I linked to the below via a couple of sites today. The thing that struck? They used the words “relational giving” which we’ve been tossing around in our mission discussions. I don’t know the whole history of the Advent Conspiracy, but they are definitely getting their message out in a relevant way and what they have to say is resonating with me. . . check it out:

Last week I attended a conference in Naples which featured a number of terrific speakers on philanthropy in America. The highlight for me was meeting S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-Fil-A. What an amazing man! He has made it clear throughout all his success that he is just seeking to honor God. His statement to close on Sundays is a testament to values and honoring God first and making a buck second. But he's shown that there is still plenty of room to make a buck. I felt like an 8th grade basketball player going up to meet Michael Jordan. Mr. Cathy couldn't have been more gracious. I feel fortunate to have met him. My interaction with him has made me feel more resolute about patronizing his restaurant at the expense of McDonald's. This, of course, was made all the much easier by the new campaign from McDonald's with billboards saying "Open on Sundays".

As much as I admire Mr. Cathy, this blog is not about him or Chick-Fil-A. It's about a debate that I watched at the same conference between Paul Brest, the CEO of the Hewlett Foundation and Bill Schambra, Director of the Bradley Foundation. I invite you to read Paul's blog and my reply to the tension between the two camps one advocating deep strategic analysis before giving and the other advocating a practice of "write the darn check" is as follows:

I was at the debate in Florida and profited from hearing both views. It's hard to argue with having a strategic approach to philanthropy....though Bill gave it a good shot. I am a firm believer in what I think applied strategic philanthropy requires: strong measurement of the outcome......ROI in other words.

I am also a believer though, that it's often the smaller, indigenous groups without a well formulated strategy and access to grant writers, that are most effective at reaching target populations. I think of the DurhamEagles a youth football program in Durham that reaches 220 kids, 90% of whom live under the poverty line, but who with the help of the Eagles have 2x the graduation rate. They do all of this with just $25,000 in operating budget. That's $113 per kid! They get to that level because they are small, nimble and staffed by caring/motivated volunteers without staffers or overhead. They need to be better at planning, no doubt (and that's what we at durhamcares.org aim to do). But they also need someone who will (as in Bill's words) "write the darn check"

So for me, the answer is somewhere in the middle of both views, though admittedly closer to Paul's. The challenge we have though is to shepherd smaller, effective organizations along a path towards strategic planning in a way that doesn't compromise their effectiveness or their return.

I was recently invited to a local church planting strategy session. I believe (like many of you) that real transformation happens when the Gospel is spread AND when the commands of Christ are lived out through mercy ministry. So, while DurhamCares focuses on deed ministries, we are just one half of the equation, and I'd argue the lesser half. So with that in mind, I went to the meeting eager to learn.

I came away from the meeting excited at the opportunties in front of us to plant churches in Durham, but rather unsure what do do about it, and if/how much to donate to the cause. So I then drafted a letter to the meeting organizer with a perspective and some questions with the hopes that I might have him think about the project in a new way, and to give me some data points from which I could make a decision on how much to give. I offer this letter up to a more public audience with the hopes that it might be helpful to others as well:

Dear Church Planting Meeting Organizer (name kept out as I don't think it's important in this context):

Thank you for inviting me to the meeting this morning. I was glad to be there and learned a lot. It is always very encouraging for me to be around Godly men who have a passion and commitment to advance the Kingdom. It makes for some great brainstorming....the best kind (so much more rewarding than talking about driving costs out of a telecom network....the writer's day job, ed!)

As I offered up in Q&A, I find it most helpful to think of this potential "investment" in Kingdom work like I might think of the decision involved in making an investment in the more worldly sense.....that of an investment in financial securities with a portfolio comprised of different asset classes and their own corresponding expected returns and expected volatility.

With a financial portfolio the asset classes might include: stocks, bonds,cash, commodities and real estate (each of those, of course, can be further broken down by domestic, international, duration, credit rating etc.) With a "Kingdom portfolio" the asset classes might include: tithing, mercy ministries, missionary support, Christian education, Christian microfinance and church planting (these, like financial asset classes, can be broken down much further, of course to include domestic and international). Tithing is kind of like cash....you have to have positions in both types of portfolios. Whether to have investments in other classes, and if so, how much is less certain.

Those decisions seem to be made based on investment guidelines/principles and expected return. For my wife and I, our guidelines and principles are driven by Matthew 22, 36-40: We want to help people to Love the Lord their God with all their soul and all their mind......that's where church planting and giving to places like Trinity come in for us. We also want to love our neighbor as ourself, and help others to do the same......that's where mercy ministry comes in.

