NCF has more than 30 local teams around the country helping to foster generosity in more than 100 communities, and we’re still growing. But these teams are not local representatives of a national organization; they’re ministries serving in their communities. Why do we focus on this local presence?
From the beginning, our founders knew that lasting transformation happens in proximity and relationship. “Terry [Parker] had this wisdom decades ago that, if the organization was really going to thrive, then it was going to thrive with a local capacity,” says Richard Newton, regional director for the Raleigh office of NCF Carolinas.
Connecting generous communities
One of the primary jobs of our local teams is to connect biblically minded givers. Biblical generosity often comes with a desire to meet, collaborate with, and find encouragement in a community of other generous Christians. But meeting people who share your values and have the same desire to steward God’s resources can be hard. NCF’s local teams can help.
“The benefit of the local offices is that we get to do life together. Each one of our markets is unique, and it’s helpful to be a part of this particular community,” says Joe Pringle, fifth-generation Chicagoan and president of NCF Chicago. “We know the ministries. We know who to connect for greater kingdom impact.”
Whether it’s a cause you’re passionate about, a family business you want to steward well, or a desire for passing biblical generosity on to future generations, our local teams know and can connect you with people who have been right where you are.
“We’ve seen people give together,” says Ryan Assunto, president of NCF Austin. “Giving circles of like-minded givers are forming without us having to do much. They’re just people we’ve brought together getting to know each other, saying, ‘Hey, let’s give together. Let’s see if we might collectively move the needle on some causes.’”
Personalized, biblical generosity
Relationships with God are personal. Family relationships are personal. Finances are personal. And it’s not possible to deal with personal things with someone from a national call center. You need someone who understands your specific needs and respects the related sensitives and intricacies.
Someone you’ve built a relationship with over many years, met for coffee, maybe even invited into your home? This is someone who is better equipped to walk with you on your giving journey.
“When I think about the importance of a local office, I think about the capacity to serve people on a very personal level,” Ryan says. “We’re in conversations about people’s families and how they encourage the next generation in giving, conversations helping people figure out how to navigate the different nonprofits they support and the different issues that arise in a giver’s life.”
Local team leaders spend time getting to know givers’ hearts and desires for their giving. And they also share their values. They may talk with families over decades, celebrate births, marriages, and graduations alongside those families. They may notice when a giver is struggling with stewardship issues and walk with them in faith.
“When someone is here locally, there’s a trust that’s developed,” says Tim MacDonald, president of NCF Southwest. But “it doesn’t just happen overnight. Building trust takes time.”
A national network of local teams
Our local teams are deeply community focused, but they don’t operate in silos. Every local office is connected to every other local office and to our national office, too.
When a group of givers in Arizona wanted to help those affected by the Maui fires in August of 2023, Tim immediately got on the phone with Tom Rulon at NCF Hawaii. Together, they created a way for one generous community in Arizona to send immediate relief 3,000 miles to those in Maui.
“Even though Maui is not in our region, we were able to support something on a very local level,” Tim says. “It’s office to office coming together to support each other, ultimately for the betterment of that community.”
Tim’s team also connected with the national office to identify charities serving in the area, so givers around the country who wanted to help people in Maui could get their grants to trusted organizations closest to the situation. That local support became a national effort, and givers around the country also had the option of supporting residents of Maui in the crisis.
“Sure, the local office presence is part of our uniqueness, but with that local office is a national powerhouse behind us,” Tim says. “If each one of us is running on our own doing this, then we’re not doing a great job. But because we have this strength and expertise behind us, we’re able to be out there and run.”
Giving with confidence
That local-national connection doesn’t just help in disasters. NCF’s national team supports the back-office details and communications – from giving, processing grants, investing fund balances and reporting, to keeping givers informed about opportunities for more giving, more community, and more collaboration.
“The growing set of robust resources that our national team is providing for us to apply locally, that is just beautiful,” Richard says. They provide resources to help givers with things like growing in biblical generosity and strategizing your giving.
Richard recently gathered a group of generosity-minded charity leaders in his community for a watch party of NCF’s charity webinar series. They gathered in a cool setting (a renovated warehouse), watched the webinar, and had a meal and good conversation together. “We wouldn’t have been able to do that, if we didn’t have the resources from our national office,” Richard says.
Local offices also rely on NCF’s in-house team of attorneys and charitable professionals with 40 years’ experience in facilitating a wide range of non-cash giving to walk with givers through the process of making complex gifts.
A ministry with expertise
Each local office is part of a bigger organization with experienced teams that specialize in complex gifts, protecting your data, producing resources to help you make the most of your giving, researching charities, sending your grants, etc. But teams around the country are more than local NCF representatives. They’re local ministries that spread generosity.
“Events centered on biblical generosity are part of our local ministry” says Joel Smyer, president of NCF North Texas. “You don’t have to be with NCF to come to one; they’re intentionally designed to invite others into generosity.”
Gathering generous-minded members of the community for events like Journeys of Generosity (JOGs) not only facilitates new and creative pathways for generosity, these events also encourage us to keep God at the center of our giving and stay focused on why we are called to give.
“For a businessperson who cares about building bigger barns, we aren’t a good fit, because that’s not our mission,” Joel says. “Our mission is to mobilize resources for kingdom purposes and for everybody to be redeemed through the love of Christ.”
“It’s the biblical generosity that makes NCF so inspirational,” Tim says. “Nothing we say or do is necessarily inspirational. It’s connecting people to God’s purposes for their giving that’s inspirational.”
Ryan sees part of his role as a ministry of generosity. “We’re helping people think about generosity as a pathway to greater intimacy with God, and it’s our greatest joy to have those discipleship-oriented conversations, like maybe nobody else is going to have.
Your community of generosity
Whether you’re already an NCF giver or not, whether you work for a nonprofit, are a financial advisor, or are simply curious about generosity in your community, reach out to an NCF team near you to learn how they might help you, too. And if you don’t see an office near you, there may still be a community of NCF givers in your area. Because we’re one national network of local teams, you can contact any office to find out how to get connected.
Find your local team today.
