The idea of
donor fundraising has always been a sore subject, but my visceral reaction to a
recent development conference I attended surprised even me.
Because I
lead a women’s organization that depends on donations, fundraising is a
constant concern and the part of my job that I least enjoy. I thought I hated
conversations about money because I don’t have much of it and because I was
unable to fully grasp how finance works. But, the more I engage in financial
matters, the more I realize that I do, in fact, understand it. My distaste for
money talk is rooted in my fury about the economic system itself.
Our system
works like this: those who have money are asked to share it with those who lack
it. Sounds simple enough—but look into the weeds of the way this works. If you
“have,” you are privileged to decide who is worthy and who is not of receiving
your generosity. You can choose how much or how little to give. If the
recipient of those gifts does not respond in a way that benefits you, you can
withhold donations in the future.
Those who
“have not” must learn how to stroke donor egos: tell compelling stories, write
brilliant thank you letters, dance a jig, and walk humbly before the giver all
at once. With wills of steel, they must rebound from personal blows in short
order so they can set out again with the next story and request.
How can
anyone be happy with this system? I know a number of good, generous wealthy
people who never intend to demean the “have nots.” I wonder what they think
about all the fundraising efforts spent to placate the donor’s ego. If I were
wealthy, this kind of approach would make me sad. I don’t believe most wealthy
donors need or want this kind of patronizing. I wonder how they would feel
about the fundraising conference I attended.
MW USA’s new
initiative, Choosing Sisterhood, invites women to begin dismantling societal
divides by finding a sister very different from themselves and walking with
her. The goal of Choosing Sisterhood is to build strong relationships that will
help us enter into different cultures and find common ground and God’s love.
The hope is that, over time, the unjust systems of racial, ethnic, and gender
inequality will begin to fall.
When it
comes to our economic system, I’m more impatient. Look at Leviticus 25 and see
the kind of economic system God establishes. When you study God’s model with
the year of Jubilee, you’ll see that God’s way ensured that generational
poverty or wealth would be kept in check. In contrast, the wealth gap in the
country is out of control and only getting worse. The system is designed so
that the wealthy can easily acquire more, and those with scarce resources are
locked outside the system altogether. Very few people actually change their
economic status over the course of their lifetime; a person is either
generationally wealthy or generationally poor.
I don’t
think we have time to build bridges carefully; the inequalities in our
financial system are killing too many people and communities. We need to make
drastic shifts soon. This doesn’t mean I’m not aware that dramatic changes are
tough. I knew from the start that the protest movement Occupy Wall Street was
going to fizzle. When you start messing with people’s money or perceived
economic interests, they react and often overreact.
My biggest
concern has to do with the church, the people of God. Biblical mandates on how
to respond to economic disparity are clear. God’s people are not to store up
earthly riches (Matthew 6:19-21); we are to leave a generous portion of our
income for others (Deuteronomy 15:11); we are not supposed to charge interest
(Exodus 22:25-27). . . . The list goes on.
The Bible is
filled with lifegiving instructions about how to manage our wealth. Why, then,
has the church in the U.S. largely abandoned them? We willingly lament societal
ills and debate the biblical response to them, but when it comes to our
behavior regarding wealth, the church is silent. Either we are ignoring
Scripture, or we are not comprehending that most of us are the wealthy ones to
whom God gives so much instruction.
I am looking
for women who want to tear down the system! I am thinking along the lines of
the Montgomery bus boycott during the Civil Rights movement. We need people who
are willing to lose their profits in order for others to gain their basic human
dignity. We need people who will forfeit a return on their investments for the
sake of forcing systemic change.
Even as I
say this, I am aware that our current system is designed so that investors will
not or cannot withdraw money from it. I know that funds are supposedly locked
up for the investor’s own good, but I’m convinced that this monetary
incarceration is really to prop up a system that is sinister to the core. Worst
of all, those at the economic controls have convinced us that the system is at
minimum, necessary, and in most cases generous, democratic, and benevolent.
We need
lending institutions that don’t charge the poor interest and provide safety
nets for small businesses and other efforts bettering the lives of women,
people of color, and those in generational poverty. I envision the creation of
financial institutions whose stated goal is not to be a means by which the
wealthy obtain more wealth but rather to move individuals, families, and
communities to economic stability.
You see it,
right? I know that I must be a pawn in the game for now, but this is only for a
while. I need women young and old, wealthy and poor, to stand up and say NO
MORE. Let’s begin now to dismantle a system designed for a select few. Let us
start now to create a new system that reflects the Scripture we hold so dear.
Are you
already working in a church or ministry with a vision for systemic change in
our economic system? I would love to know about it. I don’t have the answers,
but I am convinced that if we work together and are willing to sacrifice, we
could dismantle economic injustice in our country. The system continues to
churn only because we all join in its elitist and patronizing game.