Success is a fickle concept. We treat it like a GPS destination. Kick the car in gear, turn right at the T, and pull into the driveway after the rusty garage. Follow this route and you will surely arrive. But success looks nothing like a script. And it can be deceiving. He had everything a man could want or imagine, I muse. But with success, you can’t know it when you see it.

“I’ve gone from village to palace,” exclaimed Ashok Khade. Born in a mud hut without much food, Ashok’s childhood was like a very long walk up a very steep hill. As part of the “untouchables” caste, the lowest of Indian classes, his future was destined to look like his father’s—a grueling life spent cleaning sewers or sweeping streets. But Ashok’s story unfolds just like Sam Walton’s. He studied hard, worked tirelessly and bootstrapped his oil business into a $100M Indian powerhouse.

Ashok arrived. He traded in his rickshaw for a beamer. The oil tycoon now stays at 5-star hotels, adorns his mother with opulent gold jewelry and makes deals with sheiks from Abu Dhabi. The journalist pronounced Ashok’s concluding verdict: “The untouchable boy had become golden, thanks to the newest god in the Indian pantheon: money.”

From a mud shack to the presidential suite, Ashok followed the roadmap to success. And he arrived. He now revels in his wealth, indulging in the finest of luxuries, hoarding his wealth and “living the dream.” But, Ashok has simply gold-plated the chains of poverty.

Ashok should listen to the sage advice of his forbearer. John Rockefeller, also a peasant-turned-oilman, bemoaned, “I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness.” At the peak of his success, Rockefeller topped the charts as the wealthiest person in the world. He had no equal. If success were a map, he would be the mapmaker. But, Rockefeller mourned what we are afraid to admit: Success has nothing to do with prosperity. You can indulge in every luxury and still hate waking up in the morning.

Yet we keep peddling the empty promise that a life of prosperity will soothe the wounds of the heart. It won’t. Rockefeller knew it and it shouldn’t surprise Ashok that his newfound riches are like whitewashed tombs.

There is a rags-to-riches story I love more than the rest, however. It is a story of a poor shepherd boy abandoned by his brothers and sold into the hands of a royal Egyptian family. Thrown in jail for years, the poor farmhand persevered and wrote his rags-to-riches story, advancing from the fields to the royal suite.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph’s finger. He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. He had him ride in a chariot as his second-in-command. – Genesis 41:41-43

From sheering sheep to gracing the throne of the modern world, it was in ancient Egypt where we see rags-to-riches in its purest form. Joseph knew he was not blessed simply to surround himself with frond-waving servants and Egyptian delicacies. He was blessed to bless. “And all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere.” (vs. 57) It was from this position of power and wealth that Joseph rescued the whole world on the brink of collapse. From poverty to generosity: A true rags-to-riches story.

On the brink of collapse, Braddock intercepted a whisper of hope. With the pantry sparse and the coffers empty, he caught a shot to reclaim his dignity: His agent secured him a fight. It wasn’t the main stage, but a chance to dance was better than no chance at all. His kids’ hungry bellies trumped any indignity he felt about back-stepping to the minor leagues.

“I fight and I put a little more distance between my kids and the street,” Braddock said. He grew tired of hoping-and-praying. He knew the purse in this minor league fight would create a buffer for his family. The relatively meager payday would move them a step back from the cliff. Not a mile from the cliff, but far enough to avoid disaster.

Several weeks ago while in India, I walked through the types of neighborhoods I only knew from documentaries. Weaving through tight corridors with corrugated tin homes creeping onto the footpath, I came to terms with my own prosperity. The last shantytown we visited was the saddest place I’ve been. There, I sat with members of this community who explained the plight of their town—poor health, drugs, violence, porous homes, bad schools, lepers—their list went on and on. Because of their disheartened lot, they named their squatter village Helpless. They could have chosen anything, but they selected a name that voiced their pain.

Anjali

For the group we visited in Helpless, however, cautious optimism broke through the clouds. “Before, I would spend every penny I had,” Anjali shared. “Now, I have two hundred rupees [$4] saved.” It wasn’t much, but this savings account, like Braddock’s modest winnings, put a little distance between her kids and the street. Now, when Anjali’s kids caught the flu or when she found the rice bin barren, a safety net broke the fall.

In these communities, survival teeters in delicate balance. When the storms of life hit, they cause more than minor setbacks. Four dollars in a safe place means the difference between disaster and desperation. A subtle, yet remarkably substantial, difference.

