Author: Len Moisan
Fundraising Basics - Planning
Over the next several weeks we will be doing a series on Fundraising Basics. These blogs will be intended to help you in the overall planning and implementation of a successful development program.
As I’ve said before, the most effective form of nonprofit fundraising comes from a planning process. That’s why we believe a successful fundraising program begins with an effective planning process. Why plan? As strategic planning consultants we list at least 6 benefits that planning makes possible:
- Planning clarifies your mission, vision, core values, goals, strategies and action plans. Defining and understanding these things is crucial for moving any organization forward. Essentially the planning process gives you a sense of where you’re headed and how you will get there.
- Planning helps you identify your critical planning issues. When we help organizations plan, we are able to identify the critical issues through three activities. First, we conduct an internal review of several reports that we request. Second, we interview several members of the leadership team and staff. Finally, we conduct an online stakeholder survey. That allows us to zero in on the 4 to 5 critical planning issues around which we will build the planning process.
- Planning helps establish your priorities. Every day people inside organizations finish planning processes and then put the plan on the shelf and go back to business as usual. The planning process is actually intended to help you establish some new priorities with new strategies that are achieved through action plans. That doesn’t mean that I recommend getting rid of what’s working. Yet, at the same time leaders need to examine what they’re doing and sometimes change to stay on the cutting edge. As the late Coach Wooden used to say, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
I worked with a large church one time that also had a very large budget. The church leadership noted that they had a stewardship responsibility for the resources that were coming in to them, and they believed they needed to do more formal planning.
We started our work, but staff members soon challenged me. In fact, several of them visited me wanting to know why they needed to plan. They argued that their membership was growing, and their offerings and budget were also growing. Therefore, in their opinion there was no need to plan. Besides, the church leadership was attempting to micromanage their daily operations.
I explained that the reason members of the leadership team were micromanaging them was in part, because they didn’t have a plan. Likewise, their budgets would likely go a lot further if they spent more time thinking about the best ways to use those funds.
- Planning focuses your direction, decision-making and resources. Inevitably “good ideas” tend to come to the forefront after planning has concluded. However, if something has not been included in the plan, then unless it’s something urgent you don’t have to allocate resources to it.
- Planning enhances your communication and spirit of teamwork. When you bring the team together during a planning process, it emphasizes that we are all in this together. As people learn more about what other parts of the organization are doing it also can eliminate duplication of efforts.
- Planning helps you increase both your efficiency (doing things right) and your effectiveness (doing right things). Ultimately, every organization I’ve ever been associated with has endeavored to be effective and planning helps pave the way to get there.
Next week we’ll take a look at what the fundraising planning should include.
Leaders Understand the Common Purpose They Share with Followers
Tolstoy’s View of Purpose
In the 19th Century, acclaimed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy made important observations about the crucial nature of having a sense of purpose. At one point, despite the great fame and success he’d achieved, Tolstoy was despondent and empty. He concluded that his life was without purpose and meaningless, and that led him to frequent thoughts of suicide. Tolstoy searched for a purpose beyond his immediate circumstances and substantial wealth, but he found nothing. He explained, “Rational knowledge brought me to the recognition that life was meaningless and I wanted to destroy myself.” Tolstoy continued searching and eventually found his transcending purpose in faith, but getting to that point was a painful struggle that almost destroyed him.
Organizational Purpose
The same thing often happens inside organizations. People sometimes lose or never understand the common purpose upon which the organization was founded. A sense of common purpose helps organizations sustain themselves as they fight through difficult times. That’s true of businesses, schools, churches or nonprofit organizations. Without that sense of purpose the organization diminishes into a series of repeated tasks that are seldom challenged. If there’s a vision at all, it’s not necessarily a shared one. Yet, a shared vision is directly related to the leader’s task of creating sense of common purpose. Unfortunately, organizations lacking vision and a sense of common purpose, lend themselves more to power wielding than leading and internal competition than teamwork.
