“…see that you abound in this grace also” (2 Corinthians 8:7).
We just finished raising $10,000+ to enable a retiring missionary couple to purchase a good used car, and already some are accusing me of knowing how to raise money.
Oh my.
A young friend who will be moving his family to a distant city to begin a church has asked me to advise him on raising support.
Someone suggested I write a book on fund-raising.
I smile at the absurdity of that compliment.
On the other hand, as any veteran pastor would attest, it’s impossible to log half a century in church leadership and not have learned a few lessons on motivating people to give. Some lessons were learned backwards–that is, by violating sound principles–and I have the scars as evidence. Either way, you do learn a few things.
Here are some things I know about inspiring the Lord’s people to give money for causes….
Pray. Make sure the project is of the Lord.
If it isn’t, no amount of religious talk is going to make it holy, make it acceptable, or make it work. So, get your decision-makers on their knees and do not go forward with this project until you are convinced the Father wants it.
Keep in mind that people prefer not to give to needs but to vision.
People enjoy giving for something visionary more than paying a bill for some mundane thing that has already happened. They’d rather contribute to send the pastor to the Holy Land (which can be life changing and ministry-energizing) than pay an overdue electricity bill. One is exciting, the other a drudge. One is an investment, the other a duty.
While pastoring, I grew tired of constantly encouraging people to give to “pave that parking lot between the sanctuary and the educational building.” When it rained, that low-lying, gravel-covered parking lot was knee-deep. We found that $40,000 would cover the costs of installing drainage, building up the low places, and paving. I started it all on a stormy day with a check for $500, payment for an art project I’d done. “Let’s do this!” I said, and the congregation began to respond immediately.
Many weeks later, when the drive had begun to drag, we had raised perhaps $30,000. Finally, I told our team, “Let’s do it now. I’m tired of urging people to give to this!” They paved it, we got our beautiful parking lot, and I learned a valuable lesson: Raising that final $10,000 was the hardest thing I ever did. It must have taken a year.
People do not like to pay off a debt for something they already have; they love to invest in something that is going to make a difference.
People are inspired more to give by the small, sacrificial gifts of a person like the widow of Mark 12 than by the huge gifts of the wealthy. Let a Bill Gates contribute a truckload of money to your building project and people think, “He can afford it; he ought to give two truckloads.” But let Sister Sadie who lives in the small house off the hill sell eggs from her hens and earn money from her sewing to contribute $200 and we are all inspired to do more than ever before. Human nature, no doubt.
Therefore, if I learn a child has sold lemonade to raise ten dollars for this project, I will want to tell the world about it. If I hear that some poor individual has done something really hard to come up with their gift, I will ask if they will let me share their story. Nothing overcomes their natural reluctance like knowing God will use their example to inspire others. This is the principle of the Macedonian illustration Paul gave us in 2 Corinthians 8.
People respond better when a friend is promoting the offering than when the one pushing it is also the recipient. Take the car-for-a-missionary-project we just completed, for instance. If Thomas, the missionary, had started this at GoFundMe by saying, “Folks, my wife and I are just in from Europe where we’ve been serving the Lord, and we’ll be needing transportation. Please give so we can buy a car,” some would have given, no doubt. But most would not have.
We’re simply suspicious of people who want to raise money for themselves.
However, when we are able to keep the missionary personalities out of it altogether and let a long-time friend (moi!) do the promotion, it’s so much better. Since I have known them well for over four decades, it’s easy for me to say how faithful they have been, how deserving they are, and what a great investment this will be.
This, I suspect, is why the young pastor is having difficulty raising the funds for his family to relocate up north to begin a church. He needs a few devoted friends to espouse his cause and speak up for him.
Make the giving spiritual…if it is indeed something for the Lord. It’s important to be able to tell people a) when you give to the Lord’s worker, you share in their reward. This is taught in Matthew 10:41-42. And even more amazing, b) when we give to the Lord’s servants, He takes it as though we are giving to Him personally. This is the point of texts like Hebrews 6:10 and Matthew 25:40.
My gift to purchase the car for the missionary couple was given to the Lord Jesus Christ, period. And, knowing them, they will receive it as from Him and be good stewards. Then, in ways I cannot fathom, part of the credit (“the rewards”) for the fruit they bear will be shared with all of us who enabled them to make those journeys and minister in the various churches.
It’s how the Lord has chosen to do things.
A pastor phoned a man in his church. “Young Tim has been called to the ministry and needs financial help for Bible college. Would you be interested in helping?” The man said, “Absolutely, pastor. I’d love to!” When the preacher expressed surprised that he had responded so quickly, the man said, “Some years ago, your predecessor called with the same request. Another young man needed help with seminary. And I turned him down. However, that man has become a great worker for the Lord. And it grieves me to think I could have a share in the fruits of his labor. So, I told the Lord that if another such request came my way I would do the right thing.”