As I watched Cinderella Man after my return from India, the scenes of Hoovervilles reminded me of Helpless. It wasn’t hard to reconcile these two images—both places stifled by suffocating despair. In the midst of the chaos in Hoovervilles and Helpless, however, unrelenting hope emerged. Braddock and Anjali refused to admit defeat and fought their way back from the cliff. That first step away from disaster is the most important. For Braddock, this step came with a fist pump in the boxing ring.  And for Anjali, that step took the form of two hundred rupees in a savings account with her neighbors.

—-

As we close 2011, two invitations:

1. Watch Cinderella Man. There is no denying it: Life is tough for many Americans today. However, we can easily lose sight of how good we really have it. Watching this film reminded me just how incredibly challenging life was for breadwinners in the 1930s and it affirmed just how very much we are blessed.
2. Give to HOPE. If you resonated with this year’s Monthly Musings; would you bring HOPE to families like Anjali’s? A little distance between these families and the streets makes all the difference.

Many great organizations serve our city. We need important agencies like Joshua Station and Providence Network that protect our city’s most-vulnerable families. What energizes me most, however, are entrepreneurs at the margins. I’m drawn to the innovators that give job opportunities to those who typically go without. These two great organizations inspire me:

• Belay Enterprises

Staff photo at Bud's Warehouse

• Jobs for Life

Entrepreneurship is in my blood. I visit places like Bud’s Warehouse and am inspired by their creativity, profitability and impact. Who inspires you in your city?

As an owner of two American Apparel tees, I can affirm these shirts fit well. We know they fashion comfortable garb, but we also know their clothes are “crafted with pride in the USA.”

Out of the limelight, a financial services company lurks in mystery. We see Western Union signs everywhere, but I’m guessing like me, you’ve never been a customer. Earlier this year, I pitched TOMS Shoes vs. Whole Foods in a corporate do-gooder analysis. Today’s matchup? American Apparel vs. Western Union.

American Apparel

Activists flock to American Apparel (AA) products, drawn to their fashion-forward designs and ethical business practices. AA  lauds how they “pioneer industry standards of social and environmental responsibility in the workplace.” They pay their factory workers well and give back to Los Angeles, their home city. They construct quality products.

If that was the whole story, I would hail their greatness. But it’s not. They do some things well, but their problems plunge deeper than even the deepest of their v-neck man tees.

Frankly, the more I learn about American Apparel, the less I like. As a person of faith, I find AA’s blatant disregard for decency appalling. The New York Times described their marketing as “sexually charged.” AA categorizes it as “provocative.” It’s sadly ironic they are a clothing company because their ads feature very little of it. This edginess appeals to their  customers,  but it isn’t winsome. It’s willfully vulgar. “Controversial as [our marketing] may be, we’ll continue to give our core audience what they crave,” their website flaunts.

Their (lack of) corporate values start at the top. Founder and CEO, Dov Charney is a real class-act. He’s called the “Hugh Hefner of retailing, decorating his stores with covers of Penthouse magazine” and he shamelessly and unapologetically exploits his female employees. Call me a prude, but I think AA cheapens women. From their leadership to their marketing, AA distills the value of women down to their dimensions. And that, to me, flies in the face of good American business and true social responsibility.

Speaking of being American, their worshiped manufacturing process drips with arrogance. I believe in free markets and believe healthy market economies are the “best broken system” to continue to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty globally. AA positions their advertising as if the only way to run an ethical company is to hire American laborers. It’s not. That’s bad economics and it flies in the face of great global companies like Gap and Apple that use global manufacturing facilities to create great jobs in developing countries.

It’s fine for companies to tout their Americanism–and for consumers to buy local–but don’t suggest companies which do otherwise are villains. This protectionist tone incites Americans (both progressives and conservatives, which baffles me on both counts, but that’s another topic) against our global neighbors. Since when is helping provide jobs for poor people in other countries unAmerican (or unChristian, for that matter)?

Western Union

Western Union pops up in the worst places. Their outlets populate seamy strip malls and dimly lit corner stores. I associate these Western Union outlets with pawn shops, money lenders and liquor stores, retailers that victimize on the chronic poverty found in these neighborhoods. While it may have been fair to accuse Western Union of this twenty years ago, it isn’t any longer.

On an evening drive recently, I did a quick stop at Western Union with my friend Clarisse, a Congolese refugee. We pulled up to a gas station and she jumped out. A minute later, she slid back in the car. Transaction complete: She had just sent $50 to her aging mother in Brazzaville, Congo. That $50 was her mother’s only income that week.