Leader’s Must Create Shared Vision
However, commitment to vision and common purpose doesn’t mean commitment to the “Old way of doing things.” In fact, the Harvard Business Review noted that one of the reasons for organizational failure is “active inertia.” Said differently, it’s a rigid commitment to the status quo that replaces fresh thinking that led to success in the first place. It certainly is vital for leaders to create a shared vision and nurture a general understanding of their shared common purpose. However, it’s also the leader’s job to empower and encourage people to achieve those things with fresh creativity. As fundraising consultants, we advise clients to share their vision and common purpose with donors and volunteers.
Five Core Practices of Great Leaders
Essentially, through their practices leaders actually become catalysts that enable others to act. Not surprisingly, in The Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry Posner found that very thing in their research on leadership behavior, “When leaders are at their personal best there are five core practices common to all: they Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and they Encourage the Heart.”
However, as I explained in a recent blog, a strong sense of purpose stimulated by those behaviors occurs more in a culture of covenants rather than contracts.
Purpose is Critical to Survival
Likewise, Victor Frankl found that having a sense of purpose was crucial to his survival. In Man’s Search for Meaning, he describes how his sense of purpose sustained him in his three-year struggle in Nazi prison camps. He noted that in the midst of such dehumanizing captivity, that sense of purpose allowed him and other prisoners to transcend their immediate circumstances. Frankl explains that Nietzche captured the essence of his point when he said, “He who has a why (a purpose) to live for, can bear with any how.” In a chilling account, Frankl described the fate of prisoners who lost their sense of purpose. “Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost.”
The same is true of any organization. Once people lose a sense of common purpose, it’s only a matter of time before the organization diminishes. It’s the leader’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen, and it’s something we’ll discuss further in next week’s blog.
Leadership is a Covenant, Not a Contract
In previous blogs I introduced leadership as a covenant. Some folks struggle with that concept because today we tend to make covenants and contracts synonymous and they’re not.
Webster’s defines a contract as “a binding agreement between two or more people to do something, one formally set forth in writing and enforceable by law.” Legal experts tell me that contracts involve an offer, acceptance, performance, a promise to pay (consideration) for performance and a period by which performance is completed. What I find interesting is that the same dictionary defines a covenant similarly, “a binding and solemn agreement to do or not do something, a compact, agreement, a formal, sealed contract.”
What is the Difference?
I believe the definitions are similar because we’ve lost the language of covenant in our society. There are lots of reasons for this, but suffice it to say that covenants are quite different than contracts just as leading is quite different than forcing compliance. Covenants are far more complex and interpersonally demanding than contracts, but they also promise far more benefits and rewards.
By these differences, I’m not suggesting that contracts are inherently bad. On the contrary, contracts are an integral part of every day life. However, considering our frequent use of contracts, it’s important to understand their limitations, particularly related to leadership. First, they encourage people to negotiate terms based on their own self-interest. Consequently, as contracts are executed, parties tend to evaluate relationships based on the performance of the people around them. Second, if someone’s self-interest is not being served, then that constitutes justification for either breaking or renegotiating the contract. Finally, relationships defined solely by contractual terms can and often do breed mistrust and commitment only to self.
The Importance of Good Faith
Yet, none of that defines leadership. In fact, most lawyers freely admit that to make a contract work, requires an underlying basis of “good faith.” That “good faith” is how leaders move beyond mundane contractual obligations and actually begin to lead others in powerful ways. Unfortunately, many organizational heads (notice I didn’t say leaders) miss this. They live in contractual cultures that commodify and mistrust people rather than empower them.
Conversely, covenant cultures assume good faith and trust towards individuals. This does not suggest that leaders need to be naïve about relationships. Certainly, at times there will be individuals who operate in bad faith, and it will be necessary to deal with those “bad faith” people appropriately. That said, it’s important to understand that just because a few people operate inappropriately, does not justify leaders mistrusting everyone.
Dealing in good faith actually requires trust, which is usually initiated and earned by leaders, as they empower people (not control them) to do their jobs. However, for relationships to work and be productive, eventually everyone must embrace trust. There simply cannot be good faith in a culture lacking trust. Consider marriages in which partners don’t trust each other. It sets up anger, frustration, jealousy and eventually breakups. We understand those dangers in marriage, but many people lack that same understanding inside organizations.
