This week on The Ministry Growth Show we’re joined by Joe Eelkema from National Christian Foundation as we discuss generosity and high-impact giving. In this episode, Joe and I discuss the changing landscape of generosity and Joe shares his insights on how storytelling plays a crucial role in National Christian Foundation’s work.
Transcriptions:
SPEAKERS: Joe Eelkema, Zachary Leighton
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Zachary Leighton
Welcome back to the ministry growth Show. Today I’m going to be talking with Joe Eelkema, he’s a gift advisor for National Christian Foundation. Joe, thanks for being on the show.
Joe Eelkema
Great to be here. Thank you.
Zachary Leighton
Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about Christian National Christian Foundation? Obviously, a lot of people in the Christian nonprofit and tech space are probably familiar with you guys. But what is NCF? And how do you guys work?
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, National Christian Foundation, we serve generous people. Our purpose is to see lives changed to the glory of God, through biblical generosity. And I’ll just kind of go through that, again, to see lives change to the glory of God through biblical generosity. And Zach, what I liked about that, is it puts a focus on both the giver and the receiver, which I think is really really critical. generosity and giving is it goes both ways, you know, we’re blessed to give, and people are blessed to receive. So National Christian Foundation is one of the largest public charities that you’ve never heard of, or that most people have never heard of, because all that we do is help generous people give money away to the things in the ministries that they care about.
Zachary Leighton
Yeah, that that idea of, of both sides of it. That’s one of the things that within our storytelling, and specifically, our messaging and story communication, that we try to focus on when we help nonprofits and churches in their messaging and communication is, it’s not just about the donor, or the generous person, right. And it’s not just about the ministry, like those are crucial characters within any story. But oftentimes, we just we can tend to place that what the Christian nonprofit world would call a beneficiary, what we would call a participant,
we can, we can forget that that person is or that people group or that language group, that’s an important piece to this. They’re crucial character in the story. And there is no story without them, right. And so both the receiver and the giver and incredibly important pieces within any within any story. So that’s cool that you guys recognize that?
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, we love doing what we do. You know, you bring up story. We love just knowing individual people’s stories around, you know, what is God calling you to do uniquely in your life, you’ve been blessed with a lot of abundance. When it comes to the world’s resources. Maybe it’s a business, real estate, whatever it happens to be. But how can we help you live into what God is calling you to do uniquely in your life? And so National Christian foundation as an organization, where this huge mosaic of a bunch of people doing all kinds of different things, through ministry through their families, it’s not just about the money, a lot of times people look at National Christian foundation. And yes, we do a lot of strategy with people. We have tools like the giving fund, and these other ways that people can give more to family and ministry. But what’s behind it, is, I think it’s really actually more the interesting part of how we can help people take a next step in their personal story and their personal journey towards just living more abundantly, living more freely, living without fear. Because when we think about it, wealth and resources can bring those things in.
Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. Can you share some of your own personal experience or past past experience and how you found yourself working with NCF? Because when we met you were not within CF, right?
Joe Eelkema
That’s correct. Yeah. So I found NCF Well, NCF kind of found me in a way back in 2009. I think it was, I was living. My wife and I I should say we’re living in Newport Beach, California. And if you are any of our listeners have ever been to Newport Beach. It is an unbelievable place and there’s just so much wealth. I was working right along the beach. I was in property management and construction and serving guests in these incredible homes. I mean, just unbelievable places. And by and large, everyone’s you know, wonderful people are wonderful, generally speaking, but I just was around so much money. And I started to really struggle with my own paradigms around money, like, what is this all for? And Janessa? And I, what are our resources for? And how do we use them effectively? Fast forward, we ended up meeting up with a really interesting guy named Bob, and Bob was in our church. And Bob happened to be connected really strongly with the National Christian Foundation, and through the California office there. And Bob and I, we went to a dive Diner for breakfast, and I started asking these questions. And as I was asking him, he’s like, you know, that seems that you’re really interested in this. Have you ever thought about just, you know, concerning moving over to the foundation like these are, this seems to be where your heart is. And he had some connections in there. I general business education, and the dots just kind of connected as God does. And it just seemed like it was good calling. So that was back around 2009 2010. And then, yep, kind of continued through this. But I, yeah, I love this, this kind of industry, so to speak, of helping people connect with what they really want to do with resources and abundance. That’s cool.
