Do the Word

If you are like most every other ministry or charity in the world, you spend a good chunk of your time developing a donor network. Your ‘network’, though, isn’t really a network. Instead, it’s a list of 1:1 relationships. You send out a request letter, and the donors read it (or not) and maybe they send a check (or not). Your donors aren’t inspired to become filled with the spirit of your ministry and to go and do likewise. Instead, they’re encouraged to admire how effective YOU are in doing the work, and to financially support YOUR wonderful efforts!

If your website—or TV station or 800 number or whatever—is built this way, so that it only broadcasts (in other words, the communication is one way and one focus: From you, out, about you, out), in order to make any money you’re going to have to have a really large audience.

The larger the audience, the more the money. The smaller the audience, well, you know.

But…

If your website or TV station or 800 number is built so that it facilitates genuine two-way conversation, it takes a much smaller network of people to generate a serious impact. Some ministries are beginning to realize this, and are developing these kind of networks, where there is genuine communication from the people in the field to the people in the office, as well as the requests that run the other way.

But even those ministries aren’t on to the real jet fuel. They’re still playing around with something that resembles the old computer bulletin board systems of the 1980s – systems where one or two people could be ‘online’ together at a time. Fun – and a lot more fun than playing on a computer by yourself – but still limited.

The real power to transform the finances and futures of non-profit ministries comes from an n-way network, where n equals the total number of users on the network. A network built for the purpose of enabling and encouraging every donor to talk with every other donor. A network where everyone in it loves the network – because the network is the physical expression of the spiritual vision held by its members.

According to our friends in the world of computer networking, the value of a network wired primarily for the purpose of enabling each of the users to communicate with each of the other users is exponentially more valuable than a much larger series of two-way communication loops.

In our next post we’ll translate that into English and offer a real-world example.

As I get ready for a ‘mapping meeting’ (more on what I mean by that in a sec) with a Seoul USA champion tonight, I’m reminded of a line of questioning I receive frequently from ministries:

Do I really need to use a coaching plan form when I meet with a champion? Isn’t it less mechanistic if I just wing it and rely on the Holy Spirit’s direction?

My reply:

Only use a coaching plan form with champions you actually want to see grow. For champions you don’t mind seeing go around and around in circles beeping their horns and chasing their taillights like Shriners in a parade, no coaching plan is necessary.

Yes, beginning to use a form will be an adjustment for you. But in most cases, so will coaching your champion to grow comprehensively in relation to your cause. So why not make all of these adjustments in one fell swoop?

Why is a plan necessary?

I mentioned that tonight I’m having a mapping meeting with a Seoul USA champion. Interestingly, the champion flew into town from halfway across the country at his own expense in order to meet with me so that we could create a coaching plan together. In other words, there is the possibility that rather than your champion finding it mechanistic or awkward to work with you on a coaching plan, he or she could find it exceedingly valuable. After all, if you’re truly taking a Transformational Giving approach, you’re equipping the champion to fulfill their calling and grow in an area of great passion and interest in their life.

That’s why I prefer the term ‘map’ to ‘coaching plan’. A map ensures that you know where you’re going, how you intend to get there, how long it will take, and what you’ll do and see along the way.

Is a map mechanistic? That would feel like an odd word to apply to a map, in my opinion. A map is formal, yes. Disciplined, absolutely. Detailed, you bet. Sometimes it’s even fun.

If instead of creating a map you ‘wing it’ (or you think to yourself, ‘I’ll do a map with this champion…after I build a strong relationship with them ‘), you will likely experience what folks experience when they hit the road together without a map: even folks you like get annoying when you’re lost, or when you’ve been with them for a while and you don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Some may contend that the Holy Spirit can act as a GPS and eliminate your need for a map, enabling you to wing it and enjoy the Spirit’s moment by moment guidance as to the correct next step for the champion, all the way to full maturity in the cause. I’ve heard sermons by people who believe like that, and I never enjoyed their sermons either.

Received a query about how a Transformational Giving approach to development impacts the nonprofit budgeting process.

It’s a great question, since it recognizes that how and what a nonprofit budgets largely determines how and why it will relate to its partners and champions.

Think about it like this:

Nonprofit A is working on its budget for the coming year. It says, ‘We really need that new vehicle this year. Plus new computers. Plus we need to give our executive team a raise now that the feds raised the minimum wage. Dang! We’re going to have to increase our budget 25% over last year. Where are we going to get the money?’

Note in this process that neither the services provided nor the income anticipated is connected to the growth of the nonprofit’s champions and partners in relation to the cause. Rather, the nonprofit simply determines how much it ‘must’ have to provide the service it ‘must’ do, and the part of the equation that ‘must’ flex…is the champion/partner apparatus, otherwise known as the Income line on the budget.

But is there an alternative?

Consider Voice of The Martyrs (especially if you are thinking that Transformational Giving-type approaches can only work with small ministries).

VOM automatically sets next year’s budget equal to the previous year’s actuals.

In other words, if in 2008 VOM partners and champions gave $25 million, it automatically sets 2009’s budget at $25 million. Everything it raises above and beyond $25 million in 2009 it allocates to reserves, which it then uses for capital projects and/or unanticipated expenses.

What makes such an approach a TG approach?

The fact that the one piece that doesn’t flex is the champion/partner allocation. VOM works according to the assumption that the most accurate predictor of the maturity level of its champions and partners is their present level of giving.

Now, they could of course budget an increased amount of giving predicated on the idea that their champions and partners will grow in maturity from the previous year, and that certainly wouldn’t be counter to a Transformational Giving mindset. But by budgeting the same amount as last year’s actuals, VOM ensures that the motivation for champions and partners to grow will be intrinsic to the cause rather than extrinsic (i.e., VOM’s organizational budget needs).

That way, should this year’s giving exceeds last year (and, praise God, it typically always has for VOM, because they do a tremendous job coaching their champions and partners), the fruit of that is resources available for new initiatives that reflect the fact that the new resources are the fruit of new understanding and growth on the part of champions…which will likely take the organization into new areas of endeavor.

Ergo, what drives VOM into new areas is not perceived organizational need, but rather actual champion/partner maturity, reflected in increased giving.

The organization, in other words, is nothing other than its network of champions and partners. Champions and partners are coached in service purely to the cause, not the budget. And when you act in such a way that income needed and services provided are a function of the maturity of your champions and partners, you’ll look at the importance of fostering that maturity in a whole new light.