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Worldly Marketing for Christian Organizations? Steve Woodworth

As a Christian responsible for raising funds for nearly 30 years and for at least 50 causes, I have heard more criticism than perhaps even the average pastor. Most of the criticism comes from those who have never had responsibility for the funding side of a ministry. And they usually level their criticisms at “worldly” or “Madison Avenue marketing” techniques.

If you work in direct marketing for a Christian organization, you have faced the tension between George Mueller and William Booth. Mueller’s philosophy of not asking for money is often held up to those of us who do ask for money as proof that our approach is ungodly. William Booth, however, founded The Salvation Army only 30 years later in the same country and believed in asking for money to support the ministry. Which man's organization has accomplished more in the roughly 150 years since its founding?

I don’t mean to put down “faith-only” organizations. There are many around today — especially among missionary-sending organizations. I truly believe that God called George Mueller to this practice. Mueller openly admitted that, as a young man, he was a thief and a gambler. He even stole from the offering plate in his father’s church. God wanted to teach Mueller to trust Him, and He honored Mueller's faith. I just don’t think it’s the norm. He calls some to live in poverty, but not all. He heals some, but not all. If God has called your organization to live by faith alone, and to not ask for money, by all means obey Him.

Like technology, fundraising techniques can be put to good or bad use by good or bad people. But that does not make them wrong in and of themselves.

Randy Alcorn’s excellent book Money, Possessions and Eternity, takes up the issue of using words like "urgent" in appeals. He quotes a Christianity Today article as saying,

“Urgent letters make some people wonder just how important the need may be. We know that it will take days or weeks for our donation to reach its destination. If the need is really that urgent, it is being paid for with existing funds.”

Looking at the other side of the argument, Alcorn quotes a reply to the editor from my friend Rich Stearns, president of World Vision. Rich says,

“The decisions to use words like urgent, to underline key phrases in an appeal letter, or to include a painful photograph of a child in need can have life and death consequences. An appeal that raises an additional $10,000 can feed 100 children for five months or inoculate 500 children against the five deadly childhood diseases. These are the true ethical consequences of the debate over fundraising language and tactics. Critical needs justify urgent appeals as long as those appeals are honest and fully accurate. If a building is on fire, one does not send a subtle memo to alert the occupants; one pulls the fire alarm.”

Alcorn concludes:

“Stearns raises an important point. Are we more distressed at the materials that draw attention to the fact that children are dying than we are by the reality that children are dying? . . . How calm and measured a tone do we expect from those committed to rescuing children from starvation? . . . It’s not reasonable for us to expect dispassionate appeals from those with a God-given passion to feed the hungry and reach the lost before they die.”

I have personally stood at a graveside where an Ethiopian mother, burying her tiny, emaciated girl, wailed with grief, even pulling out clumps of her own hair. I chose to have the film crew come and capture this scene. I had no qualms about doing so, nor about sending repeated urgent appeals throughout the famine in 1985. I would tell my critics, “That mother had no problem with us filming her grief. She knew it might save other mothers from the same fate. If she could write the appeal letters herself, she would use even more urgent language than we do.”

All of us involved in Christian ministry should feel free to express the passion we have — whether it’s feeding the hungry, saving the lost, rescuing the addicted or turning back the moral decline of our nation. In a world where the average evangelical gives less than 4% of their income to all causes, including their church, we are fully justified to shout and cajole to wake them out of their stupor. I think we are free to use any language and techniques as long as, like Stearns says, they are honest and accurate.

I remember Ted Engstrom saying that World Vision was criticized for using computers in the 1960s. He would defend this passionately, saying that technology is morally neutral and should be used in the cause of Christ.

To all you good people reading this article, who are called to the ministry of fundraising, I say, “Let’s do our very best to raise as much money as we can, in an honest way, until we see His Kingdom come and His will done on earth as it is in heaven.”

If you wonder whether my position can be supported biblically, be sure to read the article, “Shall We Write Our Appeals Like Paul?”

steve@masterworks.com