ASI 2009: By Knowing Him

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ASI 2009 Seminar: Empowering Our Ministries

Lilya Wagner

The Fundamentals of Successful Fundraising

As your program says I'm Delia Wagner and I'm very glad to be spending the next hour and 15 minutes with you talking about a topic that really is very essential to the success of our causes.

Now fundraising is 1 of these topics that sometimes you think people shy away from in polite company.

For example, when I travel and I travel considerably and I might meet someone, make the eye contact, and we start chatting, let's say in the airport or in the airplane next to me.

And you know, the first thing that people talk about when they're strangers and they meet is, what do you do?

So if that person looks interesting and I think I want to keep the conversation going I might say I'm a teacher or a trainer which sounds noble Or I might say I work for the non-profit sector and much of America is still puzzled by you mean you can't make a profit.

But and there are several other conversation openers that I can think of especially when I was full-time with Indiana University, you know big university lots of interesting things happening.

But if at that point I want to make sure that I have peace and quiet for the rest of my trip so I can do the work I brought along, and they say to me, what do you do?

I have a nice little pause and then very enthusiastically I proclaim, I'm a fundraiser.

And that guarantees me the peace and quiet I want.

Now why do we have those kinds of attitudes about fundraising?

Because so much fundraising has been done badly.

The right to fundraise that we have in this country which folks is 1 of our freedoms.

I came here as a child and I very much appreciate the rights that we have in this country that allow us to run non-profit causes, to ask for money, to congregate freely.

All those rights that many countries including the 1 that I had to leave as a child did not have.

And what I find interesting in all the international work that I am privileged to do is how much of the rest of the world, whether it is the former Soviet republics that are now free and moving towards civil society or whether it's organizations in countries like Mexico that are progressing in social awareness and therefore intervention, how much they understand that in order to make progress they have to fundraise.

To me fundraising is a privilege and fundraising is a privilege because folks it's not about the money.

Because each 1 of you, and I know a few of you here, represents a cause that is worthwhile, represents a cause that has an impact on or influences certain people.

These people need or want our intervention and it takes money to do it.

Sometimes I think Fundraising is a matter of perspective.

You know, people think, oh, it's a societal thing.

There are all kinds of reasons why people don't want to ask for money, and 1 of the biggest is fear of rejection.

When I work in other countries and we do this little exercise of why do people give, why do people not give, and why don't they want to ask, it always is interesting to see how much universality there is in those answers.

The Greeks and the Romans have records of fundraising And it is definitely a noble thing to do, but I think about perspectives on fundraising, and I see a long time friend, Judy Aitken here, who has done marvelous work in Southeast Asia.

We met in the early 80s when I took a group of students from Union College over to work there and that was my first fundraising experience.

We had the opportunity to come over there and help in the camps and it took money.

I didn't know it was fundraising But it took money to get the kids over there and sustain them, so we asked for money for the cause.

But I distinctly remember I was in 1 of the apartments there using a typewriter.

This was in the early 80s, pre all our wonderful iPhones that could now communicate across the ocean.

And doing some work, I was going to fax back to America and Judy came in and after we chatted a little bit I said to Judy you know I wonder if there's a problem in this apartment It smells like gasoline or something like that.

Judy, I remember, was leaning against the door, and she, and then she started laughing, and she said, and I was thinking how good that fragrance was.

If you have not smelled a durian, I don't quite know how to describe the experience, but perspectives were decidedly different.

And sometimes I think that's the way it is with fundraising.

We see it as this marvelous opportunity we have.

At other times it's as distasteful as that, I was gonna say smell, odor was for me.

So we're going to talk about fundraising as a process today.

And first I want to introduce 1 of my colleagues Paul here he's going to hand out the handout that we will be working from And then you can make notes on there rather than have to scramble to take notes.

I will also give you a business card later if you have other questions and you can email me or email Philanthropic Service for Institutions.

We are an entity of the North America Division and we exist to serve organizations like you so that you can accomplish the fundraising in the best way possible for the cause that you serve.

When we look at fundraising as a practice, sometimes we view it as something that, okay, we've got to get the money in order to get this done.

1 of the things that I'd like to talk to you about today is the proper sequence in which fundraising is carried out.

Now funding can be a very interesting and exciting practice because the unexpected can happen.

When I was working at Union College and doing fundraising every now and then because someone before me had done the right thing we would end up in somebody's will and get a nice little amount of money for some special purpose.

You can write a proposal possibly although this year's not a good time to do that for a foundation grant and you get the money.

