At church last week, our guest minister preached about generosity. He spoke of his practice of tithing (to offer one tenth part as an offering). He and his wife give 10% of their gross earnings as gifts each year. 5% to their church and 5% to organizations that do work in the world that speak to their hearts. The minister spoke about tithing as a spiritual practice and my mind turned to sufficiency. When it comes to the allocation of my resources to the organizations that speak to me, I have usually played it safe, depending on the year, donating one to three percent of after tax money. And as my children have gotten older and their expenses higher, my percentages of giving seem to be dropping. As I write this, I begin to wonder what Seven Stones has contributed to the organizations that mean so much to us. I do a quick calculation: 73% of our profits were gifted out in charitable contributions in 2010. I could pat myself on the back and move on. However, a thought struck me. What if corporations and businesses, including Seven Stones, reallocated 10% of GROSS revenue to organizations focused on education, clean water, food security, environmental rights, human rights and sufficiency?
When I did some light research on corporate tithing I discovered all the organizations base their philosophy and discussion on a percentage of profit. I couldn’t find anyone talking about gifts off the top line. I began looking at the numbers starting with us: our giving compared to gross revenue was a 0.8% allocation, yes, less than one-percent of our revenue toward our committed work. When I look at a twelve-month rolling average, the number remains the same. When I look at Wal-Mart, a Fortune one company, they grossed $408 Billion dollars in FY 2010 and gave away $512 million in global gifts and contribution; that is 0.125% of their revenues last year. If they had gifted at the rate of Seven Stones they would have had $3.3 billion to give away. If they tithe at a full 10% of their gross revenue they could have reallocated $40 billion to the earth and its inhabitants. Imagine if you knew that every time you went into a Wal-Mart 10% of your purchase was going back out to the global community for sustainable, life giving practices?
Let’s take this farther: if we look at the total revenue of the Fortune 500, it is over $10 trillion. What would be available for subsequent generations if we took over one trillion dollars EVERY YEAR and invested it in our future, reallocating wealth from a small number of corporate insiders to nourish and sustain the planet for the next seven generations?
As an experiment, dive into the inquiry of tithing:
- How generous are you now with your giving?
- What would happen to your organization if you had a strategic goal to gift 10% of your revenue by 2016?
- What are the conversations and actions you would need to have today to get started?
- Where can you start this year?
- Are you open to tithing with your own salary?
- What percentage of gifting would open your heart and have you engage in sufficiency larger context?
I am committed to Seven Stones being at 1% of revenue by the end of the quarter. I need to have a conversation with Jen and Shea to see if they are willing to take on this experiment. I hope to be at 2% by the end of the year, 4% by the middle of 2012 and 6% by the end of 2013. I will keep you posted and we would love to know how you are doing with this goal.