Aside from decluttering, or maybe I should say alongside decluttering, I am still working on a strategy for raising money to help my friend Reverenda Lucia's afterschool program obtain an indoor meeting space. Why a strategy? you might ask. It's a small-scale project and a relatively small amount of money, so why agonize? Why not just do it?
Part of the inertia comes from me. The school year ends, the tide goes out, and I slide into a few weeks of sleeping late, arranging my day around household tasks and lunch with friends, and the number of accomplishments per day dwindles to a fraction of my normal output. But there are also pragmatic reasons for thinking things through as well as some larger ethical considerations.
My view of the whole nature of raising money has evolved considerably since 2005. When I was looking for financial support for my six-month trip to Brazil, I wanted the money to come from foundations or other organizations with "deep pockets," and that didn't happen as I expected it. I had some grants from various committees and mission offices that made up about two thirds of what I needed. At the time I felt that I was entitled to a full ride. After all, here I was taking an unpaid leave from my job and going off in response to encouragement from various church and mission people. If they wanted me to go, they should help me find the money; I shouldn't have to beg. Well, in the end I did beg. The remaining third of my funding came from friends and fellow parishioners.
The genesis of last year's trip to Brazil was completely unofficial: I missed my friends and they missed me. So we emailed back and forth for several months, involved other people who were also interested in community education, and put together a schedule of visits and tasks. On the strength of that loose plan, I asked for an official invitation from the Brazilian bishops and secretary general. Everything finally came together in June of last year, and then I set to work raising $2700 in three weeks. The inspiration came from reading two books on fundraising that were written by missionaries whose theology was much more conservative than mine - but whose philosophy of money had more integrity. In brief, the idea was to think of funders as participants, to develop a community, and to pray for everyone from whom I requested help.
The process of prayer was also a way to adjust to the fact that not everyone would contribute -- and those who contributed would not give amounts that I expected. People who (I thought) could afford only, say ten dollars gave fifty. Others who had encouraged me to take the 2005 and 2006 trips did not respond at all - and that was OK as well. The whole enterprise felt guided by the Spirit in the sense that it was completely out of my control and yet was also an answer to my own prayers. One of the authors I read warned not to be offended or disillusioned by people I thought should have contributed but did not. And by following a process that was both financial and spiritual, I was able to look at everyone I contacted as a fellow human being and not a piggy bank. Ultimately, I really did feel that I was giving my supporters the opportunity to join with me, and I understood that anyone who did not give was "called elsewhere." The point of asking for support was not to collect money - though that certainly made the trip possible - but to attract a community.
Now, I realize how hokey that sounds. I'm a veteran of the corporate world. I work for an institution of higher learning that prides itself on practicality and pragmatism. I have a business degree and a graduate degree in the humanities. (If you want to sample a good cross-section of anti-religion remarks, the best place to hear them is your average creative writing workshop.) But it worked, and I think it worked because the trip was not an end in itself.
In addition to the concerns about how to raise money, I have also started to think about the ways in which people's lives improve in developing countries. Donations can do only so much, and if donations create dependency, they do more harm than good. In my travels in Brazil and Mississippi, I've met many people who were championing projects and am gradually developing a sixth sense about the ones where something is just slightly off. I need to believe that funds I raise are a capital investment that will yield a return.
Finally, I have been thinking a lot about how and where to collect the money. The easiest way to do this would be to ask my parish church to administer the funds, but apparently they are getting too many requests to act as custodian. (I'm still working on being able to tell when the local, diocesan, or national hierarchy will and won't want to claim me as one of their own.) So a woman priest from another parish has been giving me some good advice. She and I decided that I should collect funds in memory of a member of the diocesan committee that oversaw the companionship with Brazil from 2000 to 2006. My job for Monday is to find a bank where I can open an account.
The irony is that the woman in whose memory the fund will be named was not a deliberator at all. She died last year at 87, having been one of the first female PhD's in several of the linguistics departments where she taught. She had a gift for what I (as convener of the companionship committee) used to think of as anaerobic interruption - to break into a discussion and keep talking without pausing for breath. My priest friend said that she would just jump in and start exhorting people to donate.
