Strongholds and Challenges to Generous and Effective Stewardship

1. Strongholds and Challenges to Generous and Effective Stewardship Lausanne Resource Mobilization Working Group

2. GoalWise deployment of limited resources for greater kingdom impact.

3. Outline • Pride • Fear and Guilt • Lack of Prayer • Hoarding and Warehousing • Theological Issues • Logistical Challenges • Best Practices

4. PRIDE Matthew 6:1 “don’t let your left hand know…” • Independence, little collaboration, joint funding • Embracing legacy funding models (need for recognition) • Whose legacy? • Passion driven giving (feel good, experience joy) • Whose passion? • Giving to control the outcome and promote one's own agenda • Matching grants that communicate what we are doing • Golden rule - He who has the gold, rules. Arrogance in giving happens.

5. FEAR/GUILT Luke 12: 22-31 “Do not worry about your life, what you eat, …drink, …wear” • Diligent stewards fear making mistakes • “Giving Paralysis” • Fear of paying taxes • If assets are sold, most of the funds would go to government • Fear of going broke • Even if there is substantial wealth • Teachers, pastors, ministry leaders are intimidated by money and avoid it. • Most teaching is anti-money • “Money is evil”, “If you have money it will be harder to get to into heaven” • Negative prosperity gospel teaching.

6. LACK OF PRAYER James 4:2 “You do not have because you do not ask God” • No intentional intercessory prayer for those with financial stewardship responsibility. • No intentional prayer as part of the granting process. • Little giving to prayermobilization initiatives.

7. HOARDING and WAREHOUSING Luke 12:15-21 “I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones,…you fool…” • Conforming to worldly patterns • Accumulation and preservation of wealth • Giving only the minimum legal requirement • Regardless of actual earnings, the need, or the urgency • “Give the fruit but grow the orchard” model • We have “good” warehouses • Foundations, retirement funds, investment portfolios, insurance cash values, long term investment vs. divestment planning • Our self worth is tied up in our net worth • Pass it on to the next generation • Who's responsibility is it? Do they have the gifts? What does the research say about this model?

8. THEOLOGICAL ISSUES Matt 16:18 “I will build My church and the gates of Hell will not prevail” • Confused Theology • God is Sovereign and he will provide to those in need when he chooses, we just need to pray. • Helping vs. Evangelizing • We only aid or feed if we can proclaim the gospel • Disagreement on approaches to evangelizing confuses givers and limits generosity. • Lack of theological leadership in the stewardship world • Lack of a World View • Alms giving vs. Kingdom Investing • Disconnect between the secular and the sacred • Lack of biblical teaching on planning, financial accountability and reporting.

9. LOGISTICAL CHALLENGES • Distance • Language • Cultural Context • Relational • Oral • Shame-based • Poor • Illiterate • Funds Transfer/Banking • Reporting • Risk • Security Concerns • Available Technology

10. BEST? PRACTICES • Funding operations creates dependency and should be avoided. • Personal support funding creates dependency… • Advanced planning of our annual giving limits flexibility • “Seeding” new types of projects instead of sustaining older ministries

11. BEST? PRACTICES • Don't intentionally identify or deal with "conflict of interest" issues. • Do everything in-house. “We don't outsource any of our giving process.” • Do outcome-based giving evaluation. “We want quantifiable and measurable results.” • Train the next generation of staff on-the-job. • No professional certification is required or generally accepted.

12. BEST? PRACTICES • Narrow giving criteria to a few sectors (training, CP, media) rather than giving in a holistic way. • Do not have a clear strategy for giving • “I want to be able to react to what comes by my desk.” • We do not hold any training for recipients of our grants on how to communicate or work with us. • We do not ask for feedback from grant recipients on "how we are doing" in the relationship and giving process.

13. BEST? PRACTICES • The IRS and Terrorist Act makes funding in closed countries more difficult and less likely. • We look for joy in giving. But who’s joy? • We resist creating too deep of relationships with recipients because we are afraid of creating expectations we cannot meet. • We try to be anonymous in our giving • We think it’s biblical and it also limits expectations. • We give “where God is working”.

14. BEST? PRACTICES • We usually give on a annual basis and don’t make multi-year commitments - we are afraid we might not have the funds to meet them. • We have initiated little research ourselves. Besides, our passion, not information, drives our giving. • We do not try to influence the mission or vision of the recipient. • We would like grantees to partner but we do very little joint funding or intentional partnering with other donors.

15. BEST? PRACTICES • Flying business class is appropriate if it is for long flights overseas. • We rarely share our giving plan or actual summary of grants with others. We consider this information as confidential and private. • We rarely share why we turn down grants. We use a form letter because it would take too much time otherwise. • We do not consider unsolicited grant requests

16. BEST? PRACTICES • Each person needs to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and give as they feel led. There are no overarching needs that should be a priority for Christian stewardship. • “Matching grants" are good – they put pressure on grantees to find other funds and reduces future dependency. • We never fund 100% of a project - it's not a wise practice. • We have not determined any standards to qualify one for being on a grant-making staff. Rarely do staff have any business or personal investment experience.

17. BEST? PRACTICES • We are teaching the next generation how to give the way we give. We have learned from our mistakes and don't want them to make the same ones. • So far, technology has not changed the basic way we make funding decisions. • Most of what we do often looks like stock picking because we rarely know or can see the big picture. • Most meetings with potential grantees are held in our offices because if they come to us, it is more cost effective. Most of our staff are younger, have families and can only travel so much.

18. BEST? PRACTICES • We give only after there is a high degree of trust established. • Start small, limit the number of times we will give to a single organization • We like opportunities with large numbers, organizations in hundreds of countries with hundreds of workers, work that is getting thousands of responses, etc. “More is better” • We have created a good vocabulary to communicate what we do; donor, grantor, grantee, private foundation, “professionals in grant making”. • These terms are understood in the West but not the rest of the world. • There is no outside entity that makes independent assessments of our giving effectiveness. • The closest thing that exists is the ECFA and that is for ministries, not grantors.

19. The Solution • Mobilize prayer for Financial Stewards • Joint fund Great Commission research / think tank • Identify the leaders in implementing ministry strategies (a directory or database) • Become Financial Partners with ministry – not donors & receivers (conduct an evaluation of the process and relationships at each link in the giving chain) • Establish a process for the development of theologically sound biblically based “best practices” with endorsements by ministry and resource entities