That's right! We're going to do it! We have the opportunity to get the word out about the DurhamCares Success Grant program that's revolutionizing the way people give money to non-profits in the community, and if we're successful Henry's hair will be sacrificed for the cause and our entertainment.

Next Friday, May 8th, at 3pm we will shave Henry's hair down to almost nothing, and if you have seen how long it is lately you'll know this is no small undertaking!! We'll video the whole thing and post it shortly after the deed is done.

However, the clippers only start clipping if by Thursday May 7th we mobilize and get 300 people to make one or more Success Grant pledges at www.durhamcares.org/index.php/grant

No money or credit card is required now, and any pledge amount is great but there have to be 300 new people participating by the end of the day next Thursday 5/7. This is all about getting the word out about the Success Grant program and the new way to give money locally and connect its impact in the community. Henry has a video blog explaining Success Grants that you can check out.

So, game on. Tell your friends, neighbors, loved ones, and anyone with access to the internet and let's get at least 300 people pledging so that Henry needs a little extra SPF on his noggin this summer. 

Some quick updates from Samaritan Health Center as they are getting their clinic up and running and working towards their goals of providing high quality, compassionate and efficient care to the underinsured and uninsured in Durham.

Just last week they reached some milestones and firsts:

• They received their official IRS approval of their 501(c)3 Non-Profit status
• They held a full clinic with 13 patients last Thursday evening, many of them "repeat customers" who were following up on intricate problems
• The first ECG was taken and interpreted
• The first use of the new wall mounted otoscopes / opthalmoscopes
• The first use of the new Dinamp auto BP / temperature machine
• The first official hymn-sing with the patients after the clinic was over
• The first time electricity was available in all exam rooms
• The first visit from a kidney specialist, Dr. Pat Pun

This Thursday will be another first for the dental clinic as the nurses will be able to screen the patients before being seen by Dr. Eaker. 

Check out the first DurhamCares videoblog that asks the question, "Should Henry shave his head for Success Grants?"  Hit us in the comments with your thoughts.

A few weeks ago DurhamCares hosted a bracket challenge as part of the NCAA tournament.  It started small but soon became a big group of neighbors in Durham and beyond.  Every time 50 new members were added to the group DurhamCares added another $1,000 to the initial pot until the group was 346 people who were all playing for a piece of $9,000 that they could donate to a DurhamCares partner!

We had a great time watching the games and following teams and players to see who would win the tournament and which DurhamCares partners would get the donations.  Congratulations to the Tar Heels for their win of the tournament, and congratulations to the winners in our bracket.  But even more, congratulations to the excellent DurhamCares partner organizations who all ended up getting a share of the winnings!

• Big Brothers Big Sisters won $5,000
• Durham Eagles won $1,100
• Habitat for Humanity won $1,000
• TROSA won $500
• Housing for New Hope won $400
• Durham Rescue Mission won $400
• Samaritan Health Center won $350
• Pregnancy Support Services won $300

We'll be back next year to play this game again and hope it will be even bigger and better! 

Today marks the relaunch of the website and the official launch of the new Success Grant initiative. 

For those of you who don't know about what the Success Grant is, here's a quick overview: 

The Success Grant program is a unique way to reward our not for profit partners to focus on planning and achievement of success based outcomes. We've worked over the past year with each organization to best understand what would constitute true success for their programs and those they seek to serve. They have come back to us with a list of goals that they've set for themselves. We've committed to grant each of these organizations $10,000 of DurhamCares money if and when they attain these goals, and have provided a platform for you to join alongside us as well to increase that number - a number that we'll all be able to grant at the end of the year ONLY upon successful attainment of THEIR goals. We hope that you'll read each program's goals and pledge generously to this innovative program that rewards, planning, outcomes, and success. 

We're hopeful that this concept will change the way that charities think about planning and focusing on outcomes and that it will change the way that donors think about giving. 

In addition, we're after significantly moving the needle with the state of giving in Durham. We'll be providing a full report on this in a later blog, but we recently commissioned a survey with FGI Research (thank you by the way to the entire staff there who gave of their time to this exercise) of 425 households to learn about the current condition of giving. We found that households making more than $100,000 in Durham give LESS than 1% away to local charities (of those who are church members, 2.4% went to tithing....of a Biblically based 10%). We think that there are two opportunities to make a major change in that number. 

