that can go wrong from when your fundraising letter leaves your hands to when it reaches its, um, eternal resting place. Among the potential pitfalls:

• The nondeliverability rate
• The ignore rate
• The instant death rate
• The not-this-time rate
• The think-about-it rate
• The malfunction rate

Surprisingly, though, Jeff leaves off what has to be indisputably the single-most significant response rate inhibitor of them all:

• The ‘when I gave that gift to your organization two years ago I had absolutely zero intention of signing up to be consigned to your mailing list purgatory’ rate

Somewhere in the history of fundraising, we made a questionable determination; namely, that when someone gave us a gift, he or she was utilizing that gift to signal an openness to future solicitation by our organization.

He or she was, in other words, ‘interested’, which, translated into traditional fundraising language, means ‘more likely than someone in the general public not to trash the appeal letters we send him or her in the future’.

And, granted, this approach makes perfect sense in traditional direct mail fundraising, where he who accumulates the largest list of these ‘interested’ folks typically stays in business longer than he who does not. In this approach, one can conveniently overlook the rate that I’ve suggested is overwhelmingly relevant and instead focus on doing the best one can to improve one’s odds on the rates Jeff has suggested in his article.

But what if the future of fundraising doesn’t belong to those who play the percentages best? What if those with the largest ‘donor files’ don’t automatically win in the future?

(I realize that by posing this question I may fall into Jeff’s category of ‘young and inexperienced’, and yet sadly I can’t even offer that as a defense. I’m still repenting for all the trees that I transformed into clever direct mail solicitations during my time at the Los Angeles Mission and as a VP at the Russ Reid Company.)

What I know is this: When I took off my traditional direct mail beanie (complete with analytics propellor), I came to a common-sense conclusion:

• If I send a letter to friends who are passionate about the same cause as I am, and 90% of them throw the letter away, either (1) I am confused to who my friends are, or (2) our relationship is not truly grounded on shared commitment to the cause, or (3, and most likely) I’m sending them a letter that they did not want and that is not an answer to any question they were asking, and thus it deserves to be overlooked.

Jeff notes in his post that ‘there is just a lot going on in everybody’s mailbox all the time’, but have you ever in your life had so much going on in your mailbox that you overlooked a letter from a dear friend or a package that you ordered or a piece of information you requested? Don’t you actually keep an eye out for those day after day until they arrive?

Even in traditional email and online fundraising, opt-in rules the day. It ought to be no less so when it comes to traditional direct mail. Informed consent is the price of entry these days, no matter what the medium.

And when it comes to coaching champions and Transformational Giving, mail has a cherished place (though we can certainly leave off the “direct”). But the strategy is not one of strategic interruption for the purpose of solicitation. It’s not even a clever strategy.

It’s a simple strategy of only sending things through the mail that cause the champion to say, ‘Oh, I’ve been expecting that. Because I asked them to send that to me. And I’m glad they sent it because I will find it very helpful. And I look forward to sharing this with others I know who I think would also be interested in this cause.’

Sound young and inexperienced? Then I would hate to see your email inbox or your RSS feed!