Zachary Leighton
To shift a little bit, and get into the conversation, there’s a bit of a shift taking place, I think, within the the Christian nonprofit space and generosity, or are you guys spending time doing any research into the into changing generosity and spending behaviors of younger generations? Maybe specifically, millennials, like myself, and, and Gen Z and younger? What are some of the shifts that you’re seeing that are taking place in that? Kind of?
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, yeah, this whole give world of giving, and how we give things has definitely been changing significantly. I’m not aware that we’re doing any formal research. You know, we all see the Barna studies and the things that are coming through on that, but definitely National Christian Foundation is adapting. We are seeing, I can just think of a few things. Number one, just the whole impact investing. Impact Investing is essentially where and this is a simplification of it, essentially, where there’s more of a blurred line between kind of the for profit type investing, and the nonprofit, traditionally, nonprofit. Investing in things that have more of a spiritual or philanthropic impact is how the world would say it. And how do we kind of blend those two where there’s, they would say it’s a double bottom line, to where you’re producing a profit. But the profit is also accomplishing some greater good, that’s out there. And so we’re we have a sister organization impact Foundation, there’s donors using the National Christian Foundation, who are really trying to blend how they impact the world with their day-to-day vocation. They’re not separate your Sunday, giving isn’t necessarily separate from your day to day vocation. It looks different in every situation. But it’s just an awesome way that we’re seeing people wanting to invest with their values as well. We have some faith driven pools. So when people give money into the National Christian Foundation into their individualized donor-advised funds, sure, they get a tax deduction. But then, while it awaits deployment to different ministries, they can invest in different things, and they can invest in these faith-driven pools that are overseen from an investment manager that has a strong faith perspective. That’s another example of how this is done. So we’re adapting on that front. I would say a second front, where we’re adapting is we’re seeing folks be more intentional about incorporating, giving into their strategic planning, whether it’s tax planning, estate planning. They’ve been blessed with much and it’s given kind of the world and the tax climate and whatnot that we’re in. They really want to be intentional about their giving. They don’t wants to just be a reactive Oh, I kind of give 10% of my cash just because that’s kind of what we do. And they’re also talking, there’s a lot of community around giving now to which in the past, and, you know, my, my more traditional church background, we didn’t always talk about money, right? Well, what happens is that leads people to make some really silly decisions around money, and they can leave money on the table to taxation, they can make just bad decisions with money and family. But now there’s these communities of people, particularly, particularly around like generous giving, where people can ask those questions, they don’t need to share numbers. So nobody shares it’s a million dollars, $100,000 $1,000, whatever it is, but they can ask, be vulnerable and ask these questions around money. And I think that for generationally, that’s really attractive for millennials to be able to ask questions like, Hey, I, I’ve, you know, we started this online company, and it’s grown. And, like, we’re really blessed. We’ve never really thought about this philanthropy, quote, unquote, piece before, but we know it, and we’ve been given maybe 10%. But we feel like probably we should do more, but like helped me grapple with that. In the past, it may have been more just one directional from a pulpit. Now, it’s more of a conversation that people are having in their meeting, and they’re celebrating and saying, like, look what God’s doing in our lives. Yes, we’ve been blessed with much, but look what he’s doing in our lives when we give this way when we open our hands. So that’s a long answer to that. And yeah, next gen doing.
Okay.
Do you guys work with only high-net-worth individuals? Or can anybody at any tax bracket come in and give through NCF and set up these donor-advised funds?
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, anybody can set up a donor-advised fund with National Christian Foundation, generally, we’re working with people who are out of debt, and giving money away, there’s no line that we’re genuinely pleased to be serving anyone, but the tools tend to perform best for people who are taking tax deductions, and thinking through those sorts of situations in their life.
Okay, yeah. And so, so, like,
a situation like mine, if I want to be wise with and be a good steward with what I’ve been given what I might be already giving, I am already giving,
Zachary Leighton
I could give into this fun that then dependent on the things that I’m passionate about, or me and my wife want to give towards that fun can then take that money, make it money on itself, and then be distributed out to those organizations over whatever period of time I decide, Is that how that works?
