How To Give Wisely

How to give wisely

There are serious considerations and pitfalls to consider when giving to people, churches, and communities in the Majority World. We can easily create dependency, reinforce the lie that vulnerable people have nothing and can do nothing, complete projects that aren’t maintained and utilized long term…and the list goes on. Yet, we are still left with the biblical command to give.

Paul admonishes the early churches in 1 Timothy 5:1-16 (distributing food to widows) and 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (everyone must work) to be discerning in how they love their neighbors. Discernment is even more needed in today’s fast-moving, multicultural global neighborhood. Here are a few ideas to consider:

Be prayerful

Westerners generally bring cultural values of efficiency and rapid results to efforts to help vulnerable people. In other words, Westerners’ understanding of a successful intervention is often fast, big, and urgent. Yet these cultural values are a considerable stumbling block, because when we give too quickly or too much we can cause others to stumble. Instead, our giving should always be a prayerful reaction to what God is leading us to do.

As we examined in the previous article, even our best attempts at helping may actually create more problems that we ever intended. Even the UN actually managed to cause one of the world’s worst famines by digging wells.

But God doesn’t ever get it wrong. He knows exactly what is needed and when. So we need to pray that God would make it completely clear when to give and how much to give. Instead of being driven by apparent need, we must listen to what God is saying. When we seek God’s guidance and keep in step with the Holy Spirit, we can be sure we are giving in ways that are multiplying what God is doing, rather than undermining it.

Create partnerships

Resources are best given in the context of relationship. Take time to find the right partners, slowly building trust. As you do, here are a few tips:

• Start Small – Starting small gives you time to build up systems and help your partners to understand well what is expected. This is especially important if you are working with groups of 1–10 churches. Remember that for many pastors around the world $3000 is their annual salary, so $10,000 is an enormous sum and should require a long relationship and considerable accountability. Even handing someone the equivalent of their annual salary isn’t helpful. Think about how to start small and do things more simply.

• Decrease over time – If you are working with organizations or denomination leaders you may need to do the opposite—pay a bit more at the beginning as you share your vision and let them know you will be decreasing over time as their capacity to raise the match increases.
• Communicate well – Typically a potential partner will be quick to put together a generous budget. However, if you are willing to communicate and share what sorts of things you will and won’t pay for, good partners are more than willing to adjust. Often they are used to creating a large budget and see it as a way to raise funds for other financial needs. However, if they believe that what you are offering is valuable, then typically they are willing not only to cut costs but to contribute.
• Encourage your partner to give – There are many creative ways local partners can contribute (these are discussed in the articles “Why Mobilize Local Resources” and “How to Encourage Local Giving”). If we turn up and give something they could volunteer themselves (for example, by sending a team to paint an orphanage), then we rob communities of the blessing of giving and inadvertently send a message that we see them as helpless and in need of outsiders to save them. By instead challenging them to contribute, we strengthen the community and our partner.
• Honor local contributions, recognizing they often look different – Much of how things happen in the Majority World differs from Western methods. For example, people rely on relationships rather than finances to get things done, and much planning happens in discussion rather than in writing. However, foreigners often don’t recognize the immense value of a relationship (something that takes years of investment) and are confused by the lack of clear written plans. Don’t expect local contributions to look the same as yours. As long as it achieves the right purpose, allow your local partner to do things in ways that make sense to them.
• Matching grants – When partnering with organizations, denominations, or churches that are not themselves the most vulnerable, matching grants can be a powerful tool to help them raise funds. Matching grants basically say, “For every dollar you raise, we will contribute x dollars.” In countries where giving isn’t yet common, knowing that their contribution of, say, $10 will increase to $30, $40, or $50 is very encouraging and helps those you work with to raise funds. Knowing that whatever they raise will be multiplied (and may be all they receive), can be a huge incentive to go out and raise local funds.
• Be careful of giving too little – Once someone is a partner, is contributing, and is making sacrifices, then if a specific need arises or God puts something on your heart, feel free to give. Too often trainings don’t go forward and aren’t multiplied for lack of a teacher’s book. Or a local missionary lacks medical treatment we could afford to help with. Work hard to understand what really is essential and what is holding back the project from happening. If they are already contributing all the food and travel for the training, then a teacher’s book (or translation of it) is a great investment.

Conclusion

Building relationships and creating healthy partnerships takes a long time, and often it seems we have “nothing to show” for our efforts in the beginning. It is counter-cultural to the “big, fast, urgent” norms of the West. Yet, in the long term, it is in the context of relationships with vulnerable people, local practitioners, and God Himself that true transformation can take place.