“Aim at Heaven and you’ll get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you’ll get neither.” CS Lewis

I’ve been a Christian for about 30 years and during that entire time, I’ve given regularly to my local church and other charities. But only recently have I attempted to measure and multiply the results of my giving. I figured my job was to give and it was up to God to make it count. This seems to be a common theme. I know very successful businessman who perform very thorough due diligence before making a business investment, but routinely make charitable investments on a whim. This was certainly my own experience.

Over the past 6 years, I’ve gone through a series of “stages” in my own giving/serving experience. I’ve attempted to describe them here to start a dialog with others who, like me, are trying to figure it out.

STAGE 1: THE CHECK WRITER

In August 2002, I funded our own non-profit called Aslan’s Army. I hired a part-time assistant to help me evaluate applications from missionaries seeking funding. We were able to fund around 100 missionaries at various levels of funding. Around 33% of the missionaries actually sent me information about their experiences, but I found it difficult to measure any kind of results.

In my experience, the bible school directors were best at quantifying their results–number of students, churches planted, orphans helped, people served, pastors trained, etc. My epiphany came when I saw an application for a short-term missionary who needed $90,000/year for expenses to serve in Singapore. At the same time, I was shown an opportunity to start a new bible school in India for around the same kind of money–both land and building–that could handle 100 students at a time. The 100-to-1 ratio really struck home with me and I’ve never looked back. Aslan’s Army now supports ONLY bible schools in India, Africa, Mexico, El Salvador, and Cuba. More bang for the buck.

STAGE 2: THE BOARD MEMBER

When you write large checks, you get asked to be on the board of directors. Joining a board is one way to get an inside look on your charitable investments. However, I find that board meetings are simply a way to cram a year’s worth of positive information into a few days. In addition, I’ve found it difficult to serve in non-financial ways through my board position. In business, I was pretty successful at publishing Windows NT Magazine and being an IT manager at Focus on the Family, two talents that I could bring to the table. Unfortunately, its difficult for charities to deal with the donation of “talent,” whereas checks can be readily cashed. Serving on a board has NOT been my greatest contribution to a charity.

STAGE 3: ASSESSING RESULTS

Most wealthy Christians have stopped asking the big questions about their own lives:

• What am I uniquely called to do?
• How much do I need for my family and how can I give away the rest?
• Should I start my own ministry, partner with an existing ministry, go back into business or what?
• How can I multiply my Kingdom results?
• What can I do now that God will reward in Heaven?

Most people are too busy doing life to figure out if they’re really making any kind of difference in the world at all. This was my experience prior to being suddenly thrown in Halftime after the death of my 17-year old daughter. After that sudden shock and subsequent healing process, I had to answer the tough questions just to make sense out of life.  My sincere prayer is that people will really wrestle with these questions without having to go through a life-altering event. Unfortunately, most never answer these questions for themselves and thus, have no clue what an abundant life really means.

Here is a list of books that were helpful to me in my own Halftime journey:

• Halftime by Bob Buford
• Success to Significance by Lloyd Reeb
• The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie. This article was cited by Bill Gates & Warren Buffet as being inspirational in their own giving journeys
• In Light of Eternity and The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn.
• The Call by Os Guiness

STAGE 4: PROFESSIONAL CHECK WRITERS

If you need help doing due diligence and grant making, these philanthropic services can help. Organizations like Excellence in Giving, Kingdom Capital Group, or My Philanthropy Coach help philanthropists and foundations figure out a giving strategy and focus the philanthropists’ donations on charities that provide the best impact measurement. The philanthropic services are a perfect compliment to a family foundation where 2nd generation is now assuming control of their family charity.

STAGE 5: START YOUR OWN MINISTRY

Many entrepreneurs prefer to start their own ministry rather than go through the difficulty of finding an existing ministry to partner with. When you’re the CEO of your business, you have control. Having control just feels better to the entrepreneur. Unfortunately, you can’t change the world by picking up a BIG bat and swinging at the world’s problems. This is especially true if you’ve been Called to fulfill a HUGE vision.

In fact, I don’t recommend starting a new ministry unless you really know you are Called to start it. Many new ministries fail for the same reason that new businesses fail. They’re started by technicians who had an entrepreneurial seizure and now find themselves running an organization that overwhelms them with complexities. In the business world, you can limp along until you run out of cash, then you go out of business. In the ministry world, you can limp along as long as you find donors to “invest” in your effort without any due diligence on their part.

I recommend people work with an existing ministry and take the time to learn the industry before starting their own ministry. Yes, the non-profit world is an industry. In fact, in 2006, there were more new jobs created by the non-profit sector than by the for-profit sector. By becoming an employee or consultant of an existing non-profit, you can learn what you need to know and see if you’re truly called to this type of ministry.

