I appreciate the responses we had to Peb’s question in last week’s blog: “Has anyone else noticed the eyes of major donors, especially the younger, beginning to glaze over when ministries describe the enormous numbers they are claiming? Is it just me or are others skeptical of the numerical ‘super-hype’ that has become standard and the sophisticated strategies that are producing and promising them with such confidence? Is everything finally measured by the standard of ‘how many’ and ‘how large’?” I do think donors are beginning to have a different standard for success than numbers but for reasons that go beyond a “glazing over.” It is deeper and more fundamental…

For the last several years I have met with a group of friends who also work in Christian philanthropy to talk, share experiences and support each other. Every year the conversations are different because our issues change. As well, each time we convene the trust level goes up, and the barriers to discussing uncomfortable issues go down. This year we discussed the ways both donors and ministries measure and evaluate results. While all of us have been around long enough to have seen the effect of the growing pressure on ministries to report (and sometimes inflate) their results for donors, it was a question from Peb Jackson that named the…

I received a letter from a long-time friend this week that has me thinking about how we respond to changes in fortune — especially in our ability to give. “Over the past couple of years, my interest in, and enthusiasm for, our foundation’s giving has been waning. I have been just going through the motions — and sometimes not even that. This has occurred during the time when the size of our foundation’s giving potential has decreased considerably. As you know, I spend a good deal of time each morning in prayer through journaling. Several weeks ago, I began to really focus during that time on what the Lord had…

In 2009, the John Templeton Foundation gave Notre Dame University a $5-million grant to lead research into the relationship between the brain and generosity. The initiative is called the “Science of Generosity,” and under the direction of Christian Smith, discoveries in neuroscience are making it clear that our brains are indeed designed to be generous. I admit I was skeptical when I first heard about it, but reading some of the results of their work has been encouraging. Of course, the ever-present danger is falling into the “nothing but” trap and concluding that generosity, compassion, empathy, altruism and giving are nothing but electrical impulses and chemical reactions. Research from the…

It’s a familiar scene made even more so by movies and novels: the reading of the last will and testament. The somber family is seated quietly around the table in the law office. The attorney reaches down into his briefcase and pulls out the file. He puts on his glasses, clears his throat and starts slowly reading the wishes of the deceased. Of course, in the back of every mind is the obvious question, “How much did he leave me?” It’s not unnatural or even greedy. It’s pretty normal behavior. Everyone has some vague notion or hope, and then the attorney says, “Your father left a sprinkling trust” and closes…

If I were to pick one word to describe my mail from nonprofits in December, it would be URGENT! Every email was intent on reminding me how little time I had left to take advantage of either matching grants, the looming end-of-the-year tax deadlines or a special opportunity that would close by December 31. I don’t blame the organizations for this. It’s hard to get our attention from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, so something has to break through the clutter. As well, end-of-the-year giving has grown so much in importance that a nonprofit would be foolish not to do everything they can to nudge donors that they only have…

Our young waitress at lunch the other day seemed overly concerned about everything being just right. It wasn’t irritating or intrusive. It didn’t interrupt the conversation. It wasn’t the feeling of being rushed through lunch to open up the table for another waiting customer. It was a genuine interest in doing a good job, but she didn’t seem at ease about it. As I said, she didn’t distract from the conversation and that was the main point of the lunch. My friend and I had both served on local committees for evaluating charitable requests, and we were comparing notes about the various tools we used to make sure those gifts…

Periodically, I think about retirement and what that might mean. I asked one friend about it, and his response was, “Retire from what? You have the job that everyone would like to find when they retire.” He was right, but I still think I’d like to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  You can quit now.” Fortunately, that is not God’s plan for my life. I came to realize this in a couple of ways. First, I read the Genesis account of creation recently and saw it in a new way. Man was not created as the pinnacle of creation. His work was not created for his own fulfillment.…

A few years ago I read William Easterly’s book, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. While the title pretty much gives you the essence of the book, the first chapter details a basic distinction between two types of people: Planners and Searchers. Planners start with basic problems and make them bigger before offering any solutions. They apply global blueprints. They raise expectations but take no responsibility for meeting them. They think they already know the answers that can be imposed from the outside and believe poverty is a technical engineering problem that their answers will…