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, so like, my wife and I were very average income, I serve with National Christian foundation, and my wife’s a teacher. But we find that the fund is really useful in our lives, because I can make a contribution in NCF as a public charity, so the time when that when the contribution goes in, that’s the moment when I can take it as a tax deduction. Okay. And then it will be in that fund, and then we can give it away in pieces into the future. One thing that’s really unique about National Christian Foundation, and really, most of the Christian charitable foundations that are out there is that we’re always gonna encourage you to give, in my opinion, and this is a little more of just a general opinion, but we don’t get to really ring the bell until it’s actually doing something Sure. We give it into NCF. It’s just, it’s just a tool. It’s similar to a charitable checking account. I don’t think we get credit until it actually goes out to the various ministries that we’d love to support. But NCF rules, we’re happy to issue the grants to any organization that doesn’t conflict with generally held Christian values. So probably we can give it to the school down the street or to your your university. But of course, the vast majority of the grants that we’re seeing are going to churches, ministries, all the great work that’s happening out there. Yeah, it’s just it’s just a really helpful tool. There are some other features and whatnot that, you know, I won’t go into those, but if somebody’s interested, definitely I’d be happy to walk through. So for even ministry leaders, you might consider just opening lunges that you know, how they work. And just to organize your own giving, it’s just a helpful tool.
Now can can churches, set up something like this so that they If there’s a, they’re able to either have an account set up that their their congregations could give through? Or is it what what’s kind of like that church partnership model look like for you guys? Yeah, that exists.
Joe Eelkema
So that yeah, churches and ministries definitely consider, we typically call it a single charity fund into which their donors can make gifts, and then it can be moved back towards the ministry will do the receding. So this can be really helpful in certain situations. Sometimes churches elect not to do that sometimes they find that this fun is helpful. Most of the funds that we’re overseeing at NCF are for individuals or families, though. But yeah, there are definitely some benefits around that. Our intersection with ministries and ministry leaders, is it’s a few different ways you can look on our website, NCF giving.com. And there’s actually a whole section just devoted to charities, and we love to collaborate with ministry leaders. A lot of it’s around just educating, of how to recognize great giving potential. Amongst supporters of the ministry, it’s, it’s easy to kind of miss some of these really remarkable moments. in a, in an individual’s life, when they can give and move a lot more dollars over towards ministry, we get a lot of phone calls after the fact. And it you know, words honester Oh, Lord, it’s taking here, but we get a lot of so I sold this major asset paid a lot of tax. And now I’m gonna give the money away. And it’s like, ah, you know, our tax code allows it should, if we could have gone back six months, we could have talked about giving an interest in that asset, whether it’s a business or real estate. And if you give an interest in that, you’ll get a tax deduction for the fair market value. And then later, when the sale comes around, and the sale happens, chances are we have either we pay no tax, or we pay reduced tax on that. Every situation is different. But it is something that we talk with ministries, ministry leaders about, keep your eyes open for those sorts of things. These sorts of things really do take a village so to speak. Yeah, most people’s professional advisors don’t necessarily think this direction, we see that too, is that professional advisor might be so consumed with the transaction that they might not think. And this is a highly generous Christian. They’re a little bit of a different bird in a good way. They would be open to giving 20% of business. So yep.
How does that work with say, say you’ve invested someone’s invested in a company before it’s gone public or something, and then it goes IPO and all of a sudden, you’ve got you find yourself because of your wise investment in your head with in over your head with more cash than you know what to do with not that this is a situation that is a regular occurrence. But is this a situation where it had instead of just getting hammered on taxes? With that investment going big? Is there ways around? And ways in which you could use this for that kind of purpose as well?
Joe Eelkema
Well, yeah, it there are that particular situation, there’s a lot of moving parts, legal stuff that’s going on behind the scenes. But let’s zoom back out. Yes, big picture. One can give away assets, appreciated assets, to a public charity, and take a tax deduction for those gifts, and either avoid paying the tax on that or the charity would pay a reduced tax on that perhaps, again, very situational. But for the bigger picture is supporting ministry. If a donors intention or if an individual’s attention, intention is to support ministry in a big way, God’s just laid it on their heart like this abundance is to be used to bless family and to bless ministry. There are fully lawful ways that people can give in advance of any future sale and that’s really important. If there can’t ever be any sort of a sale in the works. It has to be done in advance. So there’s just a gift. And then whenever there’s some sort of a liquidity event, charity holds a piece and charity will sell music for the charitable purpose, which in this case, is to support the various ministries and charities that they care about.