STAGE 6: KINGDOM ALLIANCES

A Kingdom alliance is between business, Church, and para-church organizations to optimize a common solution for the benefit of alliance members and the communities they serve. This is where significant multiplication can happen. Kinnovation Alliance is such an alliance and is focused on information technology. We believe a Kingdom alliance of this type can exponentially increase our ROI by working together rather than working separately on the same problem.

STAGE 7: JOIN A KINGDOM VC NETWORK

Many venture capitalists and investors don’t run businesses, but are excellent at putting money to work in businesses at early stages of growth. These same skills are being applied to Kingdom projects with good results. In the for-profit world, most VC’s network with at least 50 other VC’s that they can call for advice and potentially co-invest in their venture. In the Kingdom realm, most Kingdom VC’s work independently and have a relatively small network of like-minded KVC’s. There is a HUGE opportunity to connect Kingdom-minded VC’s together to participate in Kingdom investment opportunities. Experimentation with blended value–combining for-profit and non-profit investment ROI–could significantly multiply Kingdom results. And most importantly, a network of like-minded Kingdom VC’s would provide a new set of relationships that would survive eternity.

MY CURRENT STATUS

Currently, I find myself operating at several stages at once. I’m still running Aslan’s Army, but have really narrowed down the focus to increase efficiency. I’ve also helped start Kinnovation and am currently working to build a Kingdom VC Alliance. It’s all a work in progress. I don’t have it all figured out.

My goal is to optimize other people’s Kingdom portfolio while building my own. This is one of the biggest differences between the first and second half of my life. In my first half, my focus was on a number–what it would take to become financially independent But for what end?

The focus on my second half is relationships. In fact, I believe my net worth is equal to my network of friends. I can’t take money with me into heaven, but I can look forward to telling and listening to the Kingdom stories of my friends–what we did together during this brief window of opportunity to build HIS Kingdom.

What’s your story?

When Andre Aggasi first started playing tennis, it was relatively easy and inexpensive to improve. He probably bought his first racket for a few bucks, played at public courts for free, and improved his skills rather quickly. As time went by, he found that better equipment costs more and more, having a private court and lessons cost a small fortune, and to improve he would have to spend increasing amounts of time, energy and money. At his current excellent level, he can spend immense amounts of resources and barely see any improvement at all. However, if he doesn’t spend the time to practice, his level of play will diminish.

Andre’s tennis history is an excellent illustration of the ladder of well-being. There are three curious aspects of this ladder that you find as you climb higher and higher: it gets more and more expensive to go the next rung; the rungs get closer together, so at the top it is hard to tell you are climbing higher even after a major expenditure of your resources; the rungs get more slippery at the top, so if you don’t continually spend some of your resources, you will likely fall back a few rungs. This is true for individuals, and true for society.

The developed countries (i.e. US, Canada, Japan and Western Europe) comprise approximately one-quarter of the world’s population. Through the social programs provided by their taxes, the people living in the developed world have virtually eliminated deep poverty from their countries. Virtually everybody in these countries has access to sufficient food, shelter, education, and health care. Because of broad social safety nets, on a scale relative to the world, everybody in these countries is at least three-quarters up the ladder of well-being.

In America, we have chosen to use much of our taxes to eliminate dire poverty, but there are many other worthwhile and important things that are not funded by the government through our taxes. So, the role of individual givers in America is to improve our excellent living conditions even more by funding such things as the arts, medical research, churches, and helping the poor even more. Yet, America is so far up the scale of well-being that the costs are incredibly high and it is often hard to determine if improvement is being made even after the expenditure of a significant amount of resources. Yet, if we givers don’t make these expenditures, our communities certainly won’t advance, and we may even go backward.
Renata J. Raferty is an expert on charitable giving. She believes givers in America can be described in four ways:

• Social Donors: These givers place a high value on personal visibility and prestige brought by a gift, and they highly value the importance of interacting with others in the high-profile community.

• Quid Pro Quo Donors: These givers donate to organizations in which a close friend or colleague is involved. The contribution is based on a respect or trust in the person making the request. There is often an unspoken agreement that a return request will be made by the donor.

• Social Conscience Supporters: these people give to organizations or individuals because they believe in the importance of a mission or react to an impassioned request. These people are often genuinely altruistic in their motives and selflessly dedicated to their causes.