Just after guidelines/principles in our decision making comes potential return. This is undoubtedly easier, of course, with financial investments, but I think that a real effort needs to go into understanding what it looks like in Kingdom work as well.

Questions regarding return would look like:

1. What has $1million invested by an external source (in other words not due to the fruits of the new pastor raising their own support or from giving from new congregants) of other in suburban church plants of your denomination typically yielded after 5 years in terms of membership and regular attenders? 10 years? Surely some of the churches funded by that $1million grow to be successful, and yet others fail, but what is the aggregate return?

2. How does that rate of return differ for more urban chuch plants, or those that aim to have mixed membership which might be more strategic in nature?

3. How does this rate of return compare to other Bible believing church plants?

The answers to these questions need to then be compared against the return that we might expect from giving to other ministries, both ministries focused on word and those focused on deed. For instance, what might $1myn yield if invested in a more established church? How many more folks might come to Christ in those instances? How many people might come to know Christ if the same was invested in overseas missions? This breaks down a bit, of course, when you look at the increased giving to missions and mercy ministries that come from those brought to faith in churches that are already established, but it's still a helpful part of the decision process.

I think that it's important to note that there isn't a perfect answer that's likeley to come from a financial model that will provide the recipe here, and that my wife and I (and others like us) need to keep in mind that Biblical teaching and prayer need to guide us more than more worldly learning and analysis. I remember hearing a story about Billy Graham whose most disappointing revival was at an event with fewer than 10 altar calls out of the thousands that attended. He had counted that event as a huge failure for 20 years until he came across another evangelist (whose name I can't recall) that had been one of those 10, and had subsequently been used to bring hundreds of thousands to Christ. So much for the ROI analysis on that event! I still, though, think that there's a good place for good planning and analysis. I don't think that the Parable of the Talents is thought of as Scriptural foundation for ROI investing, but it's the passage that guides me in this.

Another area that you touched on briefly today that I'm fascinated to know more about is best practices. What's worked well in other areas of the country? What didn't? What lessons would that have for us here? This information would seem invaluable and a big part toward our ability to deliver the best type of ROI.

Lastly, I have come to be very excited about what I see the larger body of Christ doing in Durham. I'm excited about church planting from your denomination, AND from other denominations. I've spent some time talking with another area pastor about his church planting strategy and I'm sure that other Christ centered, Scipturally grounded churches are looking to do the same here. All interest and excite me, as I think they do others. I'd love to see denominations share best practices and strategic plans wherever possible. There will be limits to how far that might guide a particular denomination...... for instance, I wouldn't suggest that just because the Southern Baptists are planning a church plant in Brier Creek would mean that the PCA can't, but that that should be one of many data points that would be used in making a decision about where to look to bring the Gospel.

I'd love to get your thoughts here.

(this last line was addressed to the meeting organizer, but could just as well be addressed to you, the reader as I'd love to get other perspectives)

What is the ultimate goal and vision of DurhamCares?

The process of asking this question about our organization over the past weeks may prove to be a watershed in DurhamCares history.

Up until now, our main goals have been inspired by the parable of the good Samaritan: to broaden the definition of "neighbor," help people understand Durham's needs, and then "remove barriers" and "make it easy for people to give of their time and money." We wanted to increase and improve volunteerism and donation by helping people in Durham better understand how to love their neighbor. But does giving more correspond to loving your neighbor?

Looking at what our approach and our vision boiled down to, I saw in DurhamCares a mix of United Way, VolunteerMatch, VolunteerCenter, and a charity-consulting group with a strong flavor of Christian inspiration. There is nothing new about having people care for each other more, connecting needs and resources, or ultimately seeking to improve the community. Our hope is to accomplish these objectives more effectively because we work on a local and personal level. If DurhamCares is to be one more way that people can show they care, this is great. None of us could settle for that, however...and here's why:

When we get to heaven, I do not think Jesus is not going to say "When I was hungry, you gave a check to United Way and they fed me. When I was naked you gave your clothing to the Durham Rescue Mission and they clothed me." Our goal cannot only be for people to write "$5,000 checks instead of $500" if we want them to love their neighbors. Giving more and volunteering more may never get people to love their neighbors; in fact, it may placate their consciences and insulate them from the challenges of truly acting in love. Though we will encourage and help people give, our vision must be to help them see beyond their gifts and get actively involved in loving.