Interesting Yeah,
Do you do you guys find that younger generations are are giving less?
Joe Eelkema
Um, you know, I, we don’t necessarily notice it from where we are in ministry, because inherently people that work through the foundation are, are generous. One other area that we do notice, though is, and this is a little bit more just my perception, Zack, is that families are giving intergenerationally, perhaps a little bit more. They’re really viewing early, I think I mentioned that people really want and giving strategy, a lot of people have a financial plan. But if you ask them, Do you have a giving strategy, they might say, not really like, that’s something that we kind of want to have. And we’re probably missing some opportunities and leaving a lot of money on the table that we don’t need to but we need help with that. One of the services besides you know, the donor advised fund and the giving fund that we offer is helping people develop a giving strategy. And we actually have like a full, awesome online tool that helps people walk through what they want to give to and help them dial that in. And oftentimes, what results is we get into conversations with people about, you know, we’ve been blessed, but we also want to bless our kids with this giving reflects the ability to let go. They Yeah, it’s as Alan Barnhart says on one of his videos, he says I want my kids to be blessed not to necessarily grow up as rich kids, and be able to give and I that that’s always really struck me. Giving as a family is really important. It’s not just the patriarch and matriarch who are doing the giving more is caught than then taught. And so how do we give with families is something that I think is a fascinating kind of evolution of giving that that at least I’m seeing from where I
serve. Oh, that’s cool.
So how much are you guys doing a lot of education for your audience around some of the stuff that we’ve discussed?
Joe Eelkema
Yes. So National Christian Foundation we have everybody who’s listening to this should definitely go sign up for they call it the Saturday seven. It’s an aggregator service where we pull in articles from all over, it’s not NCF materials necessarily. And this helps to educate people not only kind of on the brass tacks, because we even went a little brass tacks a moment ago, on some of the tech stuff and whatnot. That’s that’s just a means to an end. The end is generosity and, and drawing nearer to the heart of God. Right. And but there’s a lot of content that’s out there. That’s wonderful for just helping to inspire ourselves in giving and letting go of things and giving back. There’s a lot of, yeah, just idea, ideation that’s out there. A lot of stories of individuals, which helps us to pattern are giving as well, I find that a lot of people’s act. They just need to see other people’s stories and just kind of go through a bunch of other people’s stories from people who are willing to share and we have those. And then they they start to put together their own pattern for Yeah, God’s called us to do this. And I think maybe we could, maybe we could do this. Earlier, I brought up Alan Barnhart. Boy he is he and Catherine are a family that a lot of people have been ignited by their story. They’re very humble people, but they’ve given away 100% of the company. The world would say, that’s crazy. Why would you do that? They’re very public about this. You can see their videos online. It’s wonderful. But a lot of people watch that. And say, I think we could do something like that. Maybe not 100%. But like, yeah, why aren’t we thinking this way? That guy? He and She they are not totally crazy. Like, this is what we’re called to do as Christians and we have way more than we need, like, why wouldn’t we do that? The part that NCF helps with is they say this, let’s do it and then they turn back and look at their complicated world and talk with their CPA and then they get mired in all the detail of how to actually do that. And that’s that’s where we love to come in and help bring Yeah, I ideation around it. Yep.