Covenants are Relationally Binding
That’s why effective leadership involves more than meeting contractual obligations. While contracts are binding legally, covenants are binding relationally. Research demonstrates that people are best led relationally. That’s because contracts deal with law and covenants deal with the character, values, and mutual goals of the people involved. I believe the failure to differentiate between the two concepts contributes heavily to our leadership crisis.
Again covenants can actually be far more relationally demanding, but they’re also far more flexible, powerful and rewarding than contracts. They’re also necessary for maximizing potential, a topic we’ll discuss in future blogs. As fundraising consultants, we counsel our clients to the extent possible to build covenants with volunteers and donors.
This Year My Resolution Is...
On a recent search regarding New Years resolutions, I found multiple suggestions for starting the year off right. These included:
- The Ultimate List of New Years Resolutions
- 25 Goals for 2018
- 42 Tips to Get Skinny, and many more.
In fact, my search revealed 24 million sites. No doubt, people are optimistic and resolved to make changes in their lives during the coming year.
Making Resolutions vs. Keeping Them
Yet, the problem isn’t with making resolutions; it’s with keeping them. According to Nielson analytics, in 2015 losing weight was tops among resolutions. Yet, only 64% continued to pursue that goal a month later and 46% after 6 months. Ultimately, only 14% of adults actually achieved their resolutions.
Unfortunately, the same is true with most resolutions. Simply stated, achieving them often involves delayed gratification and we don’t want to deprive ourselves of anything.
According to Psychology Today there are also other reasons. For example, psychologist Tom Pychyl argues that resolutions are cultural procrastinations. People want to reinvent themselves, but they’re slow to change bad habits that cause failure.
Peter Herman also notes that people set unrealistic goals inconsistent with their internal view of themselves. When that happens not only do they fail, but also the failure damages their self-concept.
Finally, through MRIs, neuro-scientists discovered that habits come from thinking patterns that create neural pathways. Those pathways become defaults for behavioral decisions. Changing behavior requires creating new pathways that come from new thinking.
Accordingly, in 2018, I propose that we consider changing bad habits, setting achievable goals and creating new pathways, by embracing some new thinking:
Listening to One Another
A recent poll revealed, 70% of Americans think political incivility has reached “crisis” levels. The pollsters noted that many Americans avoid controversies, fearing they’ll be perceived as uncivil. Most (86%) have been victims of incivility, and 74% believe manners and behavior have declined.
The late Chuck Colson said that people who can’t restrain their baser instincts and operate with civility, aren’t capable of self-government. “Without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well.”
Accordingly, civil self-government means that we must be willing to listen to voices that may not agree with ours. That really is the essence of civil discourse (something that seems to be lacking lately).
Respecting One Another
What happened at Berkley and Charlottesville was not civil discourse. In our democracy being “on the winning side” is important, but equally important is how we treat one another in the process, regardless of our views.
It’s much easier to outshout or outmuscle the opposition, but where does that lead us, to tyranny? Chaos from conflict exists in any relationship including those in organizations. Yet, the secret to prosperity and health is not avoiding chaos, but working through it in thoughtful and civil ways. However, that requires showing respect for both people and disparate views.
Loving One Another
Well, why love someone who embraces an opposing position? That’s really the point. Listening and respecting one another sometimes leads to better decisions because we better understand the other person. When we work through the chaos together, we may even find friends on the other side.
The Apostle Paul said it well in 1 Corinthians 13, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I give away everything and give up my body that I may be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
Have a Happy New Year and please try to listen, respect and love one another more! You may be surprised at what you’ll find!
A Simple Message for a Complex Time
This last year has been full of surprises and some craziness. For example, so far this year we’ve had a shocking election, a total eclipse, a riot at Berkley (what else is new), the UK vote supporting Brexit, a truck that rammed cyclists and pedestrians in New York, a horror in LasVegas where 58 people were killed and 515 injured from a shooting. If that wasn’t enough, there have been multiple sexual harassment charges from Tinseltown to Washington DC, the Dow Jones Average has reached nearly 50 new highs and The University of Alabama lost a football game. Wow!
