Irrational Act – Planned giving can set you free

And now for a topic that chills any conversation: tithing. Yeow! Take a dull subject–only life insurance is as boring–and combine it with cloying guilt. That’s tithing. In the red states the face of tithing is often a pompadour on Channel 46 beseeching you to wire $1,000 to his 800 number. The money, he croons, will return to you tenfold, in divine time, perhaps as a shiny new Harley-Davidson. In the blue states the face of tithing is aNatural Resources Defense Council Hollywood-style shakedown.

On top of that, tithing is … but wait a minute. Along comes a friend–educated and rational–who is glad to tell you of his experience with tithing. He grew up in a strict church, where failure to cough up 10% of the paper-route money was a ticket to perdition. So of course he turned against tithing and the church. As time passed he moved away, earned degrees in engineering and law from elite colleges, got married, started a family and even returned to church. Yet though earning a princely salary, he and his wife were astonished to learn they couldn’t save a dime of it.

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Another enthusiastic tither is Greg Gianforte, the founder, chairman and CEO of RightNow Technologies http://rightnowtech.com/ . Gianforte started this Web services company in 1997 in the spare bedroom of his Bozeman, Mont. home and has grown it to $40 million in sales. RightNow went public on NASDAQ last year, becoming Montana’s first tech startup to do so.

Gianforte is quick to say that tithing is a duty of his faith. One must never tithe with expectations of divine reward. But, funny, Gianforte says, now that you mention it, tithing has brought these benefits:

By: Rich Karlgaard

Full Story: http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2005/0214/035.html?_requestid=5948