This post is from a repeat, but I think there are little nuggets of wisdom everyone raising their finances should read – so if you haven’t – here are expert tips from those who have gone before you and gotten to 100%.
Category: Practical Tips and Information
tips from other ministry workers on full-time support, information on practical elements of raising your financial support
Start 2017 Off Right!
Did you know that 45% of the American population make New Years Resolutions? In general this is the month that the nation is thinking about health, wellness, and personal goals. Are you? Though I didn’t make New Years Resolutions per say, I know I am thinking about my personal goals for this year. As I have been developing my own for 2017, I found these Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions from 2017 interesting:
Top 10 New Years Resolutions for 2017:
#1 Lose Weight
#2 Get Organized
#3 Spend Less, Save More
#4 Enjoy Life to the Fullest
#5 Stay Fit and Healthy
#6 Learn Something Exciting
#7 Quit Smoking
#8 Help Others In Their Dreams
#9 Fall In Love
#10 Spend More Time With Family
Can you relate to any of these? For those of you thinking about your 2017 goals along with me, I’d like to add the goals below for your consideration. Consider making 2017 your best year of living a healthy lifestyle of ministry partnership development. Without further ado, here are some goals to consider in making 2017 a fabulous ministry partnership development year:
GOAL #1: DO BETTER AT KEEPING UP WITH YOUR EXISTING FINANCIAL AND PRAYER PARTNERS. Where do you find yourself on this spectrum:
- “COMMUNICATION ROCK STAR”: You have always been good at regularly contacting your financial and prayer partners. You keep up with at least a few of them each month by email, text message, phone call, or skype. You continually write your newsletters and are very personal with those whom support you.
- “KINDA STRUGGLE BUT E FOR EFFORT”: You have had seasons at being good at communicating with your financial and prayer partners, perhaps here and there emailing the ones you felt comfortable with. However if are were honest you haven’t done much besides a few group Facebook posts and newsletters.
- “#EPICFAIL”: You have never been good at contacting your financial and prayer partners. You avoid contacting them, feel awkward when you do, and struggle to write newsletters.
So where do you find yourself on the spectrum?
Maybe you find yourself somewhere in between “Communication Rock Star” or “Kinda Struggle but E for Effort”? Or maybe “#EpicFail” doesn’t even begin to describe your lack of efforts? Wherever you find yourself in that spectrum make 2017 the year you start with regular (and quality) communication with your financial and prayer partners. Make regular social media posts, newsletters, emails, skype conversations, and phone conversations a priority in your existing ministry schedule. Go beyond the newsletter. Get beyond the mass communication and become relationally driven. Don’t just get a team of people giving you checks every month and wondering what your up to – strive to keep your financial partners informed and make them actual friends. Contact them personally and ask how they are doing, and how you can pray. Give personal updates. I PROMISE this is a BIG DEAL. Remember, without your financial and prayer team you WOULD NOT be ministering to your particular population. Make them feel valued and it will make all of the difference to them, and ultimately to you.
GOAL #2: ENSURE YOUR FINANCIAL PARTNERS CAN EASILY GIVE ONLINE. A recent study done by Dunham&Company shows that 67% of donors ages 40-59 said they have given online. That percentage is up by 20% since 2010. If your organization provides a way to give online, make sure you readily offer that option to your potential financial partners and that you make it easy for your financial partners to give online. Create giving instructions that can be emailed or texted out for your financial partners or get into the habit of walking them through the steps of online giving yourself.
GOAL #3: BEEF UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE. The same study mentioned above by Dunham&Company shows that 26% of donors said they have given to a charity’s website as a result of being asked on social media. This is up by 20% from only A YEAR AGO. Wow. I love this quote on the findings:
“It’s important to not misinterpret the findings,” Dunham says. “Donors are not responding more to requests for support from organizations through social media. They are responding to friends or others they know who, through social media, ask them for support of a specific charity, like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Social media for nonprofits is still primarily a means to build community and engagement rather than a fundraising tool.”
What we can say about social media at this point is this: it is a very effective tool to build community and engagement. I’m not saying to ask for blanket support on Facebook. Nope. Nope I’m not at all. But I am saying consider making your social media presence more intentional in 2017. Use exciting videos, informative posts with pictures, and infographics to grab people’s attention. Stay up to date on what is going on with your financial and prayer partnership team. If you do use Facebook for “the ask”, make sure you create a structured Facebook campaign.