• Results Givers: These contributors carefully invest in the nonprofit sector specifically to effect substantial, measurable change in their communities and the world. These givers require levels of improvement big enough to change people’s lives on a long-term basis.The vast majority of Americans exhibit characteristics of the first three types of givers. Working together, we both support and perpetuate a system that allows many important organizations to exist and worthwhile actions to be taken. The results of these organizations are usually measured against their missions rather than against a particular standard of cost effectiveness. For instance, results might be measured by finding out if a hospital wing got built for the budgeted amount, how many people attend the ballet each season, or how many school buses show up in front of a museum.

The cost of improving well-being in America is so expensive and so hard to recognize, that it is virtually impossible to be a Results Giver except for very small projects. This is not because we want it that way, but it is an inherent result of our system of life. For one thing, the recognition of benefits for non-profit programs is very personal. Who of us would like to compare how much good the Boy Scouts do versus Gilcrease Museum versus John 3:16? Also, since America is so high on the economic scale, improvements in life caused by any one program are small on a relative basis and are difficult to measure. Consequently, most of us inherently believe it is highly unlikely that any one non-profit activity adds social benefit an order of magnitude better than any other.

Now, let’s go back to the rest of the world. Remember, one-quarter of the world’s population lives in developed countries where there is no abject poverty. Approximately one-six of the world’s population lives in developing countries but is not impoverished. That is a total of about 2.6 billion people who live in relative economic prosperity at least three-quarters up the ladder of well-being.

Here is how the other 4 billion, or about 60% of the world’s population, lives. One billion live on $2-$4 per day – they are maybe half way up the ladder of well-being. Two billion live on $1-$2 per day – they are maybe a quarter of the way up the ladder. One billion live on less than $1 per day – they are still trying to get on the first few rungs of the ladder. Many of these men, women, and children will not survive until tomorrow.

In terms that may hit closer to home: about 3 billion people have no access to sanitation, 2 billion have no access to electricity, 1 billion cannot read or sign their names.
Until recently, individual Americans did not have many good options to help these four billion impoverished people. But an option exists now that not only helps these people, but is incredibly cost effective since they live so far down the ladder of well-being. That option is microcredit. As I have gotten involved with microcredit, it has changed my entire perspective about what my money can accomplish.

Microcredit means making very small loans to poor people to help them start or improve their businesses. These loans are very effective because there are absolutely no other sources of capital available to these people. With a loan in size of $50 to $500 a poor person can often significantly improve their income on a permanent basis. Over 80% of microloans are made to women, so they are also a very important tool to help women’s and children’s economic situations.

Loans are usually made through organizations which form small community banks. Loans are individual signature loans, but are cross-guaranteed by other borrowers, so the default rates are often less than 1%, which is lower than in America. People are focused on repaying these loans because they don’t want to lose social status and want access to future loans. They know this may be their one and only chance for them and their children to rise from poverty. Loan terms are usually six months, and interest rates are 10-15% plus the rate of inflation. So, a typical interest rate is 35% per year.

Because loans are cross-guaranteed, payments are usually made weekly in mandatory meetings of all borrowers. Anyone missing a payment has a lot of explaining to do. At these meetings, it is very easy for organizations to cost-effectively provide other services such as health and nutrition information, business training, or other financial services. As you can imagine, in many cases the borrowers value this training and information as highly as the loans.

Microloans and these related services are usually made through well-established and credible organizations. Without going into detail, I believe I help change people’s lives for a total cost of $1 to $5 per person. On a relative basis, this is thousands of times cheaper than in America. As a famous Tulsa giver said, “In America I help bring people from here to here and it costs this much. With microcredit I help bring people from here to here and it costs this much. If I value human life equally, the conclusion is obvious.”

Without trying to sound like Sally Struthers, I would like to introduce you to Crucita, a lady that my daughter recently met on a trip to the Dominican Republic. Crucita lives in a tiny village near the sugar cane fields in a remote part of the island. With her first microloan, she purchased more inventory of food and drinks for her little stand. She has since taken and repaid 5 more loans, and has purchased an oven, freezer, washing machine, and a small motorcycle for her son to transport goods and people. She makes money by baking, laundering, and selling frozen and fresh foods. She is a perfect example of someone who needed a hand-up, not a hand-out.

Through microcredit, I believe ordinary individuals, like you and me, can change the lives of billions of people. My family still gives to many organizations which benefit my communities, but I feel compelled to give increasing amounts to microcredit projects where I can do so much more good for so much less money. And as a side benefit, now that I am able to become a Results Giver, I am becoming more enthusiastic about giving.

by Phil Smith, co-author of A Billion Bootstraps

Luke Mathews was a talented businessman. As one of the few legitimate dealers in Amazonian hardwoods, he had amassed a small fortune in only ten years. As he prepared for a five-year trip into the heart of the Amazon jungles, Luke was forced to come to grips with the fact that he needed to invest $800,000 in such a way that he could feel comfortable being out of communication for so long.