Later in the evening, her mom called. The money had arrived. Today, over $200 million will change hands though over one million transactions, just like the $50 Clarisse sent to her mom. Western Union sustains families through these transactions. In Haiti, over half of the national income comes through these transactions–remittances–and has been a lifeblood for millions of struggling families. They’re safely transmitting billions of dollars to and from remote places like Congo, Somalia and Laos. And, they’re doing so with transparency in their pricing.

They have outlets in every country in the entire world. They treat and pay their 7,000 employees well. And, they give generously, granting over $70M to innovative nonprofits that “connect families with economic opportunity,” aligning closely with the heartbeat of Western Union’s core business. These agencies include many top microfinance organizations (before you think I’m biased, they haven’t given to HOPE yet, but hopefully someday!). Western Union understands their unique contribution to the world–safely transmitting money globally between loved ones–and they promote human flourishing through the opportunities they create.

The Verdict

It is a charade to claim American Apparel is a socially conscious company. They quietly erode the worth of women and loudly abhor real American values. Still, Christians line up  to print their graphics on these “ethically manufactured” tees. In contrast, Western Union makes the world a dramatically better place for poor families with very little fanfare. This match-up isn’t even a contest: Western Union scores a first-round knockout.

You aren’t buying a heifer, but this isn’t hush-hush. Heifer International, the heifer-distributing marvel, even tells you so. When you make your purchase, they note that “every gift to Heifer International represents a gift to our total mission.” In other words, when you “gift a heifer,” you grow the general fund. Nearly every donated dollar (94%) is an unrestricted, no-strings-attached general fund contribution.

Heifers are certainly bought by Heifer International. Over 40,000 of them in 2010! But your gift of one heifer isn’t directly buying one heifer. So, are they lying to us? I’ll make the question more personal: Am I lying to you? Because here’s the truth: My organization does it too.

While Heifer pioneered the approach, most charities followed closely behind them—World Vision, The Red Cross and even my employer, HOPE. While we all state something like “the gifts depicted in this catalog symbolically represent our work,” most people assume they’re really buying heifers, goats, sewing machines, honeybees, trees and art classes. The catalog phenomenon, at its core, is beautiful. I laud efforts to inspire generosity and cultivate significance in the giving process. But, are we swindling you, the generous Christmas giver?

It’s an interesting ethical case study. I’ll offer the following considerations:

Integrity in the Means: We can’t raise millions by making this appeal: Make a general, undesignated gift to help us cover our overhead costs this Christmas season! Do charitable ends justify ethically cloudy means? I don’t think so. Swindling is never good, even for the noblest of causes. Small adjustments can ensure no one is tricked by the process.

HOPE, for example, directs all catalog purchases directly to the featured country. While “buying a sewing machine for a Congolese entrepreneur” doesn’t mean your funding will directly buy a sewing machine, your donation does benefit our work in Congo. World Vision does a great job of forthrightly describing their process (pictured below). Hold your charity to a high standard and call us out if you spot duping. Compassion, experts in donor-to-beneficiary connections through their child sponsorship model, has developed the best system I’ve seen to actually connect gift purchase to the end use (see note in comments below for more details).

Focus on the Ends: Compelling marketing and heartfelt appeals should never trump your belief in the organizations you support. Will “the heifer” be a meal or a business? Do Kenyan families need heifers? Will the heifers be given in dignifying ways? Does the heifer-giver share my faith and values? What percentage of my gift will go to buying the heifer and what percentage to overhead? These questions—questions of implementation and effectiveness—should drive Christmas giving. It is the heifer beneficiary, after all, whose opinion matters most. Knowing that opinion demands investigation of the ends.

Heifers are big business at Christmastime. And for many reasons, this is exciting. This season is about connections among people. Jesus connecting with humanity as an infant. Families connecting with one another. Friends connecting over spiced cider. And this is what endears me to gift catalogs: Givers connecting with receivers—and ultimately beneficiaries–in meaningful, tangible ways. Not a donation into the abyss, but a shared moment between people. As organizations, we need to respect the significance of these moments by elevating our integrity in how we create them.

Michael Scott and Andy Bernard discuss charity

The scene unfolds:

Andy: Save me an aisle seat, Michael, I’m coming. I will not stand idly by while these Mexican villagers are sick.

Trip Leader: We are actually building a school.

Andy: Whatever. I won’t stand for it.

Michael: How long till we get to Mexico?

Andy: Well, two days minus how long we’ve been on the road. 45 minutes? So, like two days basically. Maybe more.

Michael: What are we building down there again? Like a hospital? A school for Mexicans? What?

Andy: I don’t know. I thought it was like a gymnasium.

