The lights dimmed, the curtain rose, and there they were – two nervous teenagers on the creaky stage of their high school gym. It was the callback for “Oklahoma!” and the director announced, “Our Curly will be played by Pat, and Laurey will be Janel.” From that serendipitous casting, the leading roles of a generous family began.
It wasn’t long after they learned to harmonize in their high school musical that Pat and Janel Hord graduated. They were married by the time they were 20. Since then, they’ve grown together as parents, business partners, generous givers, and now, grandparents. Together, as owners of Hord Family Farms in Ohio, they’ve navigated the challenges of operating a large farming enterprise across multiple states with the shared belief that God owns it all.
Along the way, they’ve been very intentional about passing on their values and preparing the next generation of their family to steward well. With their four adult children – Phil (and his wife, Becca), Colleen, Mallory, Melissa (and her husband, Rob), along with four young grandchildren – the Hord family decided to press even deeper into defining their giving passions and clarifying where God is calling them to give as a family and individually.
Here’s why they decided this was the next crucial step in their giving journey and the tool they used to create more harmony and passion in their family generosity.
The need to focus
From the time their children entered their teens, the Hord family has regularly set aside time for family meetings to talk about things they want to support.
“We would ask each child, ‘What is it that is important to you?’” Janel says. With a nine-year age difference between their oldest and youngest, their answers varied greatly. For their youngest one year, it was helping a friend afford to go to church camp. For one of their older children, it was supporting a clinic in the Dominican Republic that his college friends were visiting on a mission trip.
But as the kids became adults, Pat and Janel felt like they should sharpen their focus. “We just felt like, as a family, we needed to narrow down what we believed God was calling us to accomplish with our giving,” Pat says.
An eye-opening exercise
So, with the help of their local NCF team and their financial advisor, the Hords participated in an exercise from NCF’s Giving Strategy™ Causes & Passions Guide.
From a list of NCF’s 58 cause categories, each family member used color-coded Post-it® notes to classify the causes in four different ways:
- Those they had supported financially
- Those they had supported with time, skills, or influence
- What they felt God might be calling or equipping them to begin supporting
- The causes they felt most passionate about
The resulting visual led to some surprising insights. “It was really eye-opening, because you think you know your kids,” Janel says. “But we got to know them even more as they shared what God had been working on in their hearts and the things that were important to them.”
As their family differences and shared passions came to light, it created a unique opportunity. “I think this exercise really created an environment for us to talk about our giving more deeply,” Pat says. “It enabled us to say, ‘Here’s where we are, and here’s where we’re going.’”
The kids were surprised and encouraged, too. “I think that it showed us there’s a wider variety of passions and desires through different family members than what you would initially imagine,” says Phil Hord, the eldest. “At the same point, it was obviously very clear what things we aligned on.”
Putting a plan in place
From there, Pat created a spreadsheet of their top five causes, and then the research for charities that support those causes began. “We love it, and it’s a joy,” Janel says. “But there is a lot of due diligence that goes into giving.” Fortunately, being part of NCF has helped with the process.
“I was introduced to NCF, and they have such a robust community around them of givers and other organizations,” Pat says. “Generous Giving has been really good. And then every few years, NCF has an Impact event that introduced us to a neat community. And the Saturday 7 email is really good. That gives us ideas.”
Pat and Janel also challenged the kids to find good ministries in the areas they feel strongly about. Sometimes the Hords recommend grants from their family Giving Fund at NCF. But the kids each have a Giving Fund of their own that they use independently as well.
“With a Giving Fund, they can just freely recommend grants to things they’re passionate about,” Janel says. “They don’t have to run it past the siblings. And we feel good because there are parameters. The charities must be NCF-approved, so we know it’s not going to fund something that’s against what we believe.”
A framework for moving forward
With a better idea of where God is calling them to give, the Hords feel more confident about the future of their family generosity and more aligned with what kind of legacy they want to have.
“The exercise has become the scaffolding for what we do today with our kids and where their emphasis is and where ours align,” Pat says. “You don’t want to transfer wealth without wisdom. And it’s hard to find a methodical process for wisdom and culture and all those things that prepare that next generation for the responsibility that they have.”
“We don’t have it all figured out yet, but discovering our giving causes and passions has been a very meaningful part of our journey,” he says.
Try this online version of what the Hords experienced.
Photos courtesy of the Hord family