Luke talked with his friends and lawyer how to go about such a daunting project. They all suggested that he find some good money managers and give it to them. He searched the financial newspapers and magazines until he had narrowed his list down to the top 20 money managers in America. After researching their websites and talking to them, he was completely stumped on how to go forward. All of them seemed to be equally qualified and all were sincere in wanting to do a good job. So, using his decision making rules from his own business, Luke came up with the following thought process:

• In order to get the best results, a person should just invest in one thing … and then be right. If wrong, the worst results are obtained, so

• In order to get the highest risked results, a person should diversify into several things.

• Although past results are not a perfect predictor of future results, they are often a good thing to use, especially when someone is concerned about long-term results.

So, Luke told his assistant to do a spread sheet arranging the money mangers in order by their ten-year rates-of-return. Then, he allocated his money as follows: $500,000 to the one in first place; $200,000 to the one in second place; and $100,000 to the one in third place.

Five years later, Luke returned and was astounded at his good fortune. The first place manager had an annual rate-of-return of 15% and doubled his $500,000. The second place manager also doubled his money, but the third place manager just barely broke even. Overall, his profit was $700,000. Luke was thrilled that his strategy of allocating resources based on past results had worked well.

Luke recognized that God had richly blessed him both in those investments and on his trip to the Amazon. His business prospered as never before. In gratitude and to praise God, Luke decided to put $800,000 in an account to give away to help God’s Kingdom grow.

Luke’s assistant asked him how to allocate the expenditure of the money. At once Luke realized he was facing a familiar dilemma. All of the evangelism, missions, and benevolent projects seemed so worthy and the people running them seemed equally qualified and sincere.

Once again, Luke asked his assistant to arrange all of the ministries in order by their results, and then allocate $500,000 to the most effective one; $200,000 to the next most effective; and, $100,000 to the third most effective.

The next day, Luke’s assistant hesitantly knocked on his office door. She quietly told him that it was impossible for her to do the allocation since few, if any, of the projects reported results in a way that they could be used to understand their effectiveness. Luke was sure that was impossible. Since Americans give away more than $250 billion per year surely non-profits must post results so they can be compared to one another. Unfortunately Luke was wrong. After months of being unable to compare the projects by any measure of effectiveness important to him, he lost interest and just went back to making more money in his business.

By now, you may have recognized a thinly disguised rendition of the Parable of the Talents. You may also have recognized why so many wealthy people lose interest in giving away money.

Are you serious about looking for such a purpose? How many people do you know who just can’t wait to get to work on Monday because they’re so fired up about what they’re doing? Nobody? When you meet people that are that passionate about their calling, it’s contagious. Find your calling.

KEY POINTS:

• There is no call without a Caller.

• Reality reminds us that all the will in the world will not make us what we want to become.
• Calling in the Bible is a central and dynamic theme that becomes a metaphor for the life of faith itself.

OS Guiness deals with two distortions–the Catholic distortion and the Protestant distortion. The Catholic distortion is that the sacred calling is to become a priest or nun. Martin Luther shattered that myth. Luther wrote: “The works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they be, do not differ on whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but that all works are measured before God by faith alone. The cultural implications of recovering true calling [by Luther] were explosive.

• Calling gave to everyday work a dignity and spiritual significance under God that dethroned the primacy of leisure and contemplation.
• Calling gave to humble people and ordinary task an investment of equality that shattered hierarchies and was vital impulse toward democracy.
• Calling gave to such practical things as work, thrift, and long-term planning a reinforcement that made them powerfully influential in the rise of modern capitalism.
• Calling gave to the endeavor to make Christ Lord of every part of life a fresh force that transformed not only churches but also the worldviews and cultures of the Reformation countries.
• Calling gave to the idea of “talents” a new meaning, so that they were no longer seen purely as spiritual gifts and graces but as natural and a matter of giftedness in the modern sense of the term.

The Protestant myth was that hard work is your calling. Period. However, neither work nor career can be fully satisfying without a deeper sense of calling–but “calling” itself is empty and indistinguishable from work unless there is Someone who calls. God normally calls us along our line of giftedness, but the purpose of giftedness is stewardship, and service, not selfishness.

A sense of calling should precede a choice of job and career. Instead of, “You are what you do,” calling says: “Do what you are.”

No follower of Christ is without a calling, for we all have an original calling even if we do not all have a later, special calling. And, of course, some people have both. Those in modern societies who are middle class or higher can probably find such a fulfilling match between calling and work. But for many others today, and probably for most people in most societies, there is no happy match between work and calling. In many cases a clear sense of calling comes only through a time of searching, including trial and error.