Michael: Why aren’t they building it for themselves?

Andy: They don’t know how.

Michael: Do we know how? I don’t know how.

The episode closes with the comedic tandem abandoning their charitable foray, convicted that their talents would be better served selling paper to small business owners in Scranton. Channeling their inner Robert Lupton (and my other favorites, Brian Fikkert, Dambisa Moyo and Bill Easterly), Scott and Bernard touch on some deep issues in their short monologue:

Is our charity needed? Are we displacing someone locally who could do the job? Do we actually have the skills and capacity to serve well? Is our helping really helping?  …an unlikely source prompts big questions.

1. Affirm parents as providers

Ensure the giveaway affirms God’s designed role for parents as providers. Children need to view their parents as the gift purchasers and givers.  It undermines healthy family dynamics for volunteers to give the gifts directly to the children (unless the children do not have parents). Fight for the dignity of these families.

2. Host a store

A number of innovating churches and ministries, such as Mile High Ministries in Denver, transitioned from person-to-person  sponsorship to hosting a “store” for families unable to afford full-cost Christmas gifts for their children. Charge something (even if its highly subsidized) rather than charging nothing as it protects dignity. Finding a “great bargain” resonates deeper than awaiting a handout. Parents experience the joy of shopping (and giving to their kids). Volunteers experience the joy of creating a welcoming, festive and enjoyable environment for the families. Make it fun! Feature live music, gift wrapping stations, hot beverages, and elf-costume-wearing childcare staff.

3. Avoid “knight on white horse” syndrome 

We give horn-tooting a free pass during this season. Celebrate generosity, but do so with humility. As James reminds us, “Every good and perfect gift comes from above.”  Our ability to give is not a privilege we have earned; it too is a gift. As givers, we come as friends, not as rescuers, standing firmly on our common ground. This sets the table for our benevolence. Leaders who affirm this will position their gift giveaways for success.

4. Employ sensitivity with pictures and video

How would you want to be portrayed if you were a recipient? Let that be your guide.

———————————
What did I miss? Any successful examples or models of churches or groups that have done Christmas gift campaigns well? Please post below!

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“More children, women and men are held in slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade…generating profits in excess of 32 billion dollars a year [GDP of Costa Rica] for those who, by force and deception, sell human lives into slavery and sexual bondage. Nearly 2 million children [population of Houston] are exploited in the commercial sex industry.” – International Justice Mission  (IJM)

Leaders rally coalitions to combat villains who perpetrate these crimes on innocent children. Pioneers like IJM and Not For Sale convene activists and churches to fight this injustice. Together, they bring freedom to the darkest corners of our world. I pray these organizations grow. I pray justice is served. I rejoice with each girl whose chains of bondage break. And, I mourn to think of the many who are not yet free.

These pioneers are not without allies, however. On the front lines, a quiet hero is emerging.  Inconspicuous, yet powerful, their chief ally wages war often without even knowing it.

Our hero? A good job.

Perpetrators rarely kidnap girls off street corners. More often, they lure girls into slavery with job offers. This explains why the poorest neighborhoods in the poorest countries are at greatest risk. Traffickers swarm in slums, offering parents a shot at prosperity. Give me your girl and I’ll get her a call center job across the border. They bait desperate families with financial opportunity.

Poor families are the bull’s eye for traffickers. Fewer poor families means fewer girls sold into slavery. How many parents in your neighborhood have gifted their daughters away to job placement agencies? Traffickers ignore our towns because our families aren’t starving.

Last month, I visited HOPE’s work in India. We work in a city known as a regional hub for the trafficking industry. I met with dollar-a-day families in slums throughout the city, watching our Indian staff breathe life into the oppressed. Jon, our country director, hates that his city is a target.

“We train the 6,000 families we serve how to spot a trafficker. And we help them start and grow businesses so the trafficker’s bait is irrelevant,” Jon told me.

HOPE International clients in India

Motivated by his faith to bless an at-risk place, my friend, Rick, recently opened the doors of a “trafficking-fighting agency” (pictured below) in another trafficking hotspot, Vietnam. This agency, a manufacturing facility, employs over 100 Vietnamese people. Linh, a beautiful young woman who was trapped in prostitution, now manufactures medical devices. She left a career of slavery for a life of freedom. The job changed her course forever.

Rick's "Trafficking-Fighting Agency"

The CEO of a medical devices business, Rick doesn’t sign petitions and he doesn’t raid brothels. Instead, he creates opportunities for dozens of people to engage in dignifying work. His business provides an upstream, economic solution to an economic problem by putting traffickers out of business.

