Becoming a Major Donor

So where do major donors come from? From grateful people.

How does it happen? The desire to give starts from the sense of gratitude. A person who knows or has been taught to be grateful for what he has becomes a giver usually because a grateful person esteems things lower than people. Possessions to a grateful person represent the generosity of God through others toward him. His things only have value with respect to their potential uses, primarily for others. A grateful person does not value himself for what he has but what he can do. A grateful person would not consider a gift or a help to someone else as anything other than the right thing to do if it were in their power. I have two and you need one is a simple equation for them. This is a learned attitude since we are basically self centered beings. It can be learned at any age but obviously the earlier the better. For a self centered or even family centered person to look outside their own self or house requires some sort of humbling, striking, or other life changing moment. It brings the realization that it is really impossible to fully control anything we have.

Here are the two things that you add to a grateful person to make him a major donor; major money and a major cause. So what is major money? Major money is the excess that begins to accumulate because he lives contently below his means. This attitude makes him not only willing but able. The second thing is a major cause. One of the things that drew me to the ministry in Peru so many years ago was the size of the need. Having been involved in Independent Baptist Missions for ten or so years by the mid 90s, I was used to seeing ministry work that required hundreds of dollars or maybe a couple thousand dollar needs. As I began to understand the work that was happening in Arequipa, I realized that this ministry was using tens of thousands of dollars. I began looking into it to find out what was going on and found myself very involved. The work, the donor and the donations have all grown since the mid-90s and continue to do so.

Summary: Three steps to becoming a major donor:

1. Develop a grateful attitude:
2. Live contently below your means:
3. Find the cause and commit to it in every way.

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