GOAL #4: MAKE YOUR PRESENTATION GREAT. If you are regularly speaking inside church congregations or small groups, make sure what you are saying is as effective as it can be. Don’t have a mediocre presentation – make it great! Video yourself giving your next sermon or 5 minute window in front of a congregation. Spend some time going through that video and thinking of ways you could improve. Send it to a few trusted friends for a critique. Having their honest feedback could be what takes your presentation from “meh” to “YESSS!!” If you haven’t polished your presentation in awhile go through it with fresh eyes thinking of ways to improve. Maybe you could add a short video, or a visual of the population you serve? Maybe you could add a new effective story?
GOAL #5: STAY (OR GET) ORGANIZED. This goal is pretty self explanatory. If you are struggling in an area of staying organized, get back on the horse. Being organized with records of who you have asked, who has given, when they have given, how much, etc. is important to have in the genesis of a lifestyle of partnership development. If you are organized you will have more time for ministry and more time for staying connected with your financial and prayer partnership team – it’s that simple. Great programs for this are: TNTMPD, MPDX, or iMissionsPro.
GOAL #6: USE VIDEOS. According to statistics found on the www.Cadre31.com website videos on landing pages increase conversions by 87%. Not only that, 65% of audiences are visual learners and visual data is processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than by text. Let the reader understand: videos are a big help in effectively communicating your vision. If you have not created a high quality video that communicates your ministry vision I highly suggest you make it a priority to do so. Spend some time looking at the videos found on Cadre31’s site for some great examples.
If you are not in the habit of making videos (not necessarily high quality – just home videos used to communicate) on social media, get into it. Another statistic states that by 2017 90% of all web traffic will be video.
GOAL #7: PRAY FOR YOUR FINANCIAL AND PRAYER PARTNERSHIP TEAM. When was the last time you made prayer for your financial partnership team a regular part of your prayer life? Have you ever prayed for your team? If you haven’t taken the time to talk to God about your team, then start in 2017. There are multiple benefits of praying for your team that go beyond the obvious. For starters remembering your team in prayer will promote your desire to stay connected to them, naturally have you asking what is going on in their lives, and will remind you that they are a vital part of your ministry.
There you have it! May your 2017 be a year filled with happy and relational support raising! Consider making some of these goals your own in 2017.
Podcast on Financial Partnership Development
Recently I was honored to be on the family podcast of one of our areas in Eurasia talking about Financial Partnership Development. On the podcast we talk about partnership development topics such as how to build and maintain good relationships while busy in ministry, adding new financial partners, and much more.
Take a listen by following the links below:
Podcast 1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ac8ug933tlca5yi/November-2016.mp3?dl=0
Podcast 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/23uhw5e4fwnwxpo/December-2016.mp3?dl=0
10 Blog Posts I Love for Successful Support Raising
I have a gift for you.
I love picking up bits and pieces from other ministries on support raising. Over the years I’ve done my fair share of digging from various viewpoints – nonprofits, ministries, and other missions sending organizations.
Thus, here’s a list of 10 inspiring blogs and websites that cover a wide variety of subject matter on ministry partnership development as you close out your year! Your Welcome! Merry almost Christmas friends!
- Cadre 31 Classes: Cadre31 is a company who specializes in telling your story via video. They have a tab on their website dedicated to education on creating your own videos, watch and learn!
- TedTalk by Jia Jiang on facing rejection. The possibility of rejection and/or facing it is hard – this video on the subject is incredibly inspiring and entertaining.
- Video from Global Frontier Missions on Unreached People Groups. This video is so helpful if you are raising your finances to reach a tough population. Check it out!
- Seeing Your Donors As Partners by 101Fundraising maybe one of my favorite blog posts EVER on the subject of financial giving. Get inspired and get perspective.
- This guest post by Pastor Chris (on my blog) reminds us that a season of itineration looks a lot like a season on the ministry field. I highly recommend this to anyone struggling with obstacles and fears in raising their support.
- Thanking Donors on Social Media from The Balance is a great for those looking to make their social media interactions count. It has some fantastic ideas to get the gears going on your own social media strategy.
- This TedTalk from Amanda Palmer on The Art of Asking may be the most helpful TedTalk I’ve ever watched. This is not Christian content by the way, but gives incredible insight.
- Do you want to become a better public speaker? Are you afraid of public speaking? Here’s a post from RealSimple on conquering your fear.
- Being negative hurts YOU. Are you negative and don’t even know it? Check out this blog post on positive thinking during your season of raising support by Michael Hyatt.