So the type of fundraising I want to share with you today is a process with steps that need to take place in order for you to be successful in gaining the sustainability that your organization and your cause needs.

Unless you are here for just a one-time project that will be over when the funding is over, most of you want to keep your organizations going.

So what we will talk about is the sustainability factor of fundraising And above all, as we look at it as a management process, as we look at the various strategies and skills you need or what I will call a toolbox, I also hope that you will Consider all this in the light of the privilege that it is to work for those causes that you represent.

Now 1 final word before we launch into the topic.

Into the topic, I sometimes spend a whole semester at the graduate level teaching what I'm going to try to give you an intelligent Reader's Digest version today in 1 hour and still leave time for questions.

So I hope you recognize with me that we are just giving you the highlights.

There are ample resources whether there are courses, whether there are materials that we can send you from PSI or many other ways that you can learn.

But please recognize that especially with this larger group as well as the fact that we are very compressed with time we unfortunately won't be able to do the exercises that would help you apply the information but I did also include them there so that it would perhaps guide your thinking to the next step.

My objectives for you are first of all to give you a few perspectives of how philanthropy works in the United States.

Again, I have been very intrigued in the 20-some years, especially the 18 that I've been in 1 way or another associated with the fundraising School and the Indiana University Center of Philanthropy with whom I'm still associated on a contract basis to observe how much philanthropic awareness in this country and internationally has grown.

I remember when I first went to the center in 1991, the Minnesota Public Radio did a man on the street type interview and then a segment of a video and as usually happens real life is always funnier than anything you see on a TV sitcom.

And so they would literally stop people in the street and say, what is philanthropy?

Now, you might even be a little startled if you're walking down the street of Washington DC and somebody says, what's philanthropy?

Well, the most amusing answer I can remember was it's a prehistoric fish.

Then somebody finally got it right and parroted back the definition that Our founding director at the center had coined voluntary action for the public good.

And we in this room might also add a privilege that God has granted us, that we have the means that we can share.

So I want to look a little bit about philanthropy and you will no doubt have some questions about how all this economic situation that we are engaged in is affecting giving.

So if that's of interest, I have materials with me as well as can tell you some things right off.

Then I want to share some of the fundraising principles of the process.

I look at some of the motivations of why people give.

Even though almost all religions that I have ever encountered everywhere from Islam which has a very direct mandate for giving, the Jewish religion very much so as well.

But Buddhism, all forms of Christianity, all have some sort of a religious foundation for it is more blessed to give than receive.

So I've included a few texts for you just because these are some of my favorites.

I find the Bible very full of good giving advice.

And then of course I'd like to have some time at the end and both Paul and I are here for the conference and can talk to you individually or in small groups if you wish as you want to develop your fundraising.

And please, this will get pretty boring if it's only a one-way conversation, so if you have comments and questions at any time, please feel free to raise your hand and ask those.

Now, there is considerable information these days, including an institute that was started at the Center of Philanthropy, the Lake Institute for Faith and Philanthropy, books that are coming out increasingly, not just by preachers, but researchers, people who think about the connection between religion and philanthropy.

And I included just a few texts for you, some that actually have been my favorites.

There are many, many more that have been accumulated, that have been examined on the richness of the information in the Bible about counsel for sharing our resources.

Those who help others will themselves be helped.

And I find that to be a very interesting factor which goes along with some of the secular research that we have now documented.

Then here's a text that says if we give, we will also be recipients of blessings.

We will receive gifts that we do not expect to receive.

So when we are giving, we are a benefactor instead of being a beggar.

We produce things by our giving and that is 1 reason I feel very privileged that I can work as a fundraiser because it allows me to help causes that I believe are worthwhile, that I believe make us a better church, a better society.

Steve Dickman

Getting on Track with Strategic Planning

Father in heaven, we thank you this afternoon for your many blessings.

We invite you to be our instructor and to show us the way.

I am the President and General Business Manager for Harbord Hills Academy in Savannah, Tennessee.

And I serve also as the Southern Union ASI Chapter President.

And so I love ASI and love what I do for education and had opportunity a couple of years ago to attend a seminar.

And the topic on the seminar was fundraising, because we were anticipating the need to raise some funds for the school.

And when I finished with that 1 day, I realized that my plan for going to the future and raising funds had been altered and that I needed to come back just a little bit because the foundation for all successful fundraising is a strategic plan.

Now some of you may have come to the seminar this morning and learned about some of the details of fundraising.

But the other thing that's important to know is that you need a strategic plan in place to move forward and with the documents, et cetera, that you will develop as you do your own fundraising.