First, there is a great opportunity for pastors to talk about Christ's commands to take care of the least of these (Mt 25:40) and for us as their congregants and parishioners to heed the lessons of our pastors and the commands of Scripture. Aside from that, which might seem more or less obvious, we think that there is an opportunity, maybe even an obligation, for charities to make it easier for donors to give to their organizations. We think that they might accomplish this by talking the language of their audience. 

Take this example: A businessman/doctor/attorney/professional sits in on an investment opportunity meeting in the morning and throughout a 2 hour presentation is presented with an overview of how he might make money. He/she's presented with information on the addressable market, the competitive landscape, the background of the principals in charge of the investment, forecasts based on past performance and a summation on what his/her return on the ivestment might be. They write a check for $50,000. 

This same individual then goes to a fundraising luncheon at the invitation of a friend. The Executive Director talks about the organization, shows some slides of their programs and has a number of testimonies of those that have been helped by the organization. A member of the Board of Directors then closes things out with "an ask". The presentation moved the individual. They write a check for $250. 

I'm convinced that this example happens in real life all the time in Durham. How do I know this? This person most likely makes more than $100,000 and the aforementioned survey says that they'll give less than 1% of that to local charities. What's the difference between the "ask" that got the check for the $50,000 and the one that got the check for $250?? Almost everything, but it didn't need to be. By and large the person who makes that sum of money thinks with their head about an opportunity as much as they think with their heart. The first presentation spoke to their intelligence, their mind. It answered their questions about the opportunity that allowed them to understand what their return on investment was. The first presentation spoke to their "love language" if you will. 

One might say, return on investment doesn't apply to the world of charities. Those people are partially right. A widget is not a kid. But, all charities can and do focus on outcomes. The impact of their work can be measured across the homeless, kids, students, those in need of job skills, etc. When charities and not-for-profits focus on these outcomes and look to communicate them effectively to the public through the Success Grant program or on their website, we think that they'll be much more effective at showing the return on their investment and getting a much bigger share of the Durham's citizens wallet. 

It's our hope that you, the citizen and donor in Durham, will resonate with this message. That you'll participate in our success grant program. That you'll endeavor to understand the impact that these (and other....this doesn't need to be just about DurhamCares charities but all charities that you give to) charities in Durham and reward excellence when it's planned for and realized. And yes, we hope that as these charities learn to talk your language that you'll reward them, and us all, by giving more of your income........because now, maybe for the first time, you'll better understand the return that these great organizations can get with your investment. Yes, not your donation, but your investment.

This week I was challenged by a new aspect of God's command to love our neighbor in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I realized that this parable is given for a Jewish audience, and in response to the question of an expert in God's law. The audience, like many of us, would not associate with a certain group of people--in their case, the Samaritans. Like many of us in church today, they knew all of the answers to Jesus' questions. Unfortunately, for all our religion, we often do not really know what it looks like to love and live as Jesus wants us to. This parable is meant to awaken people like us!

How many of us have become "experts in God's law" and yet fail to put it into practice? Or perhaps we will put it into practice up to a point that remains comfortable--we'll love those neighbors that we like, when it is convenient. The expert in the law "wanted to justify himself, so he asked, ‘And who is my neighbor?'" In response, the parable shows that when we try to justify ourselves and make excuses for why we are exempted from loving those in need, we are missing the point.

How do we change? In this passage, Jesus calls us to let Him define the conditions of our love. We, like the expert in the law, have a tendency to love and care for those we get along with easily, so we draw the boundaries of our "neighborhood" and pat ourselves on the back for how well we love others. But then Jesus confronts us in this passage, breaks down our spiritual gerrymandering and calls us to be a neighbor to those in need, those who are different, those who are enemies.

The really terrifying thing is that showing this kind of radical neighborly love takes time. Being a neighbor is not writing a quick check, though the Samaritan did leave one at the inn to make sure the man was taken care of. No, this kind of love required the Samaritan to forgo his plans and respond to the dire need of the beaten Israelite.

What are the needs in your community? Or perhaps this parable changes the question, and you need to completely rethink who your "community" and your "neighbors" really are.

Jesus' command to "Go and do likewise" is a paraphrase: Go and be a neighbor to a victim in need, disregard the fact that they are from a different faction of society, give generously of your time and money to physically and personally meet their need. That is what it means to be a neighbor in Durham.