- Reaching out to millennials can confound as you support raise. Gosh, I’m a millennial and sometimes I have a hard time figuring out what to do. Here’s a great post on the subject.
I hope some of these posts help you like they have me. Do you have a favorite blog post? Share it in the comments! – JF
Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough: 5 Lessons from 2 Successful Support Raisers
Here’s a beginning question everyone asks when raising support: How do I effectively ask individuals to support me monthly? The answer to that question has a lot of moving parts, to start here’s a simple answer, it is this:
AS RELATIONALLY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN.
I want to reinforce this sentence by telling you about the journeys of two different missionaries whom I coach. Both recently raised their finances in record time. Let me tell you a little about them:
The Jones Family. The Jones Family is a family of four who raised their extensive overseas budget within 6 months. SIX MONTHS! Let me tell you, that is a feat for a family of four!
Sally. Sally is a single woman, and a 21 year old college grad. Sally raised her budget within 5 months. She had never raised finances for a missions trip before, and particularly felt nervous that most of her friends were just out of college – and broke.
How did the Jones family and Sally do it? Well, the main successful commonality between them is this: they were always relational in their approach. So here are some things we can learn from The Jones family and Sally in their journeys to raising their budgets relationally and successfully:
1. They set weekly goals and stuck to them. When raising your finances, knowing your vision is valuable and so is determination. Both the Jones family and Sally set weekly goals (that were obtainable) for themselves based on their vision and held onto those goals with determination. They hit their goals 90% of the time.
Take away: As you raise your finances, set weekly goals for yourself and find a way to make yourself accountable to them. Before you do, think about what you can handle each week and when you want to get to 100% before you set them. Typically I tell missionaries I coach that they need to make initial contact with at least 5-10 people each week – initial contact entails that they have either sent an invitation letter (setting up the face-to-face appointment) or they called someone asking for a face-to-face appointment.
2. They didn’t take short cuts. They met face-to-face with people. The Jones family and Sally both strived for each “ask” to be face-to-face, even if that meant traveling a little to see people and ask them in person. They didn’t merely call people, send out bulk newsletters, or Facebook blasts – they took time to ask people in the most relational way possible.
Take away: I’m not saying Facebook posts or newsletters are bad things. Both are effective tools when used accurately. However, those tools become detriments when missionaries try to make them the main way they do their personal asks. Whenever possible, try to meet with your potential partners face-to-face. If it’s not possible face-to-face, try meeting with them over Skype or Google Hangouts. When you ask, have a well thought out presentation and concretely ask for financial support.
3. They asked for a range or specific amount. When the Jones family and Sally did their financial asks they boldly asked for a range of monthly support or a specific amount.
Take away: Don’t leave your financial needs nebulous and in the hands of your potential partners to guess. That’s awkward for them. Tell them what you need and provide them with parameters. A couple of reasons for this: (1) It will greatly help your friends and family to know what you need, particularly if they aren’t used to giving to a christian worker. (2) People will default to the least amount possible, so you want to ask them for an amount that stirs their faith.
If you are asking for a range make your range comfortable for you to ask for, but also not too low. Also when providing a range make a graph to explain if necessary. When asking for a specific amount, make sure to stay silent while they respond to what you just asked them. You don’t need to apologize or provide nervous “filler.”
![Fundraising Pyramid Image[1]](https://jennfortner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/fundraising-pyramid-image1.jpg)
4. They believed they were asking their potential partners to invest in the Great Commission, not just their ministry assignment. Perspective in raising support is a powerful thing, if not one of the most important ingredients to success (or lack there of). Sally and the Jones Family believed that when they asked their friends and family for financial support, they were involving them in more than just their need for money. They were involving them in the Great Commission and thus were not apologetic about it.
Take away: If you aren’t at that point in your thinking / perspective you, you are not alone. But I do challenge you to ask God to change your perspective. Spend time in the word and seek understanding on support raising in the Bible. There are over 700 direct statements in the Bible about finances, find some of them and study. As you read ask yourself why God set up the Christian worker to live off of support, and why He wants you to do it as well. (Some places in the Bible to start reading: Philippians, Nehemiah, 2 Kings 4, and 1 Corinthians 16 or check out my workbook and buy a complete Bible study on fund-raising.)
5. They didn’t stop when it got challenging. Both the Jones Family and Sally were both hesitant to begin the process of raising their support. They also both had real fears and genuine obstacles, just like you probably do. Even though they were hesitant and ran into hard weeks while raising their budgets: they kept going and continued to ask.