And so this afternoon we're going to address the topic of strategic planning and what it means.

You know, there are some people that say, we shouldn't be planning today.

We're living so close to the end of time that there's no reason to have a five-year plan?

I believe that God requires us to do planning as we look to the future.

We can ask the question, does God have any plans?

You know, if you look and study the Bible, does God have plans?

He had plans to create a world here, or we would not be in existence, would we?

In fact, that's probably where the contention started in heaven when Lucifer was upset that he was excluded from the planning.

So when he got excluded from the strategic planning committee, he got upset.

Well, I don't know exactly how it happened, but, you know, for some reason he felt like he was being mistreated.

Jeremiah 29, 11 says, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

And if you study this word that is translated here, thoughts, in the King James Version, in some other versions it's translated plans.

And God says, for I know the plans that I think towards you, the plans of peace and not of evil.

Jeremiah 50, verse 45, therefore hear you the counsel of the Lord, that he hath taken against Babylon and his purposes that he hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans." Now, another word that is also translated into plan sometimes is this word right here, purposes.

So God has purposes, he has designs, He has thought about the future.

Not only has he thought about the future, but he knows the future.

Now that's not a benefit that we have as human beings to know the future, but it is 1 of the benefits that God has, knowing the future.

Next question, does God expect us to have plans?

Proverbs 15, 22 says, without counsel, purposes are disappointed.

And again, that word can be translated plans.

So without counsel, plans are disappointed.

But in the multitude of counselors, they are established.

The they is referring back to the purposes.

So if we have a purpose or a plan, We need to get some counsel.

And so you might say that Solomon here in the Scriptures is recognizing the need to have plans and to have counsel that we adhere to as we move forward.

Luke 14, 28, for which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it." Now, actually, the context here is more of a salvation concept because the context is talking about, have we counted the cost of what it means to follow Jesus.

And so certainly we want to count that cost.

But I believe that in the Scriptures when they are written for our benefit, they also include an application that may apply to us personally as we read and study that Scripture.

And so I believe that this Scripture refers today to the fact that we need plans.

God expects us to have a way to move forward with His work that makes sense.

We're gonna take a couple of quotes here from the Spirit of Prophecy because often these quotes are referred to when people are talking about having plans.

This 1 comes from Help in Daily Living, page 18, and it says, Christ in his life on earth made no plans for himself.

So we've just seen in the Bible, we've talked about the Bible concept of having a plan, but yet we see here that it talks about Jesus said he didn't have a plan.

So how does this line up and what about this should we have a plan?

Should we as individuals and should we as organizations have a plan or should we kind of follow this other method with no plan?

Also from Health and Daily Living, page 19.

1 page later she says, too many in planning for a brilliant future make an utter failure.

So the concept here is that We need to have God involved in the plan, right?

Now, if we're making plans for ourselves, then it's totally true we're in trouble.

And we're going to make an utter failure of what we're attempting to do, if those are our own plans that are made for ourselves in our own human wisdom and understanding.

But if we will allow God to get involved in the planning process, then I believe that we can experience success as we plan.

Okay, we need to ask God to give us special guidance as we think about planning.

As we think about the future, if we don't kneel down first and say, Lord, help me that I will plan according to your will and not my own will.

You notice what the previous statement said, Jesus made no plans for Himself.

We're making a plan that we think's going to work.

And that's where we get ourselves in trouble.

This comes from a review in Herald March 1, 1887.

All the enterprises and temporal earthly things prosper in proportion to the wisdom, tact, and concentration of powers exercised in acquiring the desired object.

Just so must it be in our Christian enterprises.

So here we see that we have counsel that there must be wise planning.

Now if there are wise planning, then if there is such a thing as wise planning, then what's the alternative to that?

So we don't want to do foolish planning, we want to do wise planning.

You know, the children of, It goes on to say, the children of the world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.

And to this end, they direct all their energies.

And then she laments in this statement, oh, that this zeal would characterize the toiler for heavenly riches.

Are we as individuals putting as much energy into our work for God as we put into our business work.

In fact, I would say today that our energies that we put into our toiling for heavenly riches should far exceed what we put into the toil we put into for earthly riches.

Can you guarantee me that the money in your bank account or in your stocks or in your CDs is safe and that you can go get it tomorrow?

Lewis Walton

Navigating the Minefield

If you have come to know me as a writer and speaker on religious topics, I perhaps should reintroduce myself.

I try tax cases in federal court and senior counsel in the tax department to the firm of Buckhalter Nehmer in Los Angeles.

Those are relevant credentials simply because what we're talking about this morning has much to do with taxation.