I Corinthians 13 says that if we sell all that we have and give it to the poor, but have not love, it is meaningless. If DurhamCares increases donations and volunteerism without helping people love, it is meaningless.

To put it in more concrete terms, at DurhamCares our foremost goal is not to get you to increase your giving from 1.8% of your income to 4.3%. That may coddle you into thinking that you are doing better and we may be keeping you from seeing what it means to love. Do you love someone who is "poor"? Do you love those around you enough to know their needs? Have you ever been to a neighborhood where the needs are completely different from yours? What would you think if I told you that we are encouraging you to get involved not because of what you can offer, but because we want to meet your needs?

That's right, DurhamCares is going to change you-the donors. We are going to take you half way across the world or maybe just half way across town and get you involved in a person's life that you could not have imagined. We are not doing this just so you will write a larger check, but to give you an entirely new perspective on life-how you spend your waking hours, how you view the city, poverty, need. We are going to show you that the people you saw as "needy" have things to offer you. We are going to get you actively involved in caring for your neighbors, your city, and the world. As you get involved, I am sure that you will give more of your time and money-not because we have convinced you, but because you have experienced what it is to truly care. Do not settle into "giving to charity," let DurhamCares challenge you.

So why is this a watershed moment for DurhamCares? Now that we have set our sights on "Love thy Neighbor"-an incredibly unique and compelling vision-we need to develop our programs to reach this audacious goal. Our mindset has shifted from helping people give more to providing opportunities that will challenge and enable them to love. Naturally, giving will be part of this, but giving alone won't cut it.

I knew long before Friday that I don't naturally think big ideas. The audacious doesn't come easily to me. I'm much better at launching an idea than coming up with it. Pragmatic in implementation and relational in communication, that's me, and I like that role. So, this exercise of thinking about bold and audacious mission and vision stretches me in a good way, and it is part of the reason I'm excited about the new adventure at DurhamCares.

Some specific things resonated for me in our conversations: 

1. To find yourself you must lose yourself. That's audacious, bold and frankly a little crazy sounding. It's not original, but it is true. Jesus said it back in the day. How do we help people believe that losing themselves and giving to others is really the way to find yourself, and can you really invoke that if you are losing yourself in good things but not losing yourself in Christ? Or are we just offering a "noble idol" at whose feet to worship?
2. I may not easily come up with big ideas, but I do know I want to be part of them. Something different or something new connects with me and I'm ready to join in. I don't want to do something that's already been done in the same old way or be involved with mediocrity. I suspect that's true of most of us. So, we've got to nail something that resonates and truly engages not only us but others to join.
3. I can't underestimate my need to pray through this process. Maybe it seems too obvious to actually say it, but I need to. It's easy for me to think that the most important work in this process is sitting in a conference room, hammering through ideas and words to funnel a clear and understandable mission and vision, and then set up an organization to move people to action. No doubt that's important, but the reality is the most important work here is for us to humbly seek wisdom through prayer and trust that God is sovereign and involved - not only in our process but in the hearts and minds of all those people who may in some way connect with DurhamCares in the future and bring glory to Him (whether they know it or not).
4. This process takes time. Even when other people come up with the big ideas it takes time for me to process them. What do I really think? Why? How is my opinion informed? I need to spend some significant time turning over in my mind all the things we've talked about in the past couple of weeks. Admittedly, I'm kind of tired of talking about it, and I'm ready for the pieces to come together. But the reality is that I know I need to sit with this stuff and let it form because the implementation will be so much easier and the work so much more effective when it's anchored.

The value for me of this exercise was in a continued, lively discussion on how we really want to transform Durham in a way that truly glorifies God.

Here is what really resonated:

1. "Love Thy Neighbor". That statement is right on, and for good reason. As we know, the greatest command is to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your Mind, and the second one is like it: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself" We know that we want to use these 3 words in our vision. More importantly, we know that we want the vision and mission of DurhamCares to be completly in sync with this concept.

We want to help folks, all of whom have almost, without fail, heard this commandment, to understand it, make it easy for them to apply it, and just as importantly to work hard to make sure that living out this commandment is a joyful one.

2. It is better to give than to receive. We all agreed that we want to articulate the feeling of the mutual blessing that occurs when someone loves their neighbor. In effect the giver receives, and the person who receives gives. This point was driven home for me last night when I attended the Durham Rescue Mission fundraiser that featured a number of testimonies...one from a volunteer who talked about how much he had been blessed by Alonzo, the person that he was teaching how to read. I think that God wants us to be happy, and that it truly is "better to give than to receive". We at DurhamCares want to work tirelessly to ensure that the donors and volunteers are indeed blessed, just as those who they help are.