Take away: Don’t let fear, a bad week, obstacles, or a “no” keep you from asking. Remember, when you invite people onto your team in a relational way, really you are asking them to get more involved in the Great Commission. When you run into a hard week (and you will, I promise you are not alone) just keep going and continually ask God for help along the way. He will provide what you need if you keep moving forward — but the key is you have to keep moving forward.
So as you look over these 5 take aways think about how you can invest and create your team relationally. As you do, you’ll find yourself growing in ministry and more happily (and quickly) raising your support.
What do you think as you hear The Jones Family and Sally’s stories? How can you raise your finances as relationally as possible?
Connect Cards are Awesome.
Have you ever spoken at your home church, small group, or fundraising event and gotten stuck at your back table talking to a particularly chatty individual? All the other people scurry to lunch before your conversation ends and you feel the wave of missed opportunities that just passed? Whomp.
Insert a wonderful tool to help combat: connect cards!
What’s a connect card you ask? It’s a stack of cards you put on your display table, chairs of an event, and/or attach to Sunday morning’s bulletin. Connect cards give you the ability to follow up with interested people after a service or event is over, and is an effective tool all about facilitating more face-to-face appointments and building relationships with the body of Christ. Below there are some examples of connect cards from various workers I coach. (thanks guys!)
Now, don’t go off quite yet and make your own. I want to explain something important first – here we go – pay attention: keep in mind that connect cards are only appropriate in certain circumstances.
“Connect cards are only meant for events, services, and small groups where you have gotten permission to connect personally with individuals about giving.”
Connect cards should only be used when they fall in accordance with a pastor / leader’s protocol in giving. So don’t assume that these cards can be placed on chairs of a congregation without communication or sneakily stuck into bulletins on a Sunday morning. Connect cards are only meant for events, services, and small groups where you have gotten permission to connect personally with individuals about giving.
Why is this so important? Well, a lot of churches do their missions / ministry giving by collecting offerings and disbursing where the church leadership collectively decides. That means if you were to come into that congregation and ask all the people inside to give to you personally, it may mess up what the pastor, board, and leadership of the congregation has decided to give to. You DO NOT want to be that person. #boo
Thus, connect cards are preferably only when you ask the pastor / leader “how does your congregation do missions / ministry giving?” If they say you may connect with individuals inside of the congregation on your own, ONLY THEN do connect cards come into play.
Connect cards are ideal when speaking to your home church (after you’ve figured out the protocol with your pastor on giving), small groups, fundraising events, and the like. If you do use connect cards, make sure to explain them from the platform in which you are speaking from – letting everyone know how to fill them out and what they are for.
I hope these help you as you seek to build out new relationships as you interact with the body of Christ! See the examples below and have fun building yours!
Get the Right Perspective, Get to 100%
I try whenever possible to stay away from the words “fundraising” and “donor“when describing support raising as a ministry worker. Instead I use the phrases “partnership development” and “financial partner“.
Why you ask? The nuance lies within the overall perspective of raising one’s budget.
The word “donor” denotes someone who gives blood, gives one time, or is involved in a limited transaction. “Fundraising” denotes car washes, bake sales, golf tournaments, and transactional events. Right? Right. Of course fundraising and donors are in and of themselves not bad. OF COURSE. However, neither indicate an ongoing relationship between the giver and the organization or ministry. If our perspective of raising funds leads us to believe all we are doing is fundraising, it is likely we will struggle raising our support because what we are doing is truly more than fundraising. Simply put: we do more than fundraise. We invite people to partner with us in ministry.
Conversely, partnership is defined as this: “two separate but equal parties, with separate but equal responsibility, working together to achieve a common goal.”
I like that definition much more as it encapsulates a what a healthy perspective while raising a budget looks like. It clarifies that the one sending is vital to the ministry instead of merely standing on the sidelines. The word partnership keeps us mindful that we are to be good stewards of our resources as Christians, and stewards of our calling to the Great Commission – whether that looks like going or sending. “Partnership” says WE ARE DOING THIS TOGETHER.
Experience has shown me that ministry workers who know the difference (in their hearts and attitude) between “fundraising” and “partnership” are those that succeed in raising their financial partnership teams. And FYI, success looks different than just getting to 100% and getting to the field fully funded. Again, think perspective — getting to 100% is only part of it.
Success in partnership development looks like fulfillment, retention in partnerships, healthy mindsets, healthy relationships, joy, actual enjoyment in the process, and getting to one’s field in ministry fully supported.
