Before 1925 each missionary and agency of the Southern Baptist Convention was responsible to raise their own operating support.  While some thrived on this others suffered.  Overall the method (known as “societal giving”) resulted in “severe financial deficits competition overlapping pledge campaigns and frequent emergency appeals.” As well the churches already suffering from their members (Southern farmers) being devastated by the worst crop price crash in the history of the country were besieged with constant appeals for money from agencies and individual missionaries. 

The response to near bankruptcy and chaos was the invention of the Future Program Commission (now the Cooperative Program) to create a unified and centralized way to fund missions. Hundreds of millions of dollars for missions and the support of agencies has been raised and eliminated the need for individual fund-raising. 

Today that unified approach is fading away. It is a good example of Joseph Schumpeter’s principle of “creative destruction” where institutions are constantly being created and then destroyed when they are deemed obsolete.  New options for funding ministries are everywhere.  Crowdfunding (small donations from thousands of internet donors) can raise thousands to millions in hours or days.  If you want to help fund a movie or arts project you can use kickstarter.  If you want to fund journalists doing local reporting on stories you commission you can donate to spot.us.  Web-based “aggregators” like KIVA and Global Giving can raise and direct money to individuals. 

Organizations like Praxis and Inspired Individuals bring not only funding to new leaders around the world but mentoring and access to expertise and networks of relationships.  In other words the pendulum is swinging back to “societal/social network giving” and away from large unified approaches.  What will be the result?  I suspect we’ll see new versions of the Cooperative Program in fifty years (or less) as we experience another round of creative destruction.  

Buckle up.  It’s a great time in the history of giving.