Fundraising and Relationships

One of the challenges I have encountered when I was involved in the stewardship campaign at my church is that some programs required that we contact every person on our membership list and invite each of them to a consecration dinner. It's a wonderful idea to call everyone on the church's list to invite them to an event, but because this was a stewardship event - even though we weren't asking them to make a financial commitment - it was perceived as the leadership contacting those who were not attending only to ask them for money. All of us realized that we should be calling them more than just one time a year during the stewardship campaign. Visitation programs sprung up from this experience.

Nouwen says, "Asking for money is a way to call people into this communion with us. It is saying  "We want you to get to know us." Gathering together by our common yearning, we begin to know this communion as we move together toward our vision."

Anyone who has had any fundraising experience knows that fundraising is about relationship. You have to build, strengthen, and maintain relationships in order to be successful. If we get the order wrong, though, it feels manipulative. 

Spiritual fundraising is inviting people into a relationship with God - with their neighbors (us) - so that they can experience the communion of the kingdom of God, and participate in the work of the kingdom by giving of themselves - their time, their gifts and their possessions - to the work of that kingdom. It isn't asking for money so that the church we love and function. It's inviting people to be a part of something larger. It's knowing that our own lives will be enriched by their participation, and knowing that what we offer - Church - will enrich their lives through the presence of God.

It is about relationship - about communion. It's not relationship for our own profit. It's relationship for the building of the kingdom of God.