NPR.org recently published a story sharing findings from a survey of Africans, taken to determine Africans' own views on advertisements used in the West to solicit aid for Africa. The survey was supported in part by SAIH Norway (the Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund), a group that has done previous work to combat negative stereotypes in international charity work.
The individual comments by Africans on the ads - some ads showing positive depictions of Africa and Africans, and some showing depictions of problems - are well worth reading. They are also worth considering as American United Methodists decide how to carry out the various mission fundraising projects they do for their African partners.
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Showing posts with label fundraising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fundraising. Show all posts
Monday, December 17, 2018
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Giving Tuesday, the Advance, and Kickstarter
Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.
Let me begin this post by encouraging you to donate to the UMC's global work on this Giving Tuesday. I'll even put the link here for you to do so. In fact, do that now, before you read the rest of this article. If you want to encourage others to donate as well, both the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) have resources to assist in that.
Now that you've donated, I want to talk to you about the Advance, which is the system through which individual donations to denominational projects of the UMC are collected. The Advance is in many ways a fantastic system. 100% of donations go right to those projects; there's no overhead taken out. The system has been around since 1948, having proven to be a durable model. Over 3 million gifts totaling more than $1 billion have been given through the Advance.
The way the Advance works is that donors look up the individual project(s) they want to give to and direct money specifically to that project/those projects. There's even a handy search interface that allows donors to search by missionary, region, type of work, population, or disaster. Donors can also give to general needs for either GBGM or UMCOR.
This approach to giving has a lot in common with Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which have become popular sites for facilitating an approach to collecting donations and raising money known as "crowdfunding." Yes, that's right, the UMC was crowd-funding through the Advance 60 years before it became popular.
Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and the Advance all have the great advantage that they're a democratic approach to deciding what gets funded. If people want a Veronica Mars movie or a Tesla museum and are willing to help pay for it, they happen. If people want wells and toilets in Liberia and are willing to help pay for them, they get built.
But here's where the analogy breaks down. Kickstarter and Indiegogo help fund things that will (presumably) benefit the people donating. Donors get to choose the ways in which they want to benefit. With the Advance, it's largely Americans choose what will benefit people elsewhere around the world. People don't get to choose what will benefit them. It's a little bit like if Bolivians were allowed to decide whether or not there would be a Veronica Mars movie or a Tesla museum.
That doesn't mean that Americans always make bad decisions or that Americans shouldn't donate to the UMC's work elsewhere around the world, but it does put people elsewhere around the world at the mercy of American donors, which creates a power inequality. There are many inequalities in how the UMC is structured and operated, but this inequality in donation money is an important one to notice because it shapes other inequalities. So, on this Giving Tuesday, donate, but donate and be aware of how your donations shape the UMC.
Let me begin this post by encouraging you to donate to the UMC's global work on this Giving Tuesday. I'll even put the link here for you to do so. In fact, do that now, before you read the rest of this article. If you want to encourage others to donate as well, both the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) have resources to assist in that.
Now that you've donated, I want to talk to you about the Advance, which is the system through which individual donations to denominational projects of the UMC are collected. The Advance is in many ways a fantastic system. 100% of donations go right to those projects; there's no overhead taken out. The system has been around since 1948, having proven to be a durable model. Over 3 million gifts totaling more than $1 billion have been given through the Advance.
The way the Advance works is that donors look up the individual project(s) they want to give to and direct money specifically to that project/those projects. There's even a handy search interface that allows donors to search by missionary, region, type of work, population, or disaster. Donors can also give to general needs for either GBGM or UMCOR.
This approach to giving has a lot in common with Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which have become popular sites for facilitating an approach to collecting donations and raising money known as "crowdfunding." Yes, that's right, the UMC was crowd-funding through the Advance 60 years before it became popular.
Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and the Advance all have the great advantage that they're a democratic approach to deciding what gets funded. If people want a Veronica Mars movie or a Tesla museum and are willing to help pay for it, they happen. If people want wells and toilets in Liberia and are willing to help pay for them, they get built.
But here's where the analogy breaks down. Kickstarter and Indiegogo help fund things that will (presumably) benefit the people donating. Donors get to choose the ways in which they want to benefit. With the Advance, it's largely Americans choose what will benefit people elsewhere around the world. People don't get to choose what will benefit them. It's a little bit like if Bolivians were allowed to decide whether or not there would be a Veronica Mars movie or a Tesla museum.
That doesn't mean that Americans always make bad decisions or that Americans shouldn't donate to the UMC's work elsewhere around the world, but it does put people elsewhere around the world at the mercy of American donors, which creates a power inequality. There are many inequalities in how the UMC is structured and operated, but this inequality in donation money is an important one to notice because it shapes other inequalities. So, on this Giving Tuesday, donate, but donate and be aware of how your donations shape the UMC.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Online missions as a form of connectionalism
Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.
