In my role as chairman of a non-profit, I’m finding I spend much more time and concern than I anticipated towards donors than the recipients of our ministry (children and poor families in Haiti.) I don’t enjoy the donor development part of the role.
In that light, I met with a man yesterday, who connects non-profits with wealthy individuals and foundations. He said “many will no longer give to Haiti, after years and years and tons of money they have seen no change.”
The man is a professional in philanthropy and I’m sure he’s correct. But the statement pissed me off. I don’t see conditions upon love and support, especially for innocent children that just happened to be born into poverty. Maybe I’m missing 1 Corinthians 7(b) in my Bible: “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (b) unless you’ve already given and can’t point to any changes, then you can forget about that first part.”
In his book “Tattoos of the Heart” Father Gregory Boyle writes
Funders sometimes say "we don't fund efforts we find outcomes" we all hear this and think how sensible and practical, realistic, hard-nosed, and clear-eyed it is. but maybe Jesus doesn't know why we’re nodding so vigorously. Without wanting to, we sometimes allow our preference for the poor to morph into a preference for the well-behaved and the most likely to succeed even if you get better outcomes when you work with these folks. If success is our engine, we sidestep the difficult and belligerent and eventually abandon "the slow work of God". Failure and death become insurmountable.
Failure and death do become insurmountable, even assured, when we refuse to work where we think there might be failure or death. If we focus on the kid with the great smile and leave the grumpy one alone, won't the grumpy one surely grow up to be grumpy?
Even in the triage of the battlefield or emergency room, the most mortally wounded with the least hope of recovery, gets priority care, relief, and compassion. They are never abandoned.