Our topic is tax-exempt entities navigating the minefield, how you bring them into being, how you run them, and how, hopefully, you avoid getting into trouble because there are traps there into which you can fall.

And what we're talking about this morning revolves extensively around a term which in Adventism is almost as frequently used as other terms such as second coming, Sabbath, spirit of prophecy, and vegetarianism.

Now, there are in the Internal Revenue Code thousands of provisions, starting with Section 1, which defines the marginal tax brackets we all pay in various forms and entities and representations, all the way down through the 7000 series of the Code, which has to do with federal tax crimes.

Most people could not cogently recite a single provision of the Internal Revenue Code except for Section 501C3.

Adventists are entrepreneurs and I appreciate that about them.

They are constantly thinking up new and innovative ways in which to do the Lord's work, which is good.

And in order to do that effectively, it is very, very helpful to become a tax-exempt entity, which opens doors to a whole galaxy of advantages to you.

For example, exemption from taxation both on the federal and state level.

In instances where there may be securities regulations that impinge on you, you may be exempt from securities regulation.

It opens the door for donors to your entity to get tax deductions on Schedule A of their return under Section 170 of the Code.

You may be eligible for donations for which the donor can deduct for estate and gift tax purposes.

You may be eligible for reduced mailing rates and in certain states for property tax exemption.

So there's a whole galaxy of advantages that you enjoy as a tax-exempt entity.

So Adventists will come up with some new and better way to do the Lord's work, and the first thing they will say is, I'm going to get me a 501c3.

And Those are the magic terms that open the door for you.

Simply because section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code, subparagraph C, has over 20 different kinds of entities that the law recognizes as being entitled to tax deduction, tax exemption, and deduction for donations all the way from some collective bargaining entities through homeowners associations and now we get down to sub, sub part C of, of section 501, sub paragraph 3, which allows exemption for charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, public safety, amateur sports, and societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals.

All of those things are deemed by Congress to be worthy of a tax exemption under Section 501c3.

And before I go on, I need to make it real clear.

I do not represent any of you in this room, to my knowledge.

I cannot represent you in the absence of a relationship memorialized in writing, you know, as a retention letter by my firm.

I am not intending this morning to give any of you specific legal advice.

You need to get competent professional help where you are.

That's the only legal advice I'm going to give you this morning.

Get represented by somebody in your area who knows this stuff and knows it well.

Our purpose this morning is to give you a background by which you can more intelligently decide if you want to maybe pursue the option of an exempt entity and then more intelligently relate to the tax professionals who will be giving you assistance.

Bear in mind also I'm a California lawyer, I'm licensed nowhere else except in the federal tax system.

And bear in further mind that what I'm giving you is the law as it exists today.

That doesn't mean tomorrow it won't change.

And in today's fluid environment, it could change by this afternoon.

There are lots of advantages to enjoying tax-exempt status.

And as you think about whether you want to go down that route, think not only of the advantages but of the disadvantages, some of which can be encapsulated under the concept that when you go tax-exempt, you are in a quasi partnership with whom?

Because Uncle Sam will say you don't have to pay tax on your income, with some exceptions we'll get to, your donors can deduct from their income tax the gifts they make to you, which means then that in a sense you are using government money and with government participation can come what?

As banks and auto manufacturers have learned, significant government intrusion.

So think that through before you make the decision to go into tax-exempt statuses.

You may be prohibited from engaging in certain activities.

Certain commercial activities may be deemed to be unrelated business income.

Go too far down that road, you'll lose your tax-exempt status, as did the publishers of Christianity Today, the Presbyterian Reformed Publishing House, which was doing so much commercial work, the IRS finally said, you're acting like a commercial publisher, you're no longer tax exempt, and they won in court.

There are a lot of record keeping requirements that if you do not do them right, you can wind up in either a little bit of trouble or a whole lot of trouble depending on just how badly you ignored them.

There are reporting requirements every year.

Typically you will have to file a return called Form 990 or if you're deemed to be a private foundation, form 990 PF, or if you're engaging in enough business that the government says that's unrelated business income, that's not in furtherance of your exempt purposes, you gotta file a 990T and report that and take it into income and pay income tax on it.

So there are a lot of technicalities here.

You may have to file with your state's Attorney General as some exempt entities have to do in California.

You open your records to public review and there are severe sanctions for misbehavior.

Let me give you just a little hint of some of the technicalities you get into when you embark on a tax-exempt entity.

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ASI 2009 Seminar: Empowering Our Ministries

The Fundamentals of Successful Fundraising

Transcript

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