Gavin Richardson recently wrote a piece for UMCommunications entitled "Engage in global mission without leaving your church." In the post, Richardson suggests that churches can engage in online missions that "could include Skype calls, video testimonies, online prayer rooms and more." Richardson's suggestions may strike some as provocative, but such a virtual model of missions can help stimulate discussion of what the nature of missions and connection are.
The most obvious way in which Richardson's proposed online missions model challenges traditional definitions of missions is in its understanding of space and travel. Missions are usually seen as people going from one place to another. (The term missions derives from a Latin word meaning "sent.") In Richardson's online model, mission participants are not going from one place to another in a physical sense. This change is yet another example of the way in which the Internet reshapes how we think about space.
Perhaps more significant, however, is the shift in understanding of the work that constitutes missions in the online model. Traditional mission trips, especially the sort of short-term mission trips with which most church members are familiar, focus on "doing" something, whether that's leading a Vacation Bible School, building something, distributing food or medicine, etc. Online missions can't involve the same sort of physical labor, since participants are not physically at the site of their mission work.
Instead, online missions focus on relational and spiritual work and fundraising. Mission participants can use technology to form digitally-mediated relationships with long-term mission workers in the field. They can pray for these mission workers and their work, and they can help raise money to support the workers and their work. The relational aspect seems especially significant to me, as it suggests a relational or, in Methodist terms, connectional model of understanding missions. The structure of Richardson's proposed online missions places relationship-building at the heart of the mission experience. Support in prayer and finances flows from things learned through those relationships. The consequence is to strengthen ministry partnerships across the connection.
Exposing congregants to such a relational model of missions is good way of helping them develop holistic understandings of what mission is. For long-term, professional missionairies (as opposed to the short-term missionaries most churches send out), relationship-building is the key to any type of work in which they are engaged. Moreover, such an understanding of missions reflects important theological and ethical principles such as the relational nature of God's self or the need for mutuality in human relationships.
The idea of taking a mission trip through the internet may seem like a strange one. Yet churches would do well to try this model, especially as a means of fostering conversations about what mission means.
Gavin Richardson recently wrote a piece for UMCommunications entitled "Engage in global mission without leaving your church." In the post, Richardson suggests that churches can engage in online missions that "could include Skype calls, video testimonies, online prayer rooms and more." Richardson's suggestions may strike some as provocative, but such a virtual model of missions can help stimulate discussion of what the nature of missions and connection are.
The most obvious way in which Richardson's proposed online missions model challenges traditional definitions of missions is in its understanding of space and travel. Missions are usually seen as people going from one place to another. (The term missions derives from a Latin word meaning "sent.") In Richardson's online model, mission participants are not going from one place to another in a physical sense. This change is yet another example of the way in which the Internet reshapes how we think about space.
Perhaps more significant, however, is the shift in understanding of the work that constitutes missions in the online model. Traditional mission trips, especially the sort of short-term mission trips with which most church members are familiar, focus on "doing" something, whether that's leading a Vacation Bible School, building something, distributing food or medicine, etc. Online missions can't involve the same sort of physical labor, since participants are not physically at the site of their mission work.
Instead, online missions focus on relational and spiritual work and fundraising. Mission participants can use technology to form digitally-mediated relationships with long-term mission workers in the field. They can pray for these mission workers and their work, and they can help raise money to support the workers and their work. The relational aspect seems especially significant to me, as it suggests a relational or, in Methodist terms, connectional model of understanding missions. The structure of Richardson's proposed online missions places relationship-building at the heart of the mission experience. Support in prayer and finances flows from things learned through those relationships. The consequence is to strengthen ministry partnerships across the connection.
Exposing congregants to such a relational model of missions is good way of helping them develop holistic understandings of what mission is. For long-term, professional missionairies (as opposed to the short-term missionaries most churches send out), relationship-building is the key to any type of work in which they are engaged. Moreover, such an understanding of missions reflects important theological and ethical principles such as the relational nature of God's self or the need for mutuality in human relationships.
The idea of taking a mission trip through the internet may seem like a strange one. Yet churches would do well to try this model, especially as a means of fostering conversations about what mission means.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Recommended Reading: United Methodists ahead on Imagine No Malaria campaign
The United Methodist Church has made a substantial financial commitment to support the Imagine No Malaria Campaign - $75 million over 7 years. The church just announced that it is ahead of schedule in its efforts to raise that money. It reached a $40 million benchmark target one month early. For more on this international partnership, see the following two stories.
Momentum Building for Imagine No Malaria from United Methodist Communications
United Methodists Ahead of Malaria Goal from Linda Bloom, United Methodist News Service
Momentum Building for Imagine No Malaria from United Methodist Communications
United Methodists Ahead of Malaria Goal from Linda Bloom, United Methodist News Service
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