As shepherds over the flock God has placed in our care, we need to realize that sometimes employees may experience a death in the family, medical emergencies or transportation challenges. These are times when an intentional and proactive approach may be a blessing to your staff. For example, one bank I worked for established a company benevolence fund. Both the ...
Many Christians have heard about the generosity of Hobby Lobby, but there’s another company in Oklahoma City that many locals point to when discussing generosity. The company’s name is Jasco. When I trolled Jasco’s website, I was impressed by not only their extreme generosity, but also by their strategy. Jasco remarkably gives away 50% of their profits to charitable causes, ...
Many business owners believe that the privately-held stock they own in their company has little value until they sell the business. Mark discovered otherwise. Mark leveraged his stock long before selling his business. Mark had his business appraised, then donated 20% of his company stock to a donor advised fund. (That’s basically a checking account specifically for giving.) This gave ...
Over the years, I’ve seen many unique strategies implemented by savvy business leaders to leverage their generosity. The first strategy is donating appreciated assets like publicly traded stock to charity. Mike had been giving cash gifts to our ministry when he discovered a better way. He owned some stocks that had appreciated greatly that he considered selling. Instead, Mike donated ...
Martin Luther was quoted as saying, “There are three conversions: the conversion of the heart, mind and purse.” Many business leaders have heard sermons about being generous givers. But the numbers of those who have moved that concept from their minds to their wallets are few. Recently, a friend told me that his business had been on the verge of ...
Thanksgiving has been celebrated for hundreds of years, but Black Friday didn’t become a common label for what used to be the busiest shopping day of the year until 1981. Cyber Monday was proclaimed by the National Retail Federation in 2005 but has since become the biggest buying day of the year. Giving Tuesday, however, was not developed until 2012. ...
A few years ago, Dan considered selling his machine tooling business. Fortunately, he shared his plan with me before he had negotiated a deal with the buyer. After I introduced Dan to a unique strategy, and the National Christian Foundation, Dan donated 20% of his company to a donor advised fund prior to the sale. This strategy gave Dan an ...
Although Brian has run his business for decades, he recently felt God leading him to research water wells. His research uncovered that water wells in poor villages can have an amazing impact on entire communities. Through his business, Brian began a marketing program which has raised enough money to build multiple water wells in third world countries. Brian shared with ...
When Bill was younger, his business was struggling for survival about the time he attended a ministry retreat. During that retreat, the ministry founder challenged the attendees to pledge at least $1 million in their lifetime to support evangelism. Bill said it felt crazy, but even though he was broke, he made the pledge. Within 10 years, Bill had surpassed ...
In this series, we’re discussing five phases many business leaders experience on their journey to becoming generous. The second phase is “Transactional Giving.” I’ve reviewed many different studies on giving. The average Christian typically gives about 2.5% of their income to charity. When we buy a service, we typically pay an amount equivalent to the value received. Likewise, many people ...
Equipping Others to Do Work Differently