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that this year has been nothing short of fast moving and wild. So how does one find peace in this near bedlam? I recommend ignoring the news and celebrating the season. Certainly that’s what our family is planning to do. In fact, it is something to which we look forward all year. We slow down and enjoy each other’s company along with that of close friends.
I remember when I was a kid growing up in the inner city of Chicago. I used to shovel snow to earn money for Christmas. As people I knew passed me at work, I would wish them a merry Christmas. The closer to Christmas it got, the less discriminating I was and the more enthusiastic my greetings became. I would greet just about everyone I saw with a hearty “Merry Christmas.” And I usually got a “Merry Christmas” and a smile right back from them.
People just seemed to be in friendlier moods back then. We were certainly less politically correct, but I think we were also happier. I was less concerned about myself when I passed on my greeting, and more concerned about spreading the joy of the season! I thought it was what Jesus would want me to do!
I had a conversation about this with Gary, a Jewish friend of mine, and I asked him if he was offended when people wished him a Merry Christmas. He answered that he was not offended in the least, and then he went on to explain why.
Gary said that he knew that Christmas was one of the most sacred celebrations in all of Christendom. He knew also that the people who said, “Merry Christmas” were in fact, wishing him the best of the season. He had observed that Christmas was a time of giving, and joy and peace. So the Christmas well-wishers were actually wishing him good things and not harmful or offensive things.
I must say that Gary had a rather clear understanding of why people wish each other a Merry Christmas, and I hope you do too. Please know that when I wish you a Merry Christmas it’s a good thing not bad, and in a friendly way I hope to make you smile. So to Gary and all of my other readers out there, I wish you a Merry and peaceful Christmas and a healthful and prosperous New Year! Enjoy the season. My next blog won’t come out until early January. Until then, thanks for reading and enjoy this blessed and glorious season!
Why America is Great
America Great Because She is Good
When Alexis de Tocqueville first came here, he observed a young democracy that he both admired and wrote about in Democracy in America. He allegedly said:
“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
Unfortunately, there’s little evidence attributing this to Tocqueville. Still, Eric Metaxas finds irony here because the quote captures Tocqueville’s argument. He calls it a “brilliant summation” of his work. “ [Tocqueville] saw clearly that it was the ‘goodness’ of America’s people that made America work. “
Regardless of who said it, the statement is packed with truth, particularly in light of Mr. Trump’s campaign to, “Make America Great Again.” But are we looking in all the wrong places to bolster “American exceptionalism?” In fact, maybe America has been great because of its Christian heritage, a heritage that the courts, schools and municipalities hope to expunge from the public square.
Is America Still Good?
Recent headlines call the “goodness” of America into question. Chicago’s homicide rate continues at a horrendous pace (631 this year). Then in one night a deranged lunatic killed 58 people and wounded 489 in a mass shooting in Las Vegas.
However, in light of recent sexual scandals among Hollywood, media and congressional elites, Chicago and Las Vegas are passing memories. New revelations of misconduct appear daily. NBC’s Matt Lauer’s is only the latest story. Should that surprise us? Not really, particularly in light of the late Hugh Hefner’s influence on sexual liberation and freedom of expression, which became euphemisms for his pornographic view of life.
As a child growing up in Catholic schools, I learned to be honorable and respectful towards women. Not that I was always a pillar of virtue. Yet, when I pushed the limits, I was ashamed. I knew my behavior was inappropriate and the rest of society agreed.
However, today those Christian voices have diminished. In fact, trashing Christian teaching has become politically correct, and as a result there is virtually no shame. The decline is something that’s applauded by the same press that wonders what went wrong.
Still A Lot of Good
Yet, despite all of the noise, there are still good people doing good things in America. Consider that tens of thousands volunteered and donated to fundraising efforts to help hurricane victims in Texas and Florida. NFL great, JJ Watt raised over $37 million alone for hurricane relief. Beyond that there are fundraising campaigns to fund free schools, food banks, homeless shelters and much more.