“I think our Vietnam operation will surprise us and become more than we’ve dreamt. We reflect Christ’s purposes in this place: To be God’s instruments to reclaim, to reconcile, and to redeem. To make all things new. That’s why we are here.” – Rick

In the war against trafficking, we need to deploy more than activists. We need to deploy an even greater force against our imposing foe. We need to unleash our secret heroes—the job creators.  We need to affirm the big businesses, mom-and-pop shops, and social enterprises that create good jobs. We need to unlock the creativity of the human spirit to build new job machines, enterprises that strike the engine of the trafficking industry. We put the very fear of God in the heart of evil when freedom-fighters like IJM join arms with freedom-fighting job creators like Rick and HOPE International.

Nathan retorted, “We all keep score anyway. We always keep score.”

I smiled, thinking back to my own youth baseball experience when I did the exact same thing. Sure there were no scoreboards, but every single kid on the diamond knew the score.  Why? Because we want to know how we’re doing. It’s more than just winning and losing. We want a tangible measure of our performance. Are we succeeding? Are we catching up? How bad is it? Keeping score answers those questions.

In working with the poor, many times it’s easy to justify not keeping score. After all, we’re trying to help people. Isn’t that enough? I’m not sure it is. I think we need to keep score. It’s not about knowing if we’re winning. Even if the score illuminates we are losing, at least we have a gauge of how we’re doing.

It is particularly challenging to measure spiritual impact. At HOPE, it is straightforward to track financial metrics. We measure repayment rates, savings balances, client retention and a slew of other data points. It is much more challenging to gauge whether our work impacts the spiritual climate of the communities and families we serve. It’s hard and it’s also controversial to suggest we can measure spiritual impact when we know that only God sees the heart.

This month, a conference with a bold title—Spiritual Metrics—is gathering to discuss these issues. I believe it is possible and critical that we measure our spiritual impact. While we can only “see in a mirror dimly,” dimly is better than not at all.

We aren’t perfect in our measurement, but at least we know how many clients have been given a copy of God’s word, how consistently our staff gathers for devotions, and how many churches we actively partner with. It takes creativity, but per the old management axiom, what gets measured gets done. We need to keep score to remain accountable to what we are uniquely positioned to do as Christian organizations. Just like Nathan’s baseball team, we need to keep score.

As a connoisseur  of fine airlines (e.g., Southwest, my favorite), India’s airlines impressed me. I flew Jet Airways several times and they did everything right: Prompt departures, quick boarding, no fees, and friendly service. It was hard to believe this upstart airline didn’t exist just seven years ago. Actually, seven years ago, there was only one airline in the country: Air India.

Air India - Source: iFreshNews

Until 2005, the Indian government held a monopolistic stranglehold on the aviation industry. Air India was the only show in town. And it was a really bad show. Prices were sky-high, service was terribly low and Air India consistently lagged in innovation. It is a classic story of government-intervention-gone-wrong.

The real victim of Air India’s failure, however, was the poor. Not only could they not afford to fly, but they also were continually forced to bail out the floundering “business.” As taxpayers, they were on the hook for Air India’s failure. Created under the auspices of “protecting the Indian people,” Air India did exactly the opposite. The vitriol for the company by the people of India is apparent. On my final flight home, I thumbed through the pages of The Telegraph, an Indian newspaper. The editorial title about the airline summarized the country’s sentiment: “A long, sordid and pathetic tale of failure.” 

Riddled with inefficiencies and waste, Air India was actually crippled while I was in the country. The entire staff has gone two months without salaries and they were on strike last week. The editorial reviled in the failures of the airline, noting for example, that they recently purchased new planes without doing any price negotiation whatsoever with the manufacturers.

Jet Airways and a handful of other upstart airlines like IndiGo and Spicejet are charting a different and refreshing course, however. Led by aggressive Indian entrepreneurs, these budget airlines deliver on their promise to customers. And, they bring abounding opportunity to the poor. The data doesn’t lie: Since 2005, air traffic in India has tripled, fare prices have dropped dramatically and the quality of service has increased.

I’m an admitted believer in the power of entrepreneurship and the free markets. While not without its warts, I’ve argued that capitalism is the “best broken system” for the most vulnerable in our world. There is a role for government in helping the poor, but Air India illuminates that sometimes the best social service they can do for the poor is unleash the Indian entrepreneur to be the solution. Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet are up for the challenge; and the world is opening up to low-income Indians as a result. SpiceJet’s motto says it all, “Flying for Everyone.”