The joy of lending a helping hand to someone can be unexpected. The other day I got an email from an old friend who had gone through a personal finance course I offered for free a few years ago. As I recall, he joined the class because he was struggling to get a handle on his finances and he didn’t feel he and his wife were on the same page with their financial goals. I had lost track of him, but he reached out to let me know that they had made changes as a result of what they learned. He was excited to share with me that they had made their final mortgage payment and were debt free and doing great!
We all want a success story like this one when we volunteer some time or give some money to something. We’re pragmatic and expect results from our charitable efforts just like we do in our work. Unfortunately, successful charity is a lot more complex than many think, and success is anything but automatic.
For every success story, I’m sure I could come up with one that didn’t work out. One that comes to mind is the year I generously offered to let a friend use my wife’s car for a week while his was getting repaired. Four months later we finally got our car back, trashed, along with the relationship we had hoped to strengthen!
Is there a way to improve the odds of success in lending a hand to others? I think there is.
As we approach the Advent season, when people are the most charitable, I wanted to share the lessons I learned a few years ago from a thought leader in this area named Marvin Olasky who changed the world with his ideas.
The Charity Success Formula: Personal, Challenging and Spiritual
You may not have heard of Marvin Olasky, but I would bet you’ve heard of a couple of guys he influenced—Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton. I spent a week with Marvin a couple of years ago to learn how World magazine, where he serves as editor, does journalism.
Learning how to go out and find a story worth reporting was interesting, but it was fascinating when Marvin talked about his sudden and unexpected rise to prominence in the 90’s. Newt Gingrich, fresh off a historic Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, highlighted his book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, during his inaugural address to Congress as the Speaker of the House. Suddenly Olasky was thrust into the national limelight for his expertise in fighting poverty. In short, I believe Olasky laid the philosophical groundwork for the historic welfare reform act passed as a joint effort by Bill Clinton and Newt.
While his public policy impact was large, his call for our individual and nonprofit efforts is the focus of where he thinks transformational charity work is done. His encouragement is for us to think about compassion being effective when it is personal, challenging and spiritual. I’d like to briefly explore how thinking about our own charitable efforts though this lens can make a difference in our world.
Relational Charity
My wife and I used to serve meals at a homeless shelter. It was frustrating because the operators of the shelter did not believe in requiring anything out of the residents. As I have learned, this not only hinders developing relationships with the homeless, it also is disrespectful to their dignity. How much better would situations like this be if volunteers were allowed to plan the meals with the homeless residents, prepare the meals together and clean up together, all the while building relationships through the work.
This is not to say there isn’t a place for writing a check without an opportunity to develop a personal relationship. Natural disasters that displace people thousands of miles away don’t need a lot of willing volunteers with no skills descending on the scene. They typically need money to support the skilled workers. But, on a local level, this is a great season to think about how to give not only money, but time to build a relationship with those in need around us.
Challenging
As I began trying to help people with their personal finance’s years ago, I discovered a simple money map put out by Crown Financial Ministries that broke down the process of gaining financial freedom through simple steps. It was challenging, but not overwhelming. Step one for instance is to create a budget and save $1,000. Step two is to pay off credit card debt and on up the destination ladder to eventually having a fully funded retirement with money left over for generosity.
The concept was later popularized by a radio personality, Dave Ramsey, with his terminology of calling them “baby steps.” Whatever it is called, it’s a wonderful example of how millions of struggling families have been helped by a personal coach engaging others with a doable challenge to work toward financial freedom. In most cases of charitable work, a challenge to the recipient of the charity is appropriate for true rehabilitation to occur.
Spiritual
Those who hold to a strict naturalistic world view that we are just random atoms and molecules in a meaningless universe scoff at the idea that we are spiritual beings. However, without getting into a religious debate, there is evidence that charities that have a holistic view of humanity, including a spiritual dimension, produce better results.
Teen Challenge is an interesting case study in demonstrating how much more successful their program is in treating addiction than secular programs that ignore the spiritual dimension of treatment. Teen Challenge emphasizes a spiritual recovery for addiction. One study showed they achieved a 60% to 70% success rate compared to a 3% to 10% success for secular programs. Success being defined as staying sober for seven years.
Prison Fellowship is another example of a Christian based charity demonstrating much lower rates of recidivism than a matched group of prisoners who did not participate in their programs. According to the Center for Public Justice reporting on a controlled study done a few years ago, only 14% of Prison Fellowship participants were rearrested within a year of release compared to 41% of those ere that were not in the program.
This is the Season for Giving
Statistics tell us that eighteen percent of charitable giving takes place in December. As you consider how you can give back to others this year, I hope you’ll remember the Olasky suggestion for effective compassion: Personal, Challenging and Spiritual!
If you have a good story of your own charity success or failures, I’d love to hear it!
Joe Kesler, Founder Smart Money with Purpose
Point taken…a hand up is far more beneficial than a handout…great article.
Thanks Mik! It’s timeless wisdom on helping isn’t it? Appreciate the comment.
Joe, we lived frugally for over 30 years in order to become debt free. It was liberating. We got so used to living frugally that we have continued. It freed us up to prepare well for retirement and give far more charitably than otherwise could have happened.
Great comment Kirk! That is a life well lived that gives you the flexibility at this stage to live generously due to your frugality early. Research tells us that keeping up with the Jones brings neither happiness nor long term financial success. I like the strategy you used instead to have a fully funded retirement and resources for charity.
A great article, as always, Joe. I’m a big Olasky fan myself, and a longtime subscriber to WORLD magazine.
There’s another book you might be interested in, and perhaps you have heard of it. It’s “When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself”, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. It is superb in walking through a number of case studies to think through how we usually think in terms of helping, and why those ways are often not really helpful for the long term. They demonstrate how poverty is more often due to broken relationships than to lack of resources. They also show how poverty relief efforts need to move from relief, to rehabilitation, to development.
Their follow-up book is excellent as well: “Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence”. Truly a must read for anyone involved in managing, distributing, or overseeing church relief efforts.
Thanks for the tip! I have read When Helping Hurts, but I’ll have to check out their sequel.