Now not everyone agrees with America’s benevolence. In fact, recently I read articles that list America substantially lower than other countries for generosity. This includes Indonesia, Myanmar, Kenya and more. I’m not sure what justifies their assertions, but that just isn’t the case. No disrespect intended, but according to a CAF study, those countries aren’t even ranked in the top ten in monetary giving. Clearly giving in America is exceptional.
Statistics on Giving
Last year Americans gave $390.05 billion, or 1.44 % of their GDP. That’s nearly twice what the next closest country gave. In fact, consider this ranking of giving as a % of GDP:
- USA…………………….1.44%
- New Zealand……….0.79%
- Canada………………..0.77%
- UK………………………0.54%
Additionally, the US provides aid to 96% of all countries, which now exceeds $50 billion annually. Simply stated, American generosity is unparalleled anywhere. But why is that?
The answer goes back to the quote, “America is great because she is good.” I believe that goodness comes from America’s Christian heritage. Oh there are some who debate that concept vigorously, but the more we depart from that heritage the less goodness we’ll see.
Year-End Giving With a New Twist
Each year around this time the literature is replete with articles about year-end giving. Clearly, November and December are the best months for philanthropy.
Research Supports Year-end Giving
A study by Nonprofit Insiders Network found that 28% of the organizations polled reported that they raise between 26% and 50% of their total annual income from year-end asks alone. Similarly, a Charity Navigator study revealed that 31% of online annual giving occurred in December. Finally, a study of high net worth individuals found that 42.7% indicate that they tend to give more around the holidays while 44.4% report giving about the same.
The case is clear for year-end giving, and most organizations solicit it through direct mail. In fact, as fundraising consultants, we advise our clients to begin year-end requests in early November and then follow it up with a Season’s Greeting post card in December that includes a subtle reminder. We also recommend using brief handwritten Post-it note messages by board members and other volunteers to enhance the response rate.
A Solid Vehicle for Year–end Giving
There are other ways to enhance the November mailing, but the point of this article is to encourage year-end giving and introduce you to another vehicle for that.
To that end, I thought I’d spend a few minutes talking about a relatively new vehicle in nonprofit fundraising, the IRA Charitable Rollover, approved in December of 2015. It’s actually been around since 2006, but it has been provisional.
For taxpayers over the age of 70 ½, Congress made permanent the provision allowing individuals to contribute up to $100,000 per year, through an (IRA) distribution given directly to a charity. Of course, one key benefit of the direct charitable contribution from your IRA is that the distribution counts towards your Required Minimum Distribution.
Of course, for stocks, properties or any other assets within the IRA that are given this way there are no capital gains taxes that have to be paid. If donors do choose this vehicle, they must tell their fund manager to transfer funds directly to the charity and name them as donor. If the gift is intended for a particular area the manager should also specify that.
Organizations Have Benefitted Already
Some organizations are well aware of this provision and have clearly taken advantage of it. For example, between 2006 and 2013, the University of Michigan actively promoted the IRA Charitable Rollover and yielded $19.8 million from 790 donors. They contributed anywhere from a few hundred dollars to the maximum of $100,000.
What I found interesting is that most nonprofits either don’t understand the charitable IRA distribution, or if they do understand their understanding is limited. Therefore, the IRA Charitable Rollover is thrown into the “planned giving” bucket and pretty much ignored.
My advice is to pull this back out of the bucket and study it, so you have a working understanding of the concept. Why do that? No doubt, this way of giving is one of the best and most powerful vehicles to emerge in philanthropy in quite a long time. Everyone clearly benefits including the donor and the nonprofit.
For Senior Giving It’s the Best Vehicle
Sure, this doesn’t apply to everyone, but for seniors who are planning to make a gift to a charity, this is by far the best way to do it. If you’re the head of a nonprofit or chief development officer, I suggest that you do everything you can to inform your donor base regarding the IRA Charitable Rollover. No doubt it will prove beneficial to you not only by increasing donations at year’s end, but also throughout the year as you seek to advance your mission.
A Thanksgiving Reflection
Along with the 4th of July, Thanksgiving is one of the most celebrated and welcomed feasts of the year. I like this day because it’s also among the least commercialized holidays. Of course, Black Friday follows Thanksgiving, but I digress.