I hope you will join me in helping the people that God has placed in our path who have been beaten and left by the side of the road in our society. With God's help and example, let's be neighbors who cross social boundaries and show love to even the least of these.

Welcome to the new and improved DurhamCares site and blog!
 
In this space over the coming months and years, we (Henry, David, Mike and Heather) are going to look to share some of our ideas and thoughts on Durham and the concept of caring.   We're far from authoritative, but are excited about the things that we see going on around us and want to share them along with some thoughts about what we might all do to play an active role in transforming this city that we work in, call home and have come to love.
 
From time to time, we're going to ask others to write as well……and that others includes you!! (cue the old picture of Uncle Sam).  We surely don't have a monopoly on the good ideas and perspectives and we want to provide you with a platform to get your ideas out on how we all might care as well.
 
You'll see that we already have several folks, from several walks of life that have already written and we'd very much like to have you do the same.  If interested, please e-mail us at care@bandwidthcares.org .
 
We have a good idea of some of the things that we'd like to talk about over the coming weeks, and so here's a quick preview:

1. Challenge grants……our application of the idea that folks will give more money if they can see the return they get and if their money is used to reward excellent performance just as they see in their jobs.
2. Volunteering…..as you hopefully know by now, we take our inspiration from the Parable of the Good Samaritan and it's lesson on the broader definition of neighbor.  Well, there's another application of this parable as well…..one of the example of physical love shown by the Samaritan (he just didn't leave a bag of money with the guy on the road, or pay someone to take him to the inn)….in this blog we'll look more at the call for volunteers and our program to lead to more successful volunteering

We hope that you'll stay posted (no pun intended) on what we're up to, that you will tell a friend, and that you (and your friend) will take us up on our offer to share your viewpoints, experiences and perspectives as well.
 
Your neighbor,
 
Henry

What did Peter tell Paul in Galations 2 before they set out to go abroad to reach their chosen people groups (Jews/Gentiles)?

"Remember the Poor"

Paul's response was that is was the very thing that he was eager to do.

There are countless references to taking care of the poor in scripture...by some counts, as many as 2,000.

That we need to take care of the poor is probably pretty clear to most of us reading this. What's less clear is how we should go about it...particularly when looking overseas.

For my money, it's MicroFinance, and more particularly Christian Microfinance.

All of that has been made all the more clearer to me after hearing Peter Greer, President of Hope International who spoke 3 times over the past 24 hours in Durham and Raleigh.

Why is Microfinance such a good answer? Well because microfinance gives the poor dignity.....a hand up, rather than a hand out. They borrow and then pay back the loan that allows them to become an entrepreneur. In an environmnent where many money lenders give out money at 20% interest PER DAY!, reasonable interest rates (typically 20% per annum) allow new entrepreneurs to buy the raw materials that they need to make a living and provide for their family............they do so using their hard work.

They repay their loans at a rate of better than 95%. Why?, because while they don't have traditional collateral with items of monetary value, they do have social collateral. Social collateral means that entrepreneurs in a small town each co-sign each other's loan with the result being a powerful joint accountability.
Microfinance is not new, but it's pace of growth has picked up dramatically.

What is newer, is the concept of CHRISTIAN MICRO FINANCE. It's effectively giving out the cup of cold water in the name of Christ. The best example I've seen of this yet comes from Hope International. www.hopeinternational.org (though their are others that are Christian based, but a bit less overt like Opportunity International) Their president, Peter Greer, sums it up by saying that Hope acts with the understanding that SPIRITUAL poverty is just as pervasive, if not more so, than FINANCIAL poverty.

Hope has grown quickly since 2005 and now has more than $25 million in loans outstanding in 13 countries. Their average loan is $92, and their repayment rate is 99.6%.........more importantly, during a recent survey they found that fully 60,000 of their clients had first heard of Christ from their interaction with Hope International!!!

Say I have $10,000 that I'd ordinarily look to give to overseas charities.

That $10,000 would make a material difference in the lives of 105 entrepreneurs, they'd hear about Christ and then after 5 months (the term of the average loan).....I'd get my money back.

That's scale....that's leverage.....that's results....that's witnessing....that's heeding the lesson of the Parable of the Talents while honoring the 2,000 passages on poverty.

All while delivering DIGNITY not DEPENDENCY.

and all to the Glory of God!