by Brad Layland, Chief Executive Officer & Senior Consultant
When our kids were little, they played in a few sports leagues where, no matter how the game went, every kid walked away with a trophy. Win, lose, or spend the entire game chasing butterflies out in left field… it didn’t matter. At the end of the season, somebody would hand them a shiny little reminder that simply showing up was enough.
I used to laugh about that. But this week, as I sat with Scripture, a verse from Paul hit me in a way I didn’t expect:
“But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace toward me was not in vain.
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them,
though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV
Paul says two seemingly contradictory things at once:
- “I worked harder than any of them.”
- “But it was all grace.”
Only Paul can pull that off.
And honestly? I get it. I feel that tension every day. I work hard—probably harder than is healthy sometimes—because I care deeply about the organizations, people, and ministries we serve. But at the same time, I know this truth all the way down to the bottom of my soul: anything good that happens is God’s grace, not my hustle (shout out to one of my favorite organizations, Hustle Phoenix).
Paul starts with grace, ends with grace, and tucks this clear, unmistakable call to work hard right in the middle. The work matters. Effort matters. Showing up matters. But the “trophy”—the good fruit, the impact, the results—we don’t earn those. They’re handed to us by a Father who delights to bless our efforts.
And that brings me back to fundraising—the work many of us are in the thick of. It’s real work. It’s holy work. It’s often exhausting work.
But here’s my charge to you (the same one I’m preaching to myself this week):
Work extremely hard, but remember the trophy doesn’t come from your effort. It comes from grace.
God’s grace fuels the work.
God’s grace multiplies the work.
God’s grace is the reward of the work.
We show up.
We labor.
We give our best.
But at the end of the day, we’re those little kids again: sitting cross-legged on a gym floor, receiving a trophy not because of our hard work, but because of God’s grace.
We’ve been privileged to help many organizations be more effective in their fundraising by learning and implementing relational fundraising principles in their work with donors. Want to talk?