Pursuing God’s Ways in Communication and Fundraising

Pursuing God’s Ways in Communication and Fundraising

Communications and fundraising cause a lot of concern for most organizations. There are endless books, seminars, podcasts, magazines, and professional networks offering strategies for how to be successful at it. But do all of the ideas presented truly reflect God’s ways, or are they more a reflection of human wisdom and best practices?

Glorify God

For instance, the Bible is packed with examples of retelling the stories of God’s power. But in communicating about our ministries, do we seek to give God all the glory? Or do we, at best, paint Him as the extremely good assistant to our own achievements?

Speak Well of Others

Likewise, the Bible is clear that love and unity are what God values in His followers. Jesus commanded it in John 13 and prayed for it in John 17. It’s a recurring theme throughout the New Testament. But does our fundraising reflect love and unity? How often do we suggest that donors give to other organizations or laud others’ achievements in our communications? Or do we feel that we must compete with them for limited resources? We too often fall into a scarcity mindset. Even though, at some level, we know that God’s resources are infinite, somehow we believe that, if others get more, we might not have enough. We lose sight of the fact that God alone is our provider.

Guard the Dignity of Vulnerable People

Not only should our communications glorify God and honor other ministries, but it should guard the dignity of those we seek to serve. Marketing best practices tell us that photographs of children in rags with bloated bellies bring in the most donations, but we must be careful. With every photo we choose, we must ask ourselves, “Does this picture really glorify God and honor the people? Does it tell the whole story? Or does it leave us believing that some people are hopeless and that we can be saviors?” If we’re pursuing God’s ways, then the stories we tell will honor Him and His creation.

Three steps to pursue God’s ways in fundraising and communications

Trust God

If we are going to pursue God’s ways as we raise funds, first and foremost, we must trust God. If we truly believe that everything comes from God, some of the usual temptations lose their power over us. The temptation to make ourselves look better by not mentioning the problems and failures. The temptation to exaggerate—to make our successes just a little shinier. And the temptation to compare and compete instead of seeking to build each other up.

Love Donors

Second, we are called to love those who give to our ministry. We cannot treat them as human ATMs; we must see them as God’s precious children and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Would our donors feel loved if they witnessed themselves being matched with capacity lists, run through databases, and targeted for letter sequencing? If the idea of sitting down with one of our donors and walking them through our “donor management” process makes us squirm, then it’s probably something we need to pray about.

Obey

Finally, pursuing God’s ways in communication and fundraising requires obedience. When God shows us something to do (or not do), we need to do it—even if it looks very different from anything we’ve ever seen or done before. We serve the God whose battle plan for Jericho was marching around in circles and whose plan for building His kingdom involved a crucifix and twelve scruffy disciples. His ways will often look strange to us, because they are not our ways. They are higher. They are better. Our job is simply to obey.

Conclusion

The issue of funding can be the single most stressful part of leading an organization—knowing how many people are depending on these funds and wondering where it will all come from. Yet, as we pursue God’s ways in this area, we can trust that He is a good and faithful provider.

In the next article we will look at some other ways pursuing God’s ways impacts our ministries’ day-to-day operations.