A Spirituality of Fundraising (#6 Noticing Incongruences)

Senior Consultant - Design Group Intl. * Co-Founder - The (POP) Fundraising Lab * My Digital Contact Card (Office EST) * My LinkTree  * 14 April 2023 Free Virtual Workshop Registration

Faithful Friends,

Around the world, missionaries leave their organizations due to budgetary concerns with regularity. We all know wonderful people who have left organizations because of lack of finances. Oftentimes, they are trained in how to proclaim the gospel and program activities in terms of discipleship and spiritual formation. On the other hand, they have been trained to use a different paradigm for fundraising. I have felt this disconnect for most of my career.

Have you felt this disconnect in your organization or in your heart?

This is an interesting conundrum. Most mission organizations train in such a way that is theologically integrated relative to its daily practice of ministry. When missionaries are trained in the proclamation of the gospel, the focus is not on secular best practices of rhetoric or the study of communication. The focus is anchored in the Scriptures and theology of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

Organizations who work with teenagers, do not focus training around networking, peer mentorship, or the effectiveness of after-school programs. Rather, thee organizations have a deep spiritual motivation for an incarnational approach to ministry through meeting teenagers where they congregate (schools, school sporting events, lunch breaks, local hangouts), and on their terms. Spiritual thought is organizationally integrated as well throughout many organization’s leadership structures, volunteer development, and the yearly rhythms and structures of the mission.

In my experience and context, this is not as fully true when we approach fundraising.

Missionaries tend to be adequately prepared to live in one world of spiritual formation of discipleship with their audience and leadership teams, and then asked to go into another world of fundraising that is mostly secularized.

This disconnect is why I, and many other missionaries around the globe in other organizations, have felt inadequate in the knowledge and skills of fundraising. Consequently, missionaries need more training to recast fundraising from a mostly secularized approach to one that views fundraising as a spiritual practice.

How would your approach to fundraising be different if this paradigm shift took place in your head and heart?

Mission organizations have been talking about a form of practical spirituality of fundraising for years; however, this conversation has not trickled down into ongoing training in the field in many cases, and the lack of a spiritual framework for fundraising has had consequences in the lives of missionaries. Most missionaries lack a deep understanding of how faith formation impacts the ways in which they imagine and practice fundraising. 

The result is a thin correlation between the mission of the organization and the missionary’s practice of fundraising. This flimsy connection is a reality in most organizations around the world. 

Fundraising is an strenuous task; it is one that feels, for many missionaries, severely disconnected from Christian discipleship and the spiritual life of Christ. Historical language around fundraising (“donor,” “solicitation,” “hit them up,” “prospect list,” “strategy,” “giving units”) is representative of the disconnect that many of us have felt between fundraising and spiritual formation.

Consequently, for many missionaries, there is little joy in the process of fundraising. 

That makes me sad.

Lead with Love,

Kevin A. Eastway