Head in the sand

Ostriches don’t put their head in the sand – let’s be clear on that.  The phrase does endure and represents a behavior of ignoring the problems around you.  I am proposing (for the sake of argument), that this is not such a bad thing.
 
Sometimes I think it would be far easier to be more pleasant if I could ignore the news.  Wouldn’t life be easier if we could just confine our concerns to our home, our work, maybe throw in a school or sports team and forget about the how the price of food is causing wide-spread hunger and starvation? 

The problem I run into is trying to figure out causes and solutions to problems and realizing that I am nearly powerless in the grand scheme of things to change them.  I could ride my bike instead of using my car and decrease global warming by a one-googleth and at the same time if there was a longer-term approach to decision-making by our country’s leaders, they could change things quickly by whole percentage points. 

You are no doubt saying to yourself, “Is the reason things like this bother you is that you are not doing much to change them?” You might advise me to work toward change and then news that our governmental debt, deficit, and trade imbalance would not make me worry about my children’s future.

This may be true, when I hear reports of problems and they result of bad decision-making, I could work for change but I guess my perception of undertaking this activity would that it would be ten times more frustrating than doing nothing.  I really don’t think my voice would make a difference relative to 100’s of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions. 

Life is too short to spend it banging your head against the wall.  The easier solution is to worry about your family and your work and forget about bigger problems.  I need to concern myself with getting enough security/money/wealth/safety/health under my roof and then the national debt won’t affect me as much because I got enough money. It’s better to remain ignorant of problems I can’t control or impact.  Just focus your attention on tomorrow’s weather forecast and then refrain from exposing yourself to whatever else the media may produce.  The more information you have the more it brings you down. Unless you are powerful or prepared to dramatically simplify your life, dwelling on the world’s big problems will just make you unhappy.
 
If problems creep into your existence like high gas prices, you do your best to address it by using less gas.  Don’t try to lobby for the development of alternative fuels or increasing the refining capacity – use less gas.  If higher food prices are getting to you buy less beef and more chicken but don’t get wrapped up into the value of ethanol or economics of agriculture – you’re just asking for trouble.

Set up a metaphorical life support system underground and keep your head in the sand.

Thank you very little or much

A church really depends on the goodwill, trust, and some would argue guilt as the means to stay afloat.  No one is forced to give their money and so to keep the doors open; donors must have faith and then trust that their contribution is being used to do good things.

Many non-profits are in a similar situation although they typically don’t play the guilt card (not that we would ever do this) wherein members are reminded that there is an ample moral foundation to share what you have with those in need.  Non-church, non-profits typically have a more sophisticated approach to cultivating donors and a broader array of ways on how they can recognize donors. 

Church’s might put a plaque or have minor ways of recognizing donors, but most typically don’t issue annual reports categorizing donors by amount given and recognizing their largest donors.  These activities might be effective for non-profits but the perception is that they are inappropriate for churches.  So my question is what is appropriate for churches?

How should or maybe should parishes recognize the people who contribute?  Some would clearly say no that giving to a church is a response to faith and giving is and should be its own reward.  Recognizing donors is potentially tainting the motivation most have when they give and publicizing donors or donations is inappropriate.

On the other side of the coin, many donors are subjected to sophisticated cultivation techniques by other non-profits and presumably respond to these techniques which may decrease their giving to the church.  If their college or high school president asks them to go out to lunch and tells them about the grand vision they have and that their name will appear here or there.  Doesn’t this seem more motivating than a form letter from the pastor and a listing of your contributions for tax purposes?

Should churches do anything to make their case?  Ideally, the people running the church believe in what they are doing and should believe that if they did more of it the world would be a better place.  So shouldn’t church leaders be motivated to get as many contributions as possible to do as much good as possible?  Shouldn’t we be cultivating people who have the potential to further our mission and vision?

Our parish decided to have several events to give supporters a chance to meet our new pastor and hear him talk about what he sees as the potential vision for the church.  If you were going to start having these meetings, who would you start meeting with first?  We decided to sort people by the amount they contribute and this has caused some hard feelings.  I don’t know what the answer is but I guess I think we are doing the right thing.

I also think it’s important to give all parishioners the same opportunity however and so it’s a matter of who goes when.  Above all we want to make sure we are supportable (people will be motivated to support what we do) and that by one means or another we have the resources to continue the extremely valuable work we are doing.

 

Optimal Capital Structure

I have been taking a class in finance this semester and the current topic is optimizing the capital structure of an organization.  The class strategy basically involves how much debt, stock, and preferred stock a company should have so that its cost of capital is as low as possible.  In that there is a tax advantage to having debt, the correct combination typically involves assessing how much debt will cause a company to be viewed as risky because at that point all of their sources of capital can get more costly.

