Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

“Figure out why people give and give people more reasons to give and you will, in time, grow more generous givers.” That’s at least what I remember hearing, some years back, when I went along with my other fellow curates in the Diocese of Chicago to one of Kennon Callahan’s conferences.

Sounds simple, right? Sounds too simple, you may be thinking. Of course it does. In fact, it sounds way too easy and you’re right to think there’s a catch. I thought that, too, and that inherent prejudice might’ve come from my predisposition to simply avoid church growth guru’s and self-styled consultants. At the time I couldn’t understand why we were being asked to go to a golf resort in Georgia for a week (though I didn’t resist too strongly because, after all, it was February and that’s the best possible month to leave Chicago).

It was at this conference that I met Kennon Callahan, a man who simply stood up at the opening session and addressed us in his lovely and calm way, calling us “friends” as if he really meant it – as if, though we were not yet, we would be. He talked about his family and his wife and their vacations. He talked about the things that mattered to him and he opened his heart and his story in such simple and yet profoundly vulnerable ways. I also thought there was a catch and, I’ll be honest, I was getting a little bored with his simple talk about friends and trips and why he kept going back to the same sailboat rental place he’s been going to for the last twenty years.

I thought that until he got to the punch-line, which really was, for me, a healthy starter: people give of their time and resources for a number of reasons, he said, and people are very generous with the people whom they love and to the places for which they have affection and established relationships. And if your goal is to get more out of people, you’ve got to give more.

Again, that sounds way too easy, doesn’t it? As a congregational leader, clergy or layperson, reading this might’ve also stirred up in you some anxiety and stress, certainly at this time of year when a lot of us are reviewing financial performance to date and thinking about setting a budget for 2015. Give more?! Do more?! How can anyone expect or even ask that we do more when what we’re already doing is stretching us thinner and thinner?!

But that’s not the point. And, in fact, really grasping Kennon Callahan’s one, simple, straightforward point is a game-changer. It’ll change the way you go about doing ministry, in general. It’ll also change the way you organize your budget and make your stewardship / pledge pitch right now.

People give to the centralized operating budget of the congregation to the degree that they are tuned into your pitch. Kennon Callahan invites us to draw a parallel between the way a radio station broadcasts its programming on a specific wavelength and how we, as congregational leaders, are broadcasting on the wavelengths of challenge, commitment, membership. And people are giving what they are giving, mostly via their pledges, on the basis of challenge, commitment, membership.

But you know they have more time and more money and more resources. You know this because, from time to time, more money and more time and greater degrees of participation come in for special projects, sometimes a lot more! People give more to those special projects because they are being asked to give more, confirming the ironic adage that if you want more from people you’ve got to ask for more. But remember that they are giving more because they are being asked on different wavelengths – in these latter cases, on the wavelengths of hope or justice or love or joy. The list can go on and on, and it very well should.

They are not being asked, once again, to give because of challenge, commitment, membership. You’ve already gotten everything out of them that they will give on that wavelength. You can grow it a bit more; you can challenge them a bit more and squeeze out a few more resources. But you might also run them away and burn them out, and it is a certain truth that the return on your investment will not at all be worth the energy and time you put in.

One very specific way to start practicing this principle is to look at your draft FY-2015 parish budget and figure out which expenditures have the capacity to raise money in and of themselves, which areas appeal to people’s hearts and minds? Which expenditures broadcast on challenge, commitment, membership (probably utilities, insurance, office expenditures, most salaries)? And which line items broadcast on love, formation, care, compassion, justice, joy? Could you remove Christian formation and outreach activities, say, and encourage those groups to plan an event to celebrate their ministry? This event would not be a fundraiser; it would be a moment to engage this ministry and celebrate its work, inviting participation. There, you could very well accept a free-will donation. Chances are you’ll raise more money this way than you ever did via the centralized, operating budget. That’s the Kennon Callahan principle in action: Figure out why people give and give people more reasons to give and you will, in time, grow more generous givers.

But would your vestry and parish leadership be okay with letting go of some control? Would your leadership be willing to share power and authority and let the Holy Spirit move and do her thing? Would your membership find acceptable a bold stance that you are not going to keep doing things the same way, year in and year out, just because they’ve always been done that way (which, as we know, is the very definition of insanity)?

Perhaps these latter questions are the hardest ones of all, and that’s why I’m not at all saying this is an easy thing to do. You’re right: there is a catch.