3. We want to be Bold. When David and I got together to launch Bandwidth.com almost 8 years ago and I asked him what our mission was...he told me it was to "change the world". Wow, I thought at the time, this guy is over the top. But you know what, I've never forgotten it, and it's challenged us to make sure that Bandwidth.com is indeed something very special and successsful. We want to work our hardest to make sure that DurhamCares is just the same.

4. We want our vision statement to give someone a powerful mental picture of what Durham is like when DurhamCares acting in accordance with God's plan is successful in transforming Durham. We want people to hear the vision statement and get it AND want it.

5. We care. We've wrestled a bit in the past with the word "care" and what it means to our mission and to our name. After much dialog, we've decided that it stays. Why? Because it means two things: a. We care....as opposed to we don't care, or apathy b. We care in the sense of the word where care is an active doing word. So, if we are married to Care as a part of our name and getting folks to care, in both senses of the word, is our goal, then we have to use "care" in our vision statement.

Lastly, we all agreed to ask our friends, neighbors and pastors about what "Love Thy Neighbor" meant to them so that it might help refine our thinking about how to best articulate this concept as a part of our vision statement.

We're just out of a lunch session to further refine our vision statement. We've each come away with the task of summarizing our thoughts in a blog format so that we can share it with whoever reads this blog and have it for posterity, but also knowing that the exercise of summarizing all our thoughts will be good for the process and the organization. We actually thought that by the close of today's session that we would have breezed right through the vision and mission statements and made our way through the drivers, strategic objectives and functional imperatives that make up the nuts and bolts of a plan, but........ we were wrong. What ensued instead was a lively conversation for 2 hours about just the vision statement! None of us felt that the current one,

"To transform Durham into a community of people who truly live the value of "Love Thy Neigbor," meaning that they generously give of their time and resources to helping each other"

really cut it. It isn't/wasn't edgy enough for all of us and the words didn't seem to inspire anyone. Not that it was bad, but we all knew that we didn't want just another vision statement full of platitudes that would make folks gloss over.

The strange thing is that after 2 hours we're actually further away from having a vision statement than when we walked in, BUT that we all feel that we've made great progress in understanding what our organization will do and how we all feel about it. We'll be interested to get your take. What follows next is my take of that, and in the following blogs you'll see the take of Heather, Mike and Chris...............David may even weigh in with some of this thoughts as well)

Sometimes it's just fun to share cool things, but not in that "forward an email to a million people or you'll have bad luck for 10 years" kind of way. More in the "this is totally worth 2 minutes of your time" kind of way. So, here it goes. . .

The Extraordinaires aren't live with their service yet, but I'm intrigued enough by the idea that I'm sure I'll sign up to see how it works when they launch. And who knows, maybe DurhamCares and the groups we work with can utilize some "mobile volunteering."  

Mostly though, I'm enjoying the way in which I connected to them - via a blog link and a youtube video. Sure getting information this way isn't unusual in 2008, but I graduated from Carolina just over 10 years ago without owning a computer and without having ever sent an email. I did own a mobile phone, but if memory serves me correctly it was in a giant bag, had a cord and barely fit underneath my passenger seat. There's no question that in a short period of time we've totally changed many of the ways we communicate, interact and connect with one another.

So, that really begs the question about ways that we at DurhamCares communicate, interact and connect with all of our Durham neighbors right?

How can we intelligently and artfully wield the Web 2.0 tools at our disposal? Right now we're using Facebook and this blog but we're not really promoting ourselves yet. Regardless those are clearly the tip of the iceberg, and just like any technology if you don't use it well it can be more of a burden than a help.

What about you - how do you connect, communicate and interact these days? Can you point us to cool things that worked for you - a video, a blog, a website, a facebook page, a twitter feed or an iPhone app? Why did it connect and why did you watch, read, surf, post, follow or download?

As readers (or reader...thanks Mom) undoubtedly know by now, we're working on our business plan so that we're always at the ready to describe succinctly our vision/mission, our strategic objectives and the functional imperatives that come from them here at DurhamCares. Chris Chuang, Bandwidth.com's VP of Strategy, has been very gracious in donating his time through this process, and it truly has been a great one. We've been around for a year, and have always had a good sense for what we wanted to do, but the process of getting the 4 of us around a table to work on a formal plan....the kind that Bandwidth.com has, has been illuminating and much more thought provoking and in the end beneficial than I ever thought it would be.