That’s cool. Yeah, play that guide and, and mentors you guide people on that journey. Because yes, when you get and down to the weeds. It gets messy and confusing. I’m sure
Joe Eelkema
it does. It does. There’s yeah, one more story. Quick. Barnhart and this is another public store. You can find it online some some good friends are Christian made Chesley they have a video with generous giving to. Okay, Megan went to one of these journey of generosity gatherings which I highly endorse. I won’t go into that but awesome opportunity for key supporters of your ministry to go through not to get money necessarily back for the ministry. It’s just a way you can bless people. Well, I have small business went to this journey of generosity. They kind of had an idea before going into it that yeah, God’s called us to create space for people to experience God create space for people to experience God, but they didn’t quite know how to match the business. And what they’re doing with this thing that God’s put on their heart. Well, they heard Alan Barnhart story and Megan, the video shares very openly about this and says, that was one mom, she’s like, That guy’s crazy. But there’s something there. And then combined with all the other pieces of generous giving, it really helped them. I’m sure it wasn’t everything, but help them solidify in their minds. Yeah, let’s take, let’s take a step. Let’s let’s do something new. Like let’s not just let this be a dream. Let’s chase Yeah, well, they ended up having the opportunity to purchase a piece of property. That’s really ideal for hosting journeys of generosity, marriage retreats, all these things that they love to see people get these epiphanies. And in fact, they named it waypoint Chris happens to be a ship’s captain. And waypoints are these points when you make a correction and your exact path of a ship. And so they call it waypoints. They want to create spaces for people to experience the Lord and make small corrections in their course. And continue and so you know, this generosity this is a kind of something that comes up often generosity begets generosity when Ellen bar when Catherine Barnhart shared their story with generously with everybody. It begets more generosity with Chris and Meg Chesley with other people, when people share the stories, stuff starts to happen. And it’s it’s almost magical was like It really is amazing. So anyhow, that’s a long answer to your question. That’s
good. That’s good. You’re, you’re, you’re pitching what we’ve been talking about for a long time. So it’s good to hear somebody else say. Well, this has been really cool kit, can we take a moment to listen to our sponsor? And when we come back, we’ll continue our discussion on National Christian foundation with Joe Yakama. Are you looking to grow your ministry but don’t have the money in marketing knowledge to make that happen? There’s good news. Google offers an advertising grant to churches and ministries that is worth $10,000 per month. This means that if your ministry is a 501 C three nonprofit, you are eligible to receive $120,000 per year in free advertising dollars. This allows you to place ads at the top of Google search results pages, and drive 1000s of visitors to your ministry website every month. Our sponsor, click nonprofit helps your ministry acquire this Google Ad grant and then manages your Google ads to ensure you get the most out of the grant. Schedule a free consultation at click nonprofit.com. To learn more about how this grant can help your specific ministry mentioned the ministry growth. So when you sign up to get 20% off your first three months of management.
Zachary Leighton
Welcome back to the ministry growth. So we’ve been talking with Joe Yokohama from National Christian Foundation about generosity. Joe, we’ve been talking about, most recently, storytelling and inspiration. What are some of the ways you’ve talked about two specific stories that you guys have shared publicly? What are some of the ways in which you’re using story and storytelling and testimony of individuals and families and their generosity to encourage others to dive in and take part in? What I think we’ve all been pretty clearly called to in Scripture.
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, yeah. Um, I would move. So we’ve talked about how this, these messages are coming in video format, from NCF from a website kind of blasted out to the world. I’d love to take it back down to just one on one. My role as a gifted advisor, is to help people make one step and we can only take one step at a time, right? We can’t take steps. One step in there giving one step in generosity at a time and often One times a way that I will do that a way that I love to do that is to share other people’s stories or their connections with other donors. It is a case by case basis. But there are a lot of other great ministries out there. For example, the Barnabas group, in particular in California is a great place for people to connect, share stories in a trusted environment, and just be inspired around that. Oftentimes, when I’m speaking with donors, potential donors, financial advisors, ministry leaders, I’ll share general stories, obviously, we’re very good with confidentiality and NCF, around specific names, and less people really want to share their stories. But I love just kind of hearing where people are on their journey, and almost guaranteed there’s somebody else who I know who either I can kind of share, you know, the general gist of what they’ve done, and how they’ve overcome an obstacle, and how we’ve been helpful to them on that, or better yet, sometimes we’re able to just make a direct introduction. Mary Smith, you should know, Wanda Stokes, like, like, you guys, you live a mile down the road from each other. You’re both generous. You both love, you know, water ministries, like, you guys really go to coffee, see what got passed through. And you guys both have a story that, you know, they’re going almost in parallel. And so how can you almost weave your story together? So I just think that’s really interesting is how do we take story back down to the individual level as well?
That’s cool. So that’s more in internal, inner working storytelling, is that something that National Christian foundation has incorporated across the entire team? Or is that just a personal Joe? thing that you do as you work with with your clientele?
