After 9/11, the Tsunami, the Hurricanes of the past year, giving to charities is
something that has been played on TV continually. When I go to the Post Office or
Wal-Mart, I am confronted by either the Girl Scouts or some local school function
doing a fund raiser for their club or organization. I am asked to subscribe to some
magazine by my granddaughter or buy Boy Scout popcorn by my Grandson. Many times,
I am made to feel guilty if I don't bow into these pressures. But there are several
questions that I must know the answers to before I give in.
Disclaimer: The author is not knocking charitable organizations in
general, but believes that along with making a donation, the giver should be educated
as to where the funds are going and how much of them are actually going to the
desired charity.
As for my background, I was raised in a church where tithing was taught. After I
left home, I did my own search of myself and believe that tithing and helping those
in need was the correct thing to do morally. Over the years, I have helped people out
and always seem to be rewarded in the long run. I'll talk about a couple of those
cases at the end of this page. At the same time, I saw practices that
left me deeply disturbed because of what was going on with some of the professed
"charities".
In the late 80s, I was working with a guy whose wife was the head of the United
Way in the area where we lived. I was more than a little surprised to hear that she
was making like 50% more than I was after I had been with a major corporation for
over 20 years in a very successful career. What further surprised me was that she
was moving to the New York City area to be the Tri-State coordinator at a salary of
$195K per year. I realize that it is expensive to live in that area, but also realize
that there are many people who live there that don't have that kind of income.
The United Way salary rumor sparked my interest into what the head of other
charities were being paid. A couple of year ago, I decided to further look at how
charities were paying their head people. At that time, there was a website giving.org
that provided much of that information. When I started going through the site, I
was in disbelief! If you can find the current data, you might want to check out the
salaries of the top people in the American Cancer Society, the American Red Cross,
the Boy Scouts of American, and my favorite, the Girl Scouts of America.
Over the years, I have seen a number of Billy Graham telecasts. I have yet to ever
hear him ask for money. While doing my review, I also noticed that the head of Focus
on the Family, James Dobson, had a salary of $0. The newest phenom seems to be Joel
Osteen of the Lakewood Church in Houston. Again, I've never heard him ask for money.
With my early teaching of tithing, I had some internal strife as whether it was
best to tithe when part of my family was having a hard time rather than helping them
with the funds I would have been giving to my church where I attended. After some
soul searching, I believe I have found that answer.
Another thing happened in the last few years. My Mother got to the point where I
had to take over paying her bills and managing her finances. When I began looking at
her check book and also the mail she was receiving, I was in disbelief. I knew she
had a kind heart and was always generous with her limited funds. I could NOT believe
some of the organizations that she was helping to support, and those that were asking
her for money. She was receiving offers from some TV preachers that if she would send
them some funds, that her house mortgage would be paid off. Since her home was already
paid for, it was obvious that the mailing was from a rip off artist. Another piece of
literature that she received was beyond belief. After my father died, she had received
a letter from a well known television preacher that stated "God has laid it on my
heart that you should send me an offering". Since my father was no longer alive, we
all knew this guy was a rip off artist.
With all the different things that had affected me and my family, I decided to
try to organize my thoughts into a presentation that would be Bible relevant and
address some of the things I have mentioned above. This would cover who is in the
priority chain for giving, how to check out the well known charities, and then what
you should do as to following your heart in giving and to whom.
As for my own story, I have a couple of things that I would like to share with you. A few
years ago, I was working on the west coast and one of the members where I go to
church was having major heart problems and his insurance was about to run out. One
Sunday morning, this was mentioned and a basket was left at the back of the church
to help him out. Without any push from the preacher, the congregation dropped about
$12K in that basket that morning. Since I was working and not there, when I heard
what had happened, I pondered as to what I should contribute. I felt that I should
send him $300, which I did. Less than a week later, I was notified that I had paid
an invoice twice in the amount of $298.
The second thing that happened that I recall
that appears as almost a miracle. I had purchased a pickup that neither my wife nor
I liked. I had also sold all the stock I had in the company that I had worked for a
number of years. The Sunday after the stock sale settled, I made the largest
contribution in the offering that I had ever made. The next evening, my wife had
an accident and totaled the pickup. If you have ever tried to deal with an insurance
adjuster, you know that they never want to pay what an item is really worth. Going
into this negotiation, I was fully aware of that, and also wondering how this could
happen to me after my contribution the previous day. And then a miracle happened!
The insurance adjuster offered me more for the totaled pickup than I had paid for
it originally. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to accept the offer.
In the mid 80s, I had an opportunity to work for a time in Germany. Upon arriving
there, I was under some internal conflict as whether I should feel morally responsible
to pay tithes on my living allowance which was intended to assist in the expenses of
living there. On the first Sunday there, my family attended church on the army base.
As the custom there, everyone who was a first time attendee was to stand, introduce
themselves, and tell a little about themselves. The couple in front of me had 2 young
children and were there without any visible support from the US doing work with Campus
Crusade. When they finished telling about themselves, I knew the answer to my question
had been answered. For the 18 months that I was there, I forwarded funds through the
local branch of a US church and designated the funds to them. They never knew where
the money came from. Almost 3 years later after leaving the assignment after coming
back to the US, I received a surprise notification from the government where I had
worked. It seemed that there had been a mistake in my income tax that I had paid
there and I received a VERY large refund. I never sat and calculated how the refund
matched with what I had contributed, but would think that maybe it was more than I
had given. As soon as I realized what had happened, I remembered that day in the
church when this family introduced themselves and I decided to silently support
them.
Have I ever made a contribution to someone and felt ripped off? The answer is
a definite yes. I still feel like I did what I should have done but learned a lesson
in that effort also. In this case, a neighbor family had 4 small kids and attended
the same church we did. The father had been laid off and the groceries were running
low. On the next Sunday morning, I made a donation through the church that was
ear marked to them without the neighbor knowing where the funds came from.
The lady was really broken up when she was given the funds. I found out later on
that the father had not used the funds for groceries, but had blown it. The lesson
was that I should have bought the groceries and not provided a cash contribution.
As you can tell if you have stayed with me through this writing, the area of
"WISE" giving and supporting charities is something that is near to my heart. I have
organized these thoughts and feelings into a presentation that is available for your church or
organization if desired. The presentation uses the Bible for many references but is
the opinion and reflects the past experiences of the author. If interested, please
contact me for further information. Please include Giving in the subject line of
if by email.
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