• Life is lived forward, but understood backwards.

• The Puritans lived as if they had swallowed gyroscopes; we modern Christians live as if we had swallowed Gallup polls. The imitation of Christ that is integral to following Him means that, when he calls us, he enables us to do what he calls us to do. Answering the call by its very nature is a stepping forward to responsibility. Responsibility is obedience by another name. What we do then, when no one sees but God, is the test of our responsibility.

• Para-church. The business of “the little church” is to put itself out of business by feeding its wisdom and concern back into “the large church” and so contribute to the reformation of the one body that is central to God’s purpose for all time.

The reverse side of calling is the temptation of conceit. People who are called are especially vulnerable to pride because of the very nobility of calling.

When Jesus calls, he calls us one by one. Comparisons are idle, speculations about others a waste of time, and envy as silly as it is evil. We are each called individually, accountable to God alone, to please him alone, and eventually to be approved by him alone. If ever we are tempted to look around, compare notes, and use the progress of others to judge the success of our own calling, we will hear what Peter heard, “What is that to you? Follow me.”

• Capitalism, having defeated all challenges, such a socialism, now faces its greatest challenge–itself, because it devours the very virtues it needs to thrive. Calling, which played a key role in the rise of modern capitalism, is one of the few truths capable of guiding and restraining it now.

The problem is that money can assume an inordinate place in our lives until it becomes a personal, spiritual, god-like force that rules us–Mammon. When John D Rockefeller was asked how much money it takes a man to become happy, he replied, “Just a little bit more.” As such, Mammon is a genuine rival to God. First, calling means that, for followers of Christ, there is a decisive, immediate, and moment-by-moment authority above money and the market. The choice between Masters has been made. Second, we make the choice to do in life because we are called to it rather than because we get paid for it. Ironically, we eventually cannot afford what we most desire–deep relationships. For if “time is money” and people take time, then the “opportunity costs” of relationships (the gain that we would earn by doing something else) will be prohibitive and intimate friendships will be few. “Spending” time with friends is costly; we could “invest” in better elsewhere.

Probably the worst of all combination of a midlife crisis that pivots on failure. For few things are more ignominious than failing at something that was not worth doing in the first place. At that point many people jump to the opposite extreme where another frustration looms. They go wrong in thinking that “success” failed to satisfy because it was secular whereas “significance” will be fulfilling because it is religious. That is actually the “Catholic distortion” again. Careers that express calling are as fulfilling as careers that contradict calling are frustrating.

• The modern world has scrambled things so badly that today we worship our work, we work at our play, and we play at our worship. The problem with Western Christians is not that they aren’t where they should be but that they aren’t what they should be where they are.

• Grand Christian movements will rise and fall. Grand campaigns will be mounted and grand coalitions assembled. But all together such coordinated efforts will never match the influence of untold numbers of followers of Christ living out their callings faithfully across the vastness and complexity of modern society.

• Once we have been called, we literally “have no choice.” As we make our contributions along the line of our gifts and callings, and others do the same, there is both a fruitfulness and a rest in the outcome. Calling is a reminder for followers of Christ that nothing in life should be taken for granted; everything in life must be received with gratitude. Calling is an essential part of the timing that characterizes a successful life. Unlike anyone before or since, Jesus’ awareness of his calling from God burst the bounds of human thinking.

THE BIG IDEA
God calls men and women who will be committed to their life tasks with no reservations, no retreats, no regrets. They are therefore free to turn from their own affairs and to center their lives on the priorities of their questing. In pursuit of this quest, no pettiness is so petty that it disturbs their meaning. No task so immense that it daunts the courage of their calling. They engage in the world on the world’s terms, yet they are never diverted from their quest because they always have an eye to interests and ideals that are invisible to the eyes of others. Such people are always found “in the gap.” They are the ones prepared “for such a time as this.” People after God’s own heart, they are ready to read the signs of the times and serve his purpose in their generation.

FINISHING WELL
Calling is central to the challenge and privilege of finishing well in life. It is important to finishing well because it helps us with three of the greatest challenges of our last years of life:

1. It keeps us journeying purposefully to the very end of our lives.
2. It prevents us from confusing the termination of our occupations with the termination of our vocation. We may at times be unemployed, but no one ever becomes uncalled.
3. It encourages us to leave the entire outcome of our lives to God. If you know you are in God’s calling, its up to Him. If you bear the entire brunt of your significance, the results are up to you. Perhaps you are frustrated by the gaps between your vision and your accomplishments. Make no judgments and draw no conclusions until God ultimately judges your work.