The Impact of Investing in Generosity
From jared and lori blong
Jared and Lori blong
One Collective friends and supporters
“For us the giving journey began with a question. We reached this point in our early thirties where we knew we needed to do more than just partner with our local church - but we didn’t yet have an understanding of what that generosity could look like.
We heard a speaker who was talking about the role of generosity in transformation - he said: ‘In the work Jesus is doing around the world, there are those who play (serve), those who pray, and those who pay.’ At different times in our lives we are all in one or two of those categories -so we both began to pray through what direction we should take, and we realized that following Jesus’ example ultimately means being part of all three.
We want to make sure that we’ve made decisions in our life that allow us to be part of all that Jesus can do through us, and in that season - we knew that the next step for our family was to explore giving on a new level.
So we found ourselves asking ‘How can we be strategic and steward our giving the way we would steward other investments?’
One of the things that became immediately clear was if we were going to be able to be part of impacting lives and communities around the world - we were going to have to have some financial planning. So we began contributing to a Donor Advised Fund - a resource that allows us to manage our generosity the way we would our other investments. That’s how we began our relationship with giving and One Collective.
When we first started, it was sacrificial for us to put money aside, but our capacity and that fund have both grown over time as the Lord has brought some success business-wise and entrepreneurially to us.
One thing we’ve learned over and over again in business is that passive investments never get it done. Real growth and real change happens when leaders put skin in the game, and that’s what we love about One Collective. We know that our generosity is being stewarded by people who are deeply invested in strategy that follows the ways of Jesus, and that no one person is here to be ‘the hero’.
We all have this opportunity to answer the call. Some of us have two fish and five loaves. Some of us have 200,000 fish and a million loaves - but we have an opportunity to bring our passion and generosity before Jesus and let him do the multiplication.
With One Collective, we have the opportunity to join what Jesus is doing around the world as partners - to be part of creating lasting change in communities where the need is great. That is the impact that generosity can make, and it’s so exciting to join others in following Jesus’ call in this way.”
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