Joe Eelkema
I definitely had all of the folks who the other gift advisors, their relationship manager, sometimes they’re called, definitely, I would say they all do it in some form or fashion, everybody has their different strengths, right, we have some relationship managers who come out of professional advisory world, and maybe they lead a little bit more on that I, I just find this storytelling piece. This relational piece just is second nature to me, I love connecting people. And so that’s that’s how I help people build their story. But the other thing is we collaborate within NCF we collaborate with other sister organizations a lot. Brought up generous giving generous giving is just an outstanding organization. There’s never any ask with generous giving. So when people show up to a generous giving event, it’s never prescriptive for what they should give or how they should give. It’s just descriptive. They describe the Bible in a very creative way through people’s stories. And then it leads the participants to make their own decisions about what’s God calling me to do uniquely. And worst God calling me to stretch, where is God calling me to explore? So generous giving has been a wonderful partner in that way. And see if we’re a little more focused on the Okay, so God called you to do something, how do you actually do that? But there’s just a lot of ecosystem, you might say, around generosity that never was there 2030 years ago, or wasn’t there nearly in the same form? That it is now and so we’re living in an exciting time for that reason? I think,
yeah. So generous giving almost becomes a top of funnel relationship for you guys to someone might go to a generous, forgiving event, experience that kind of storytelling and, and realize, Okay, I think that we could do this for our family, and then they find National Christian foundation through that process.
Joe Eelkema
Yep, yep. Interesting. Yeah, it’s not totally separate. So people are coming away with whatever they come away with. That’s wonderful. But if what they come away with is, hey, we want to give we really want to dial in this giving thing from more of a tax perspective from a you know, making giving fun again, that’s another thing that comes up and I I want to bring the negative tone to it, but sometimes people with wealth, you know, giving becomes kind of complicated, right? And so I have some tools that can help with that. To make it fun, again, to where it’s all organized in one place. You’re not chasing down 30 tax receipts during two accesing for your CPA, you know, that’s,
that by itself could be worth it. Yes.
Joe Eelkema
Yep, definitely. But, yeah. And the nice thing is ministry leaders can plug into these tools and plug supporters and they know what ultimately I’m gonna encourage people to give to whatever they want to give to. It’s not it’s not about NCF. It’s about accomplishing the work that God’s calling them to do. It’s yeah. Generous, giving us great. Yeah, there’s just a bunch of these organizations that are growing.
That’s cool. Now, you mentioned I think, at the beginning of our conversation, the National Christian foundation is either a charity or or nonprofit that one of the largest ones that nobody knows about. Can you flush that out? Is that strategic is? Is that a part of like, your process? Or is it? Yep. That was more of a German.
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, that was more of a Yeah, just a Joe commented, you know, tongue in cheek a little bit. It’s mostly what it was. But, you know, we really, we do want to be known in the sense that we can help people give more effectively. Right. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we want people to connect with the ministries that they love, in a deeper way. Ideally, give more to where more work gets done. Yeah. But yeah, NCF, we’ve seen, I think it’s 16 billion with a be a $16 billion worth of grants out to various ministries and organizations. We facilitated I think it’s around 3000 complex asset gift transaction. So that’s like business interests, real estate, things that are not just publicly traded stock. And, yeah, it’s, you know, those numbers are from awesome, normal people. This isn’t, you know, just a few billionaires who are using NCF. And making these numbers. These are like, REITs, are our friends that have the plumbing business next door? It’s, it’s cool, you know,
yeah. On the the reason I ask is, how does from a brand strategy perspective? NCF is, like the mediator between an individual and their generosity and the things that they want to give to right. And so it’s not just that we’re just giving directly to NCF, necessarily, I think that you probably could take those gifts, but it’s the mediary. So how does when we think about story, and communicating NCF as a brand, how do you guys think through that? How does How do you? How are you using story to communicate, hey, NCF is here. But at the end of the day, we exist to help you bless the organizations that the churches, the nonprofit’s, the charities, the ministries that you are passionate about. Does that question make sense?
