Do the Word

Tom at The Agitator sounds almost like a secularized St. Paul a la the 1 Corinthians quote we shared yesterday when he speaks in praise of imitation in his post today:

To grow an organization, the first thing I would try to do is identify my best donors and figure out how to clone them. What common demographic or attitudinal characteristics do they share? What kinds of appeals attracted them? Exactly how/where did I acquire them? As I listened to these best donors, I’d be trying to hear and distill the essential basis of their support — emotional and rational — for my organization.

Simply put, I’d apply the marketing truism: birds of a feather …! I’d expect to be able to achieve some decent, cost-effective growth following that strategy.

When we Christian fundraisers finally ascend to the summit of Biblical Fundraising Mountain, I fear we’ll find that all the secular fundraisers made it there first. Maybe that’s because we’re much more comfortable following the AFPs and CFREs and secular development gurus than we are leading the way based on the treasure trove of amazing insight into human development that fairly well bleeds out of each page of the Scriptures. Understandable…but sad.

In any case, there’s a whole chapter in our new Coach Your Champions book about how to do exactly the kind of cloning Tom is recommending–only in a Christian context that makes the process far more robust, in my view.

The folks at MIF HQ tell me we are within days of having the book available for sale online. Until then, here’s my Word doc draft of that chapter for your, um, imitation:

chapter-7-final

And this month we’re teaching this process as part of our workshop/lab series on how to stop soliciting major donors and start coaching champions. So make sure to sign up for the free workshop near you.

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.