So I was trying to figure out if there was any correlation between this corporate strategy and anything I would apply to my job in the church.  We don’t pay taxes and so from that perspective there is not advantage in debt.  I wondered then what is the advantage of debt since a large number of church’s have debt there must be some advantage, right?  Is having a new something (building) worth being only able to use 85% of the contributions for the next 30 years?  Would you be better off using the existing facilities and saving some to meet the costs up front?

Then I started thinking about the other side of the equation, how much cash should a church amass if any?  Obviously, you want to make sure you are going to meet your payroll obligations and can pay the heating bills.  But how much should be kept in reserve?  People don’t give their money so that it can be piled up in some bank somewhere and yet they don’t want their church to have to beg the bank for money to pay bills if the contributions don’t come in as they were forecasted.  Where is there an appropriate balance between having faith and being prudent? 

I think we are trying to get three months worth of expenses saved before we try to spend 100% of what we collect.  Our parish is near this point and so the question has now become what should we do if money accumulates over this three month’s expense threshold?  You have to be careful when you choose to increase your expenses because the trends show that expenses increase faster than contributions for most years to begin with.  So if you add a recurring expense that expense will grow faster than the contributions that pay for it.

My final thought was wondering how much a parish should give.  Some parishes take their 10 percent tithe and give it to other organizations.  They are ‘setting and example’ for parishioners to use.  I guess this might make sense but I guess it might make more sense to let the parishioners give money to the organizations themselves since you are re-giving their contributions in the first place. I suspect that most parishioners who give to the church give to other causes and to give more of their money to other organizations seems like it’s redundant.

Monkey on my back

I enjoy to activities when the weather allows it – fishing and golf.  This spring has been particularly harsh in that it hasn’t been conducive to ice melting or courses opening.  Maybe this weekend it will be warm enough to finally get started with golf anyway.

I have not let the longer winter deter me from getting started with golf.  I have been hitting golf balls from my driveway across the street into a soccer field.  I do love hitting golf balls and so when the weather would allow, I hit hundreds and hundreds.  As nice as this arrangement is it definitely has had some problems.

One big problem is the damn tree across the street.  It’s somewhat between my driveway and my intended target and so the perfect shot is either really high or it must curve somewhat around the branches.  Unfortunately, I have hit the branches hundreds of times and even without leaves, the tree has sent my shots in all directions.  The worst was last week when my neighbor was unloading something from his truck in his driveway.  The ball hit the tree, ricocheted straight-down to the street and landed a few feet from his truck.  I briefly explained it was very weird shot and he was friendly and all but he seemed to step up the pace of unloading and quickly put his truck in the garage and closed the garage door.

One lesser problem is that my driveway is curved and I am hitting off a mat.  And so I practice the same or a similar shot over and over and over again.  I am concerned that even if I start hitting perfect shots I will not be able to translate my new found skills because you don’t get too slightly uphill shots with perfect lies that often on the course.  When I take a regular shot from longer grass will I completely miss hit it because I have grooved the uphill swing?  Time will tell.

The most profound problem is that seem to suffer from brief successes followed by severe and lengthy failures.  I can hit stretches of 10-15 shots that are acceptable (they would probably be on or near the green if I were playing golf).  Then the proverbial monkey gets on my back and I start scattering shots.  It’s so bad it’s like I am either blind or someone has spun me around a half dozen times and then asked me to hit. 

The most troubling aspect of my wayward stretches is that I have a huge problem righting myself.  Back in the day when I could count on playing a round of golf under 85 strokes, I would still hit a really bad shot now and then but could quickly diagnose the problem and get back on track.  Now, even with concerted mental and physical reviewing of the fundamentals of golf, it can take many shots before my golf ship gets righted and on course.

So now my biggest concern is that I have a brain/body disconnect that is incurable.  There are some pro golfers that have gone down this path – they are the best in the world one year and then the monkey gets on their back and they can’t force themselves to play well no matter how much they practice.  No matter what they try, it just doesn’t work. The problem is in the great chasm between the ears.

I started wondering if there aren’t parallels to other aspects of my and others behavior.  Do we get in situations where we know the right thing to do and want to do it but there is some mysterious disconnect between our will and our behavior.  I really want to be a pleasant person and know it’s the right thing to do but then the next person in my office gets the brush off.  I want to drive safely, eat right, pray earnestly, (fill in the blank) but there is a persistent obstacle between my will and my life.  How can we overcome the obstacles to become the person we know we can and want to be?

I guess that is a question that has been troubling humankind for all of existence.  I don’t have the answer.  I do know that if I don’t get more consistent with my golf though that I will be soon advertising some golf equipment at fire sale prices – keep checking back.