Global Outreach Website

Oct 04

We believe that, for long-term reproducibility, ministries should receive their primary financial support from sources within their culture.

We've been impacted through the years by Steve Saint and Daniel Rickett's teachings on the dangers of creating dependency.  From Dan Rickett's book on  Building Strategic Relationships, we learned:

In a healthy relationship, both sides recognize their responsibilities and work to fulfill them.  Each has a clear picture of what each has to offer and what each stands to gain.  Each maintains its independence and capacity to instruct, correct, and refuse the other.  Each honors and upholds the unique and divine calling of the other.  Each makes a distinctive and complementary contribution to the partnership.  Therefore it is important in partnership to not only give but to receive, to not only teach but to learn, and to not only lead but to follow. 

By contrast, the seeds of unhealthy dependency are planted when the only deal struck is the one-way flow of resources, whether that be money or personnel.  If the accent is on the exchange of money or personnel and not on the complementary contributions each partner makes, the importance of reciprocity is easily overlooked.  If resources are shared more for the benefit of one partner than for the purpose of ministering more effectively to others, the receiving partner's responsibility is effectively sidelined.  If one partner maintains control over the decision making process, the other partner cannot exercise responsibility of a co-laborer.   If one partner's contributions are valued more highly than the others', it is impossible to establish true reciprocity. 

Five Sure Ways to Create Unhealthy Dependency -

1. Make an alliance with a lone ranger (rather than a ministry that has a local board of directors)

2. Send money directly to individuals (rather than an organization with a governing structure and accounting system that administers funds in an auditable and defensible manner)

3. Finance pastors and local churches (easily stifles local initiative by creating the assumption that believers need only rely on distant benefactors rather than learn to give sacrificially)

4. Give resources based only on need (Needs have to be defined and boundaries set so that you can actually see  results. Needs alone are insatiable.)

5. Underwrite 100% of a ministry's needs  (The best antidote is to subsidize a strategic initiative or program, rather than to fund the entire ministry.)