Multiplying your Results
May 26, 2008 by markhsmith
“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?
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