The opposite of success is strained relationships, procrastination, anxiety, 80% raised budgets being “good enough”, and low attrition in partnerships.
I believe that success in partnership development is 90% perspective.
“If our perspective of raising our funds leads us to believe all we are doing is fundraising, it is likely we will struggle raising our support because what we are doing is truly more than fundraising. Simply put: we do more than fundraise. We invite people to partner with us in ministry.”
Those that are successful hold Paul’s perspective when he says “Not that I desire your gift, what I desire is that more be credited to your account.” Philipians 4:17
Successful partnership development knows those that join your team are a vital and dynamic part of your ministry. Partner relationships become important, growing, and vibrant instead of obligations and burdens.
I challenge you to take a look at your perspective in partnership development. Is it a fundraising perspective, or one of partnership? Why is it important to see it differently than fundraising? What’s the difference?
You may not immediately see the difference, but as you work to find out what a biblical perspective of financial partnership looks like, it’s likely you’ll find it much more enjoyable and doable. Perspective leads to attitude, which determines action. You will do what you believe. Try and shift to a healthy perspective on partnership development. Having a wrong perspective may hinder you staying in full-time ministry long term, and can lead to stress every time itineration season rolls around again. Let’s not do that. Let’s do successful partnership development that leads to vibrant 100% funded ministry and healthy engaged partnerships. – JF
Do Something Different, Use Sway
Have you ever heard of Sway? Sway is an App / web application that is about a year old and is a part of the Microsoft Office family of awesomeness.
It’s also free to use + simple, and I am in love with it.
I wanted to dedicate a post to Sway because I think it can be a very effective (and outside-of-the-box) tool for anyone support raising. Below is a link of how I used it to present some basics on financial partnership development for an online class I taught:
https://sway.com/xf67TFXn6wlrdDEX
Perhaps this makes you think, gee Jenn, that’s nice, but what are some practical ways I could use it in my support raising? Well, practical is practically my middle name – so I’ve thought about it and here is my list of ways to use Sway:
- Personal Stories. Connecting online with individual and church potential partners is a huge part of building your team. Use Sway to create something visually stimulating that immediately grabs people’s attention. I can see Sway helping you share your personal story and vision for ministry in some of the following ways (***always keep in mind – with all of these suggestions – to follow any security measures your sending organization deems needed in developing content and sending out content):
- Put your Sway as a link in the signature of your emails.
- Email or Facebook pastors and potential support team members your Sway so they can read up a little of your passion and vision for ministry.
- Share your Sway on your Facebook group.
- Use Sway as a platform for a video. Instead of just watching your video – you could have it nicely displayed on your Sway with some text and background to enhance it even more.
- Put up your Sway on a tablet or computer for your display table for services, meetings, small groups, fundraising events, etc.
- Newsletters. Mailchimp is probably still the winner for electronic newsletters, but I wouldn’t hesitate to play around with Sway to see if one could create something of an archive of newsletters or something different from the norm.
- Reports. Infographics and interactive graphs are available on Sway and very simple to use. Here are some ways I can think of to use Sway for reports:
- Create a budget report with infographics and interactive graphs/charts to share with your support team or those on your potential support team who are asking for financial specifics.
- Create a landing page for your core prayer team. Include a video or other interactive material to get them excited about praying for your ministry (this could be prior to going to your field or while on your field).
- Presentations. If you have pictures or videos to share during your face-to-face appointments with potential financial partners, create a Sway to put them into one place. All you need is wifi or your phone to show the content.
Some advantages to using Sway:
- Downloading is not necessary. Sway is web and app based so no one will need a certain software program to view your content.
- Sway comes with the ability to password protect the content and has various sharing preferences. For those of you going to sensitive areas, Sway comes with a little security. (however, as we all know nothing on the internet is wholly “secure”)
- Sway is great if you have a report, presentation, or personal story that needs to be updated on a regular basis. As it is web based, the person looking at your Sway won’t need to have the latest version sent to them, changes are automatically displayed for them.
- If creating a website seems daunting to you, you can create a simple one by using Sway. Fun!
If you have used Sway, please share with me how you used it for your work life or personal life! I would love to hear more examples of this tool.
Emma’s Top 5 Tips to Get to 100%
From time to time I ask workers I coach to provide a top 5 list of what worked in their overall partnership development strategy. *Emma was a worker who reached 100% fully-funded within a few short