History of Thanksgiving
I was studying Thanksgiving, and I found that the tradition can trace its American roots to Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts. The colonists held a 3-day feast that included local Native Americans in the fall of 1621. They celebrated and gave thanks for their first harvest.
In 1789, during George Washington’s presidency , the federal government sanctioned the first official national Thanksgiving. What I found interesting was how the President described it, so I provided a few excerpts from his proclamation:
“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer, acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God’.
“Now therefore I do recommend (this day) to be devoted to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country, for the signal and manifold mercies, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations.”
A lot to be Thankful For
Wow, Washington certainly wasn’t shy about invoking God’s name and encouraging Americans to thank and honor Him. And there’s plenty for which we can give thanks. Consider the following:
- Most Americans own homes. Ownership rates grew from 43.6% in 1940 to 64% today. Not including a few outliers (NY, DC) the rates are closer to 70%.
- Current unemployment is 4.1%, lowest in 17 years.
- GDP is growing rapidly hitting 3.0% in the 3rd quarter of 2017.
- The Dow continues expanding, 45 highs since last November and it now exceeds 22,000.
- Some 60% of us are optimistic and hopeful about America’s future.
- 87% of Americans believe in God and most believe faith is very important.
I could go on, but suffice it to say there is much for which we can be thankful. Sure there’s poverty and other problems in the US. There’s also growing inequality here, and it needs our continuing attention. Yet, a Forbes report gave an interesting perspective on poverty in the US. “The poor in the US are richer than around 70% of all the people extant (In existence). It is true that there is more inequality in the US: but this isn’t because the poor are poorer, the rich are richer.”
Prager on Happiness
When talk show host, Dennis Prager, wrote Happiness is a Serious Problem, he said this about gratitude:
“Because gratitude is the key to happiness, anything that undermines gratitude must undermine happiness. And nothing undermines gratitude as much as expectations. There is an inverse relationship between expectations and gratitude: The more expectations you have, the less gratitude you will have.”
Not that we shouldn’t have expectations, but every once in a while it’s also important to give thanks. According to a recent Harris Poll, only 33% of Americans say they’re happy. A little time for reflection and thanks might go a long way in improving that number; and what better time for that than the Thanksgiving holiday!
So to all of you who follow our blog, thanks and happy Thanksgiving!
Defeat Does Not Have to Defeat Us
A disturbing headline recently told us of yet another mass shooting; this time in Texas. I write about it because though disturbing, there’s also something different about this. It’s the same “different” we saw in Charleston South Carolina.
The News
Of course, what I mean is faith, the same difference last week’s blog covered. How should people respond when 9 people are killed in Charleston and 26 in Sutherland Springs, Texas? I don’t have the clear answer for that, but let me show you how some have responded.
The Response
The Washington Post carried an account of what Nadine Carter, daughter of 70-year old Ethel Lance, said to the suspect in a South Carolina courtroom. “I forgive you,” her voice breaking with emotion. “You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.” There were no riots or rage, just forgiveness.
In Sutherland Springs, Texas where 26 people were killed, there were also no riots or turmoil. Victims ranged from 18 months to 77 years, yet there was not a hint of violence. Instead, CNN reports that residents hugged each other. They held candles, sang hymns and prayed in a candlelight vigil less than 24 hours after the tragedy.
The Secret
How could people from either community maintain such composure? Simply stated it’s faith, and faith would not let them be defeated. One of the Texas congregants put it this way. “Sutherland Springs is the kind of place where everybody knows everybody. This is a small, Christian community where everybody’s united. Everybody’s so close.”
The Hardships and Failures
Faith never guarantees we’ll be spared from hardship. In fact, there’s a significant history of persecution in the church. Jesus predicted a long time ago that in the world we’d have trouble, but He also encouraged us not to fear because he’d overcome the world. Now the overcoming he’s talking about didn’t come through blessing but through the hardship of rejection, scourging and crucifixion.
