by Barry Howard
As Christmas approaches, our mailbox seems to be stuffed each day with Christmas cards and requests for money. We enjoy personal Christmas cards and letters. After reading them, my wife displays them around the living room with other decorations to remind us of the friendships we share around the country and around the world.
The request letters are a different story. With each one we have a choice to make. We can discard those letters as junk mail, or we can consider the request, and decide whether that particular organization is going to make the cut in this year’s holiday giving.
Most non-profit organizations struggle for funding, even in good years. In this season when we are gradually emerging from a recession, all kinds of non-profits are in a heated competition for charitable dollars. Therefore, this year you might expect more appeals vying for your holiday or end-of-year giving.
Many businesses and foundations have pre-determined guidelines for selecting the charitable causes to which they will make contributions. At our house, we are also developing a list of criteria which helps us to filter through the requests and determine which charities, missions, and ministries will go on our Christmas list.
Here are a few factors that help us make decisions about holiday giving:
1. Our first and largest gift goes to the mission offerings of our church. Throughout the year, our “firstfruit” gifts go to the ministries of our church. Primarily, this is an act of obedience to what we believe the Bible teaches, but we also believe that the cumulative projects of a local church make the most significant impact on individual lives. At Christmas we give an additional gift that supports missionaries around the globe.
2. We tend to give to organizations that are faith-based, organizations that share many of our concerns and passions.
3. We try to give to organizations that focus on the “least of these,” providing a boost to individuals who are disconnected, disadvantaged, or disenfranchised.
4. We select organizations that have low overhead and administrative costs. We don’t want to support an organization that exists to sustain itself. Rather, we want to give to organizations that provide a monumental service to people in need or that serve as conduits to get funds and resources to people in need.
5. We give to organizations that have demonstrated accountability, those who have a reputable board of advisers and a reporting mechanism to let us know where previous gifts have been used.
6. We determine to avoid “guilt giving” and “arm-twisting requests.”
7. We do not give directly to persons on the street, at intersections, or interstate ramps. Our experience is that people are most effectively helped through missional organizations and relationships. (However, we do offer to help get persons on the street to our mission center for assistance, or we offer to buy them a meal, but we do not give money, simply because of the high rate of manipulation and addiction among full-time panhandlers.)
8. We recognize that some good organizations will be left out of our giving plan and that we cannot give to everyone.
9. We set a total dollar amount and then appropriate specific amounts to our chosen causes.
10. Each year we re-evaluate our recipients and do not automatically give to the same groups as the previous year.
Thousands of organizations, ministries, and causes are trustworthy, accountable, and effective, but we cannot support all of them. There are hundreds we would like to support, but our resources are limited. So we choose around 10 or 12 beneficiaries that fit our criteria and we give to them cheerfully.
As we grow and learn better stewardship practices, we realize that we are not liable for supporting every worthy cause. However, we are accountable to God for the resources placed within our care. We have the privilege, especially during the holidays, of generously discerning from among many worthwhile causes those projects and organizations we will support. Then we hope and pray that other organizations receive contributions from discerning benefactors as well.
Years ago Elbert Hubbard wrote, “To know when to be generous, and when to be firm --this is wisdom.” As you designate your holiday giving, don’t select just the causes that make the most emotional plea, and don’t be overwhelmed with guilt for not supporting every single cause. Be generous, but be discerning. Give to those causes that have a proven track record of ministering effectively to spiritual, physical, and emotional needs.
(Barry Howard serves as senior minister of the First Baptist Church of Pensacola.)
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