It’s #GivingTuesday. As a Christian and professional fundraiser, here are three things I want you to know about giving.
Photo by Napendra Singh on Unsplash
I’m writing this on the morning of #GivingTuesday 2021.
If you don’t know about #GivingTuesday, this must be your first day on the internet or with an email inbox.
A few years ago, only a few nonprofit fundraisers like me knew much about #GivingTuesday. Now, my inbox has been filling up for days with #GivingTuesday fundraising appeals from DOZENS of nonprofits that have me on their mailing list.
I’m not saying those nonprofits are doing anything wrong.
In fact, annual donations on #GivingTuesday go up every year. They now add up to billions of dollars in gifts to hundreds of thousands of charities and nonprofit organizations around the world.
I say that if the wave is growing, nonprofit leaders might as well ride it.
But this post is not for the people who ask for money; it’s for the people who give money on #GivingTuesday and any other day during the year.
I got my first fundraising job at Habitat for Humanity back in 2007. Since then, I’ve raised millions of dollars for several nonprofit organizations. Over that time, I grew into a philosophy of philanthropy. That philosophy mostly grew out of the teachings of Christianity and Judaism.
In the spirit of my “philosophy of philanthropy”, here are three things to which I wish each donor will aspire when giving.
First, give to anyone who asks. Jesus Christ gave as clear a command as he could give: “Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back” (Gospel of Luke 6:30).
I notice this about myself: I have enough money to go on Amazon any time and buy any little thing that I want. I think I have enough money to do that, but I think I don’t have enough money to give a little each time someone asks me to help them meet a need.
I am generous to myself, but stingy toward others. Especially when I deem their needs as neither important nor urgent enough to bother me.
But the command of my Christ is clear: “Give to anyone who asks.” You’ll note that the Christ makes no conditions. Do you deem the person asking you for money unfit or unworthy of your hard-earned dollars? The Christ does not allow for that. He commanded his Christians to give to anyone who asks. Period.
Is this foolish? Yes! Ancient Christian teaching never denies its own folly, but it points its apprentices to the “wisdom of God”: “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (First Letter to the Church in Corinth 1:25).
The bedrock of the Christian life is the belief that God is the one and only source of all good things (the Letter from James 1:17). Whatever we have is a gift from God who gives to us even when we do not deserve it (see Gospel of Matthew 5:45. We give freely because we keep receiving freely (see Gospel of Matthew 10:5-8.
As a professional fundraiser, I want you to know that size does not matter.
I lead a nonprofit that counts among its friends a large number of Catholic nuns. Most of these women are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. They barely have two pennies to rub together. Each year, they send (often cash) gifts of $5, $10, or $20 at most. Every one of those gifts puts a lump in my throat. They don’t have much to give, but they give what they have to our ministry. I feel their love. I feel their prayers. Every one of them reminds me of what Jesus said about the widow who put her two pennies in the offering box at the temple: “She has given more…than all the others” (see Gospel of Mark 12:41-44.
So you may not think that your $5 is worth much, but know that its worth is so much more than spending power. I have opened $5 gifts that gave me the courage to keep going one more day, week, or month. That may not pay the light bill, but it gives me the energy and new faith to go find a way to keep the lights on long enough for the next gift to come in.
Second, follow the Spirit into giving more than money. In some ways, giving money is the cheapest way to give. It takes little energy and time to send a check.
Sometimes, the Spirit will nudge, tickle, and whisper to let you know that you have more to give than money. When that happens, follow the Spirit.
At the nonprofit I lead, Vito is one of my favorite board members. He was not on the board when I started as executive director back in 2017. As I got to know the people who supported our organization, Vito’s name kept popping up as a donor who send money whenever we asked for it.
It turned out that Vito is a man who tries to let the Spirit move him in life. As I got to know him, I could see that the Spirit was nudging him to do more with our mission. As I got to know him, I found that he had the personality and skills that made him suitable for our board. I invited him to join and he took that as the Spirit’s call to put his muscle where he was already putting his money. Vito joined the board and became one of our mission’s hardest-working volunteers. He was passionate about our mission when he was just a donor, but now that he is putting energy and time into our mission as well, his passion is growing and radiating to more people.
The Spirit influenced the ancient Christian teacher Paul to write: “If I give all that I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (First Letter to the Church in Corinth 13:3). The Spirit sometimes moves us to give our selves (and not just our stuff) in love to some ministry or work.
After years of experience, I no longer believe that we have to go looking for something to do. If we live our lives by faith and hope in the Christ, the Spirit will show us where to take our love to work. It is a mystery how this happens, but mysteries are fun.
Third, seek to graduate from giving to systems change. Over the years, I learned a lot from my Jewish friends who gave to the work I did. One of the most important things they taught me is that the highest form of philanthropy is working to change the systems that create the personal and societal problems that we often try to relieve by giving money.
When I read Acts of the Apostles, two things about the ancient church of Christ strike me: First, the Christians who made up the church believed in the priority of taking care of the daily needs of its members. Second, when the economy and government failed to care for human needs, the church of Christ organized its own economy and government to care for every kind of human need. Read the first few chapters of Acts of the Apostle and you will see a permanent redistribution of power, privilege, and wealth among the Christians in ancient Jerusalem.
The ancient church of Christ elevated those society deemed not worthy to the status of most worthy.
This was not a publicity stunt. It was the essence of the Gospel. That is, the love of God makes each one of us worthy independent of our own merit. For the ancient Christians, elevating people who were not worthy to most worthy was simply paying forward the favor and love they got from God.
Furthermore, the ancient Christians believed that when the Christ came back, he would redistribute the power, privilege, and wealth of the world. Therefore as an outpost of that coming kingdom, the church of Christ was getting an early start on what the Christ would finish upon his return.
To belong to the kingdom of the Christ and to follow his teachings, Christians do more than just meet the needs of today; they work to change things so that the needs of today may no longer be needs tomorrow.
This #GivingTuesday (end every day), I hope you will do three things if you are a Christian: 1) Give to anyone who asks (as God gives to you, 2) Give your self to whatever ministry or work the Spirit shows you, and 3) Ask how you can strive to live as if you are in the world that is coming, not the world that is dying (and taking lives on its way down).
Grace and peace.