Michael Jordan on Defeat
I love what Michael Jordan said. During his career he lost 300 games, missed 9000 shots and 26 times he was trusted to make the last shot and he missed. Said Jordan, “I failed over and over and over again and that’s why I succeed.” He didn’t complain about the failures; he used them as an incentive to build grit, skill and determination to not be defeated.
From 2008-2012, after 12 straight years of growth, our fundraising consulting business declined substantially. Yet, as a person of faith I believed in the purpose God had given me and in the purpose of our business. I just knew things would get better. It was my job to continue to work as hard and as smart as I could. I knew that if I did that and prayed, somehow all of it would work for good. And I knew that even if I lost my business, God would still provide for us because He always had.
The Victory
Do these events sadden us? Absolutely! However, if we’re people of faith we also shouldn’t be discouraged. We have a promise; one-day, things will get better. That’s really the basis of our faith, to trust that God will eventually bring perfect justice to the world.
Until then we’re challenged to believe when there’s so much doubt, failure and tragedy around us. Yet, that’s the sustaining effect of faith. As it says in the book of Hebrews, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the assurance of things not seen.” So whatever you’re facing, faith can get you through it!
Let There Be Light
The Plot
A few days ago I saw a movie that I strongly recommend. Opening in a limited number of US theaters, it still ranked 11th in earnings, with an 84% approval rating.
“Let There Be Light,” stars Kevin Sorbo (TV’S Hercules) and his wife Sam. Sorbo plays Sol Harkins, a famous atheist and Sam plays his former wife. He’s a classic Richard Dawkins type character, who mocks Christianity and all the faithful who try to challenge him.
Early in the movie Sol gives a dramatic soliloquy in a “debate.” One instantly knows that he’s an antagonistic atheist. While his “sermon” lacks substance, it hits multiple clichés that strike a chord with his audience and provokes an emotional applause.
Of course, Sol is both a popular professor and world famous author of a best-selling book entitled, “Aborting God.” He has all the trappings of wealth and is surrounded by worshippers, who seem ready to hang on his every word. Yet as the movie progresses, it’s obvious that he’s unhappy.
The Pain
In fact, despite his acclaim, Sol is lonely. He drinks heavily to ease the obvious pain he’s experiencing as a result of his son’s death. One night after a reception, Sol had too much to drink and crashes his car. A near death experience challenges Sol about faith, the world, man’s purpose and his dead son. Through the witness and love of his wife and her pastor Vinny, (a former mafia hit man played by Michael Franzese, who’s actually a former mafia member), Sol finds faith and purpose.
While the story is fictional, the problems are quite real. Pain, substance abuse, death, the quest for success, divorce and the search for truth are all part of life. In fact, the death of a child puts enormous stress on a marriage, and this movie clearly conveys that.
The Antidote
The movie also gives us the antidote, which simply is faith. Therein lies the hope of this story and for most of life’s problems. It tells us that faith can cure alcoholism, ease worldly failure and pain, put marriages back together and give us purpose.
Well, what kind of faith? First, it’s not blind faith. I’m reminded of a great book entitled, “God: The Evidence”, by former atheist and professor, Patrick Glynn. He writes that new discoveries in medicine, cosmology and psychology all add up “to a powerful, indeed, all-but-incontestable, case for…the existence of soul, afterlife and God.” And in this day and age of bickering and cynicism, I find this idea refreshing.
Second, I’m talking about faith in God, which leads to faith in both the mission and the people around you. With real faith, no matter how dire the circumstances, you can always find a way out, which leads me to yet another association.
The Association
As fundraising consultants, we work with many non-profit organizations and churches. I find that those driven by faith tend to do better than those that are not. While all problems don’t immediately disappear, the faith of leaders really makes a difference in the organization’s success. Faith helps us understand our individual purpose, but it also helps us better understand and serve the organizational purpose, which leads to organizational harmony.
Regardless of the kind of organization, I can always tell if it lacks faith. There is typically limited focus on the central purpose and more free agency, infighting and organizational chaos. Without faith, people tend to work for a paycheck and not a purpose.
Now, if you want to restore order, stop the infighting, boost fundraising and move the organization forward with hope and optimism about the future, as John Hyatt said in his song, “Have a Little Faith.”