Gratitude Grants: Giving out of Thanksgiving!

As we enter the holiday season, it’s a wonderful time to pause and think about who and what we are grateful for. As I think back over the course of my life, there are so many people, experiences, and organizations that have blessed me along life’s journey. The same holds true when I think about my family. I’m so grateful for all the specific ways God has blessed my wife, my parents, my siblings, and my kids over the years.

As we head towards the end of year, many of us will give to our local church and other wonderful organizations that we are passionate about. And yet, with countless nonprofit organizations both near and far, how do we go about identifying and discerning new and meaningful causes to grant to?

Keep on reading to learn about making Gratitude Grants a part of your Thanksgiving.

Carver Family Thanksgiving

After a courageous battle with a rare form of Parkinson’s, my mom Judy ascended to be with Jesus on November 23, 2022. Over her last two years with us, we had several conversations about her life journey. It was through Young Life in Northern Illinois that she came to faith in high school. Her Young Life leaders, including her public high school principal, helped launch her on a lifelong adventure of trusting and following Jesus.
 
Having discovered this, I reached out to the Young Life area director in her hometown to learn more about their ministry, and how we might be able to help. It turns out their biggest challenge was kids being able to afford to go to camp. In the spring of 2021, my mom made a grant from her Giving Fund to provide scholarship resources to send two dozen kids to Young Life camp in Missouri. Later that summer we received a package from the area director with personalized thank you notes, pictures, and videos from the kids that were blessed through her grant. As she read through their messages of gratitude, tears of joy and laughter were abundant.  
 
At her memorial service last January, we set up a memorial fund in her honor to support her childhood Young Life group. Dozens of friends and family contributed and our family was honored to match their gracious gifts. This past summer, the notes we received moved me to tears. The whole experience has served as a wonderful blessing as my family has continued to remember and celebrate the life of my mom.

Walking through a similar process with my dad, who has Alzheimer’s, has also been an extraordinary blessing. While his short-term memory is minimal, he continues to remember pivotal experiences, people, and moments from his younger years. Asking him about his youth, he has often enthusiastically shared stories about his time with the Boy Scouts and being mentored by his high school football coach in a small town in central Iowa.  

Over the past three years, we have been blessed to make grants supporting specific needs on both fronts, including the purchase of new camping equipment for the Boy Scouts, football jerseys for his hometown football team, and scholarships for kids to go to both Boy Scout and football camps. My dad now proudly wears one of the new football jerseys with his original number on it.

Stepping out in faith
I would love to encourage all of us to consider the abundance of God’s blessings this Thanksgiving. What are we grateful for and are there unique opportunities to support the work of people and organizations providing similar blessings to others?
 
With a little bit of reflection, research, prayer, and faith, I’m confident God will lead the way!
 
If you’re interested in making a gratitude gift this season, here are a couple of questions and thoughts to get you started.

Reflection

• Think about your own life. What organizations and people have had a deep and meaningful impact In your life? What and who shaped you on your own journey? What experiences, people, and organizations played a meaningful role in helping you come to faith, get through hard times, or to grow?
• Consider asking the same questions of your loved ones around the Thanksgiving dinner table.
• Make a list of causes you might consider.

Research

• Reach out to those people or organizations to get an update on their work, hopes and dreams, and current challenges. 
• Share with them why you are grateful for their service, including specifics from your own life, or the life of loved ones. This simple act can be an extraordinary blessing and encouragement to those that have committed their lives to serve others.
• Collaborate with them to brainstorm ideas on how a grant from your Giving Fund might uniquely advance their good work so others might be blessed in the way that you or your family have been.

Prayer

• Spend some time praying and seeking God’s wisdom and discernment on where he might be calling you to make a meaningful grant this Thanksgiving season.  

Faith

• Begin by contemplating the overflowing abundance of God’s blessings in your life and the life of your family through both good and difficult times.
• Step out in faith, request a grant, and ask God to use his gift through you to do for others what he has done for you and yours.

Over the last year, I have been blessed by the opportunity to help guide several families in making similar “gratitude grants” to churches, schools, camps, campus ministries, and even for the purchase of benches at local dog park. In every one of them, I have seen givers experience what the Apostle Paul shares in his letter to Timothy… God’s promise of “LIFE THAT IS TRULY LIFE!”

So, this Thanksgiving, what gratitude grants might God want you to consider?

On behalf of the NCF Twin Cities team, we are so very grateful to be on the journey with every one of you! Please reach out to any of our local team members if there’s anything we can do to be of service.