Welcome to Thankful Thursday, where we take off the mask, lose the tongue-in-cheek, and tell you how we really feel. And honestly, the primary emotion regarding our years of raising support for full-time ministry is thankfulness, so it’s not a struggle at all to come up with a post on something else for which we are eternally grateful about our ministry life.
I can’t tell you how many times this one comes up for me, but I am thankful that organizationally, Campus Crusade for Christ is consistently among the leaders in financial transparency among Christian and secular non-profit organizations. In a day and age where almost all multi-million dollar organizations are looked on with skepticism at best and disdain at worst, our organization is a breath of fresh air.
Let’s be clear: legally, they are under no compulsion to release financial information beyond a certain point. But consistently, they go above and beyond to ensure that every dollar is accounted for, and properly used. They are downright voyeuristic when it comes to exposing even the most intimate details of the financial workings of the organization, down to publishing a personal budget of the President and CEO alongside the corporate financial information. (Imagine Steve Jobs publishing his personal income alongside Apple’s earnings info!)
It makes it so easy to follow them into spiritual battle, knowing that they have nothing to hide, financially. This principle bleeds into every area of the ministry, in my experience. There’s a general “If you want to know, we’ll tell you!” attitude among staff, regarding a lot of issues that would normally be very tightly held. No level of leadership can say “It’s none of your business what I make every year,” because even the CEO doesn’t claim that privilege. And that kind of transparency is so refreshing.