There have been times that I thought the wrangling over the use of one word or words has been a bit overdone until I heard a story during breakfast from Lee Wheeler-Berliner, a Fuqua student who shared an experience that he had while working with a Habitat for Humanity Chpater that he used to volunteer with. As you'll see this story proved helpful for my perspective on the power of word choice AND in how we wear our Christian badge (mentioned in past blogs).

He talked about how the group discussed for more than an hour whether to use the word "but" or "and." You see, this chapter had previously stated that they were a Christian inspired organization BUT they also worked with non-Christians. After this wrangling process they made a significant change when they replaced the "BUT" with "AND"........if you do the same, you'll see that it makes all the difference in the world.

And that is exactly how we want to present DurhamCares. We are a Christian organization and we should feel great about telling folks that AND that we DO help non-Christians too. The word "BUT" amounts to an apology or covers up something that we're signalling that we're embarassed about. Here is to lots more "ANDs" in all of our collective dialogs when we talk about our faith, and no more "BUTs"!

We've made some great progress around here in thinking through our mission and vision. At one level, we've always known what we wanted to set out and do, and had a mission statement as well. But it never was as formalized as it should have been and as I've mentioned before, we've set out as a group to commit DurhamCares to the same type of rigorous business planning exercise that we expect from the charities we work with. I'll talk in future entries about the latter stages and completion of the business planning process but for now I'd like to answer the question posed in the title as it's become apparent during our discussions internally.

We haven't completely wordsmithed this yet, but the vision that we have for DurhamCares is as follows:

To transform Durham into a community of people who truly live the value of "Love Thy Neighbor" meaning they generously give of their time and resources to helping each other.

To do this we seek to:

1. Encourage and Challenge Durham's CITIZENS to give of their time and their money to causes that better the human condition in Durham

AND

2. Encourage and Challenge Durham's CHARITIES to excel in their core missions at the same time they would become more attractive to potential donors and volunteers.

It's in this second point that lies the answer to the question posed above. That's not to say that the way we approach working with Durham's citizens will also have some unique characteristics.....for instance the way in which we do high touch volunteer matching and follow up, the way in which we do promotion and outreach etc........BUT what is very unique is the way in which we are working with charities to help them communicate that they are WORTHY RECIPIENTS of Durham's citizens time and money.

You see, we think that folks will feel compelled to get involved not just because their neighbor encourages them, a co-worker challenges them or the Bible tells them to do so, BUT because they can (much more clearly than they can today) see the impact that the charity makes in the community AND does so in the language that donors and volunteers understand.

Here's how we're going to do this:

We're going to ask each charity that we work with to submit a plan for 2009 that includes operating metrics......measurable goals that they seek to achieve in the coming year. In turn, we're going to publish those goals both subjective (roll out a new program, increase training for our volunteers, etc.) and objective (serve x# of kids, shelter y# of homeless, etc.) on a new tab on the site called "Projections" that will be placed right along side the current tabs entitled "Investment" and "Return".....see we're trying to talk in the language that donors expecting a return will best understand.

When a charity is successful in achieving these goals we're going to do the following:

1. Sing their praises from the rooftops. PROMOTION is, of course, one of the key benefits that we bring to citizens and charities alike. Our general thought is that fewer than 2% of Durham's citizens have ever heard of organizations like the Durham Eagles and that less than 1/10 of 1% have ever given money to them. We seek to change that.

2. Give them MONEY. We will be setting aside a minimum of $5,000 for each charity (and in several instances, $10,000) to serve as a DurhamCares challenge grant. They achieve their goals, they get the money.

3. Enlist others to match and/or add to DurhamCares challenge grants. We'll have a feature on each "Projections" tab that will allow donors to pledge either MONEY or VOLUNTEERing time if the charity hits their projections.

We're hopeful, though, that the chief benefit for these organizations will be the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS that they'll see as they go through the planning process. We've already received great feedback from BigBrothers/BigSisters and others that this process has been a good one for them...something that's very encouraging for us.

So in conclusion, while there is and will be much that is unique about DurhamCares, it's in the way that we work with charities to be worthy recipients of Durham's citizens time and money that is most unique, and more importantly, will be most effective as we seek to transform Durham into a community that gives freely of their time and money as they "Love Thy Neighbor"