“Generosity is giving until it makes you uncomfortable.” – Shaun King, founder of HopeMob.org
As their Facebook page says, “What is HopeMob? In short… Choreographed Hope! We are what happens when GENEROUS STRANGERS unite!
HopeMob is exactly what it sounds like – a mob of people bringing hope. Just as Flash Mobs dance and bring spontaneous joy and laughter, HopeMob will bring caring strangers together to create sudden, yet organized relief and hope all over the world! We see a need and swarm it!”
With over 300,000 in their Facebook community and over 561,000 followers on Twitter, HopeMob is uniting generous people and directly addressing real stories of human need. Another thing that makes HopMob unique is every dollar goes directly to a specific person in a story being told.
Recently, Shaun King, pastor of Courageous Church in Atlanta and founder of HopeMob.org, was profiled by Fast Company. After reading the article and watching his CNN interview above, I gleaned 12 lessons that church leaders can learn about how social media is changing the way people give. You can read the complete Fast Company article by clicking here.
These lessons can help you create your very own generous mob at your church!
- Churches Should Tell The Compelling Stories Of Need Within Their Community – Donors are now desiring to give directly to real people with real stories rather than anonymously through charities.
- Unite Your People Around One Cause At A Time – Church leaders need to make the stories of need targeted and specific. HopeMob.org only features one story at a time. This prevents their generous community from being fragmented.
- Develop Systems – Learn to leverage impulse generosity. When a need arises, be prepared to immediately address it. Have systems in place where you can quickly address needs.
- Social Media Is Here To Stay So Leverage It – Social media has exponentially raised the awareness of issues and real human stories of those in need. Generous communities have learned to leverage this.
- Make Giving Easy – Social media and electronic giving makes generosity easy.
- Expand Your Circle Of Influence – Social media expands the circle of those who have the ability and resources to provide solutions. The entire world now has the ability and access to participate in funding your cause.
- Solve One Problem Today – Together, we can solve the problems of and bring hope to one person. We often feel overwhelmed by massive global efforts or catastrophes. We may not be able to help many, but together we can help one person today.
- Be Transparent – Donors trust transparent and accountable organizations. Real stories of real people bring clarity to the need and to where the dollars are going.
- Generosity Requires Persistence – Don’t give up on your generosity initiatives. HopeMob.org stays with one story until it is fully funded. It may take one day or one year but they stay with it. Then they move to the next need in their queue.
- Build A Queue – There is no shortage of needs in any church or community. As mentioned, HopeMob has a queue of stories that need to be funded, and so does your church.
- Provide Opportunities For People To Give Money AND Time – As Pastor King says, “sometimes a cause needs boots on the ground more than it does money and other times a cause needs money to pour in more than anything else. Truly charitable people figure out a way to give both and smart charities figure out ways to ask for both.”
- Allow Hurt People To Help People – It has been said that “Hurt people hurt people.” Generosity breaks that cycle. Pastor King was the victim of a brutal crime in 1995. In the midst of three surgeries and missing two years of high school, a local pastor visited him regularly and modeled kindness. This changed the trajectory of his life. Create a culture of generosity that serves others and it just may give your hurting people a new trajectory as well.
Pastors and church leaders, after watching the video above and reading these 12 lessons, what is one thing you can do TODAY to unleash a generous mob at your church?
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