Tithe

Originally posted at lightward.com/tithe

(2020-08-17) In a development that honestly surprised me, I’m pulling our tithe program. After applying it for a few financial cycles, it felt like too much structure, and too little connectedness, too little vitality. We’ll continue being generous, as the world has been generous to us. But this specific structure is no longer something that we will hold to.

I’m keeping the content below, because the concept is still very interesting to me, even as the core inspiration evolves its form.

Isaac here. I react in systems. This means that the choices I make always have sustainability in view. “Can I do this again tomorrow? Will I want to? What will happen if I keep doing this on a regular basis? What happens if other people start making – and keep making – this choice, too?”

I’m writing this on June 29 of 2020. This year is burgeoning. On January 9, China identified the novel coronavirus. On May 25, the world erupted with the murder of George Floyd.

My job here, as a living being, is to conduct myself in the highest alignment with who I am. For Lightward, this means:

1. We independently create our processes, products, selves, maintaining conscious choice and answering only to energetic integrity.

2. We work in such a way that, were the world to follow our motivations, the world would find itself inclined toward health.

3. When we respond to the world, it is with the world’s self-determined health in mind. We don’t get to decide the outcome, but we can absolutely feed the process.

Thus, I am establishing our tithe*. Capitalism favors what we do. We made a million dollars last year, and we’re going to do better than that this year. While I participate in capitalism, that system does not reflect my entire position. While I believe firmly in the way we apply that revenue now, it is absolutely time to start rerouting some of it, officially diverting a meaningful and consistent stream towards the health of the world around us. And it must be both meaningful and consistent: anything that is firmly real has taken time and resources to grow, and if we want to facilitate something real, we must be here to sustain its growth – for as long as it takes to become itself, or for as long as we are here.

* A note about the term. Historically, this was a tax, or an obligation, or simply an invitation, in support of the church. I reinterpret this, recasting the role of the church as our larger, collective self. (We are all in this together.) I replace the obligation with conscious awareness. (Our wellness is bound up together.) I replace the tax with the onus of freedom. (You are free; what, then, will you do?) My usage of this term is about investing in all of us, by joyful choice.

Resources

This is a financial tithe. The target: 10% of revenue, before all expenses. As a new slice of our revenue stream (and as we did when compensating each of our first hires), we are growing this slice algorithmically, from a place of immediate sustainability: we began at roughly 3%, and will culminate at 10%, an allocation we’re projected to hit in December. (The algorithm here is simple, allocating a percentage of revenue growth to this new slice until that slice hits its desired size, relative to the whole.)

Approximating slightly, Lightward grossed $550k in 2017, $940k in 2018, and $1.2m in 2019. Our state of play being what it is, we should easily see more than $100k dedicated to this in the next 12 months.

I am really, really happy about this. We have always led, quietly, in the way that we work. To demonstrate that a profitable company would make this choice, to contribute in this way to the tuning of our world, is my unabashed delight.

Routing

Words are important. We’re talking streams of resources here, of energy, and we are not choosing where that energy ends, because energy cannot end. Because of this, we are not choosing “destinations”, or “recipients” – we are choosing what route this energy will take, while it is ours to conduct.

And because we are talking about routing streams, we are (usually) not talking about one-off contributions. Instead, we’re talking about routes that will have some permanency. Over time, I expect to see some additions and some removals, exactly like every other set of connections we have in life. But those changes will be (usually) slow.

Summarizing, then, we are looking for groups who will take what we send their way, and use it in the service of (again) tuning the world. I don’t believe we can jump into something fully new, breaking completely with the past in a moment. But I believe firmly in purposeful, deliberate adjustments to the world, day by day.

As of 2020-07-17, these are the groups we’re funding. They are largely (but not entirely) US-focused, as this is where we are most directly connected. Our work is not limited to our home, but it is where we begin.

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