The promotions need to be spaced out and varied, otherwise the constant repetition gets old in a hurry.
This was my failure in raising the money to pave the parking lot. We were all fatigued from the sameness of my promotions, which consisted mainly of calls from the pulpit to give, give, give.
Find various ways of promoting the offering–videos, testimonies, posters, Facebook, and so forth. Interview someone who believes strongly in this project. Paint a picture of the difference that will be made once the project is completed.
Ask the Lord if you should have a backup plan in mind. It’s not wise to automatically assume that if the Lord wants this project, the goal will be met. All we have to do is look around at the world and see, not everything that is God’s will gets done. It’s not the will of God that any should perish, but many do. And it may not be His will for the church to fail to reach their giving goals, but if enough members are resistant to the Holy Spirit it could happen.
Celebrate small victories along the way. People who specialize in major fund-raising projects often will have primary goals, secondary goals, and eyepopping visionary goals. They give them names like “Praise Goal”, “Rejoicing Goal,” and “Hallelujah Goals,” or something. You’ll come up with better ones than these.
People love encouragement. As a motivator of the redeemed men and women of the Kingdom, you know this and by now should be gifted in the words, methods, and skills of encouragement.
But there are some caveats you must keep in mind….
But you must never manipulate people.
Never do anything that even smacks of manipulation. If your spouse says it does, then mark it down in big letters, it does. And stop it. Now.
Never make a pledge you do not keep.
Never stretch a truth and make it seem that one person is giving more than they are, in order to inspire another.
Never violate a confidence.
Always listen to your counselors. Heed the advice of godly men and women whom you trust most.
The project to buy a car for my missionary friends went through three stages. Originally, I wanted to buy them a new car myself. Nothing could be simpler than this. However, the stock market has been cruel to my retirement fund this year, so that was out. I prayed for the Lord to show me what to do.
The second stage was involving four friends to help. I felt that if each one of us could give, say, $5,000, the missionaries could buy a nice new car. But two things happened to stop that.
First, one of the friends told me his finances were such that he could not participate at all. And the second friend said, “Joe, I don’t even buy a new car for myself. You pay 10k just for the new car smell.” He added we could get a good used car for “10 to 12k.”
That felt right. Okay. We could do that.
Then, my son and a friend suggested we take the GoFundMe route. The first friend had said, “Let’s invite people to contribute. They’ll do it.”
(Explanation: I found out later there are several such sites to help people raise money through social media. A good friend’s family had used GoFundMe after their adult son lost his home in a flood, and they recommended it. I was not happy that they deduct 8 percent for themselves, but we went with them. Later, I was told of alternatives that deduct nothing. So, this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of GoFundMe.)
He was right. I am grateful.
Originally, had I bought the car for our missionary friends, one person would have been blessed (me). Had we gone the second route with my four friends, five families would have shared the blessing. But by opening the project to everyone, we ended up with over 100 contributors. Thus, over a hundred times as many were blessed than had I done by original plan. “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
And thus one final principle: Better to have a hundred small gifts than one huge one.
Say you are trying to raise ten thousand dollars as we were. Had I bought the car for the missionaries, they would have been beholden to me. However, since scores of people contributed–giving amounts ranging from 5 dollars to a thousand–the recipients are a) blessed from every direction, b) unaware of the names of so many who gave and how to thank them, c) not indebted to one person for his “largesse,” and d) able to look heavenward and thank the Lord and go forward.
In the late 1970s, I was pastoring a church in Mississippi that sent me to Singapore in response to a request from our missionaries there. As a part of their urban evangelization outreach, they needed a cartoonist to draw a comic book with a message for young people. After doing the drawings, I found out that the plan was for the missionary to attempt to print the comic on an offset machine. Knowing my generous and mission-minded flock, I told them my congregation would be happy to pay the costs of having the book professionally printed in full color. Ten thousand copies of the book would cost something over three thousand dollars.
When I arrived home and informed our people of the plan, I made an interesting announcement: “No one will be allowed to give more than twenty-five dollars.” Some thought that was a funny thing to do, but I knew my people. All I had to do was stand in the pulpit and announce what we were doing and several people would have whipped out their checkbooks and underwritten the entire project in a heartbeat. But the blessings needed to be shared.
When the comics were printed, the missionary asked how many copies I wanted for our people. I asked for over a hundred, which we distributed to the wonderful men and women who had paid for the project.
Every pastor does not learn this lesson, but those who do feel they have struck the mother lode: Once your people learn the joys of giving to the Lord, nothing will be impossible.