Ideas for Giving

Managing God’s Wealth

We are all managers for the portion of God’s wealth that He has allowed us to invest on His behalf. Of course, we must take out some portion to cover our operational costs, our living expenses. But what do we do with the rest?

Below you can find many ideas for ways that others have used the wealth God has entrusted them. We’ve broken these ideas into three main categories.

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Personal: These are ways that we can bless the individual people around us, both those we know as well as complete strangers.

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Community: These are ways we can impact our communities. Every neighborhood, town, and city should be better when Christians live there.

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Great Commission: Christ left us one final instruction before he left: Go into the world and make disciples of all nations. These are ways we can directly fulfill Christ’s ultimate command.

Personal Blessings

Difficult Times

Grubhub dinners: Buy a gift card on grubhub.com for a family with a new baby, a friend going through a loss, or someone else experiencing hardship. They can use it to buy a meal or two when they need it most.

Surprise babysitter: Offer to pay for a babysitter for a family with small kids. Or, of course, you could offer to babysit yourself! 

Goodie basket for college students: Send a package of snacks and treats to a college student you know, especially if they are starting their first year. 

Buy a meal for a homeless person: If you notice someone without a home on your typical commute, bring them a hot meal one day. Or offer to take them somewhere nearby to eat. If you have time, ask about their story.

Create homeless care bags: Get a bunch of ziplock bags and fill them with non-perishable snacks, soap, and new socks. Keep some in your car in case you pass someone who could use one.

Cover someone’s bills: Give some extra money to your church to use when someone can’t cover their bills for a short period.

Random Acts of Kindness

Pay for someone’s drivethru: Tell the cashier at a drivethru that you want to pay for the person behind you.

Leave a generous tip: Leave an excessively generous tip for a waiter or waitress. Even better if they look like they’re having a rough day.

Pay for someone’s restaurant bill: Ask your waiter to let you pay the bill for someone else at a restaurant you are eating at.

Random spending money: Send an anonymous letter with some spending money to someone you know with a note telling them to use it on anything they want.

Give out gift cards: Purchase several $10 or $20 gift cards and give them to random people you see on your commute or in town.

Leave toys or projects for kids: Buy a simple toy or art project and leave it in the mailbox of a family with young kids. The parents may appreciate it as much as the kids!

 

Community Impact

Education

Fund individual teachers: Most teachers are given a very small budget to cover all their classroom costs for the year (usually $100-250) and often purchase many materials with their own money. Give a teacher you know some extra spending money to buy supplies and classroom materials.

Fill teacher wish lists: DonorsChoose.org allows teachers to post requests for funds to meet simple needs in their classrooms. Search for your zip code to meet needs in your own community. Some teachers may make Amazon wish lists that you can search for too.

Contribute to your local PTA: Parent teacher associations are often quite active. Help support the PTA at your child’s school or another nearby school.

Ask a principal about a school’s needs: Talk to the principal at a local school and ask them what kinds of needs you could help meet.

General

Sponsor a playground: Contact your local neighborhood association or community group to contribute funds towards improving or fixing a local playground.

Support a food pantry: Contribute to your local food pantry so they can continue offering meals to those in need.

Contribute to a homeless shelter: Purchase supplies for or directly support a local homeless shelter.

Saying Thanks

Tip your postal worker: Give your postal carrier a gift card to say thanks. Just make sure it’s under $20.

Buy (or make!) treats for your fire department: They are often very appreciative!

Bring flowers to nurses: Bring flowers to your local hospital and drop them off at a nursing station to say thanks.

Send your pastor on vacation: Provide funds to allow your pastor to take a much needed vacation with their family.

Great Commission

General

Bible translation: Wycliffe is one of the largest bible translation organizations in the world, working to translate the bible into every language and tongue.

Sponsor a child: Compassion International allows people to sponsor children around the world to provide for basic needs and share the gospel.

Bible animation: The Bible Project is a nonprofit animation studio that produces short-form, fully animated Bible videos and other Bible resources to make the biblical story accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Audio bible translation: Faith Comes by Hearing prepares audio bible translations in native languages for oral cultures (those who are not able to read). They estimate 70% of people live in these people groups. See our interview with senior VP Morgan Jackson.

Sustainable community transformation: Medical Ambassadors International uses a gospel-infused process to enable communities around the world to build themselves up and even support surrounding communities. See our interview with CEO Ravi Jayakaran.

Discipling children: The Mailbox Club equips missions organizations with extensive discipleship materials focused on children ages 4-14, which make up the largest unreached people group globally. See our interview with Executive Director John Mark Eager.

Sponsor Missionaries

Reach the final unreached people groups: The Finishing Fund provides funding to organizations targeting the 200 remaining people groups who have never heard the gospel. See our interview with founder Doug Cobb.

Share the gospel through film: Jesus Film translates videos that explain the gospel into languages that have not been reached. Teams travel all over the world to share these films with people to lead them to Christ.

Online evangelism and discipleship: Global Media Outreach reaches people online through a network of websites and apps to share the gospel and provide discipleship through online missionaries. See our interview with CEO Jeff Gowler.

Support indigenous missionaries: Doulos Partners acts as a “Christian mutual fund” that finds effective organizations supporting indigenous missionaries and channels 100% of donations to the work of these organizations. See our interview with CEO David Johnson.

College ministry through Cru: Sponsor a missionary through Cru to reach college students on university campuses.

Explore More

Calculator

See how your spending compares to the rest of the country and explore choosing a finish line.

SPRINTs

Explore the biblical foundation for setting a finish line in a small group context over 8 weekly sessions.

Community

Check out the finish line forum to read about others' experience and to find encouraging stories.