Joe Eelkema
Yeah, I think Yeah. And I should call out, we have, you know, Steve Chapman and some others. Joel is awesome with, you know, making some of the some of this content. It’s not necessarily my department, so to speak. But I can definitely describe the tone and kind of my experience with that. Because occasionally, we do have ministry leaders that come and think, like, the money routes through NCF. And they might come with a little bit of an eyebrow up. Our role is to move money to ministry, it really is, it’s to see lives changed to the glory of God through biblical generosity at the end of the day. We encourage people to give the money away as well, that is definitely something that’s critical. Our job is not done until that money’s out towards ministries. But you’re right, it is a little bit of a precarious place to be between people’s giving in the ministry. And so personally, I am pretty overt with people. If I’m looking at somebody’s fund, they’re giving fun and going into a conversation around that. They’d love to know what do you love to give to? How can I encourage you in that? How can I pray for you? And that? Are there connections that maybe I can help you make to further you along? But, yeah, we really don’t want the focus necessarily to be overly on us. We want to be known that these tools are available that our services are available as a ministry, but not more than that. And so you have kind of a story is that of being a guide, but I’m also a big fan of the idea that people have multiple guides in their lives for different kinds of areas. And NCF tends to be we have a seat at the table a lot of times with maybe and I’m kind of making this up But with their pastor, financial advisor and family, we’re kind of in there somewhere with a lot of people. We’re not everything. We’re not your pastor necessarily. We’re not definitely not your financial adviser. We’re very overt about that. Obviously, we’re not family or you know, business. But we try to occupy the space that people want us to occupy, of being a guide, in how do we give in a really savvy way to accomplish the mission that was put before us? So it’s not an exact answer. But
some No, that’s helpful. That’s helpful. Just as as we talk, and as you share how you guys are structured, and we’ve talked about storytelling, as a, as a agency and brand guy in a creative, all those kinds of questions, you start to pop up, it’s like, okay, how do we? How do you build brand around NCF and build that brand through communication and content and storytelling and marketing? When the point is, we’re this in a mere intermediary engine that connects donors and their generosity to somebody else altogether. So I, my head starts to turn and how do we solve that problem? That’s a really interesting, it’s a really interesting problem.
Joe Eelkema
I also think it goes to that whole community aspect of putting people together in community I, this is, again, a little more of just a Joe comment, but I find that a significant number of us and I put myself in this category, we feel like we can’t talk about money, like but uh, yet, it’s just confusing, like, Am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? Right? Am I giving enough? Am I doing the right, like, what are other people doing? And so when, instead of always trying to be so yes, we can be the guide, you know, on a lot of what NCF really does. But there’s this whole kind of second side that at least me personally I can do of just when I put people in community, it’s being a guide. I’m letting other people really be a guide in their lives. Yeah. Because let me let me show you somebody who may be in a different place on their giving journey. And it doesn’t matter where we are. But as long as we’re trying to move forward, as part of our calling, so I’m drawing closer to Jesus through it. So
yeah, that’s cool. Well, I
think that that’s a good spot to end on to how if people want to get a hold of you learned more about what you guys are doing. Want to learn more about NCF? Maybe there’s a church leader or pastor out there listening. They’re interested in partnership. What? How do they get a hold of you?
Joe Eelkema
Yep. Firstly, check out in CF Nancy cat, Frank giving.com. And the charity section. That’s definitely the first place to go, I would say and there’s a lot of content there, but directly, feel welcome to give me a call at 949-864-6101. Give us 949-864-6101.
That’s awesome. Yeah. Oh, cool.
Well, thank you so much, Joe, I appreciate you being on the show. It’s always good to talk with you and catch up. Can I pray for you as we wrap up, and NCF?
Joe Eelkema
I’d love that. Thank you.
Yeah, Lord, we just thank you so much for this opportunity to get together. Joe has been a longtime friend. And so it’s fun to just catch up. Thank you for his work with National Christian foundation, and all they’re doing to bless and support ministries and churches around the world. I pray that you would just continue to go before them guide and lead them. And you have that they will just be a blessing to those that are generous, and to the organizations that receive that generosity, and that ultimately the people that receive that generosity Father, we thank You that You have called us into this to be a part of this work to be a part of what you’re doing. And thank you for Joe and his team and the National Christian foundation for what they’re doing. For your kingdom and for your glory. Lord, we love you. And thank you for all you do for us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Joe, man, thanks so much for being on. So it’s always, always good to talk with you and catch up.
Joe Eelkema
Likewise, likewise, take care.
Bye.
