Thou Shalt Not Criticize Self-Fundraising: A Message to FOCUS

Seeking Excellence with Nathan Crankfield

We all know that last year, I released an episode that got a lot more attention than I anticipated. I spent the majority of 2023 having conversations with fellow Catholics and Protestants about nonprofits, capitalism, and self-fundraising missionaries.

I learned a lot from these conversations. I learned from many former or current missionaries. I also learned from the family members and friends (and many former friends) of missionaries.

I heard some stories demonstrating the dark side of some of these models. Like any good system, it has the potential to be abused.

My conversations led to a podcast, which led to me having a private meeting at FOCUS headquarters. This was fitting since they were by far the organization that was most upset by the episode.

Despite invitations to come on the podcast to clear the air, I was never able to have a public conversation with anyone to help bring clarity to this topic. I recorded this episode after another year of waiting, praying, discussions, and negative experiences with *mostly* active FOCUS staff.

The message of this episode is clear: many of us believe there needs to be some reform to the model of self-fundraising used by certain organizations. We may be wrong about that, but it's what we believe. Non-profits are supposed to thrive on transparency. And that is ultimately what I'm requesting on behalf of the many, many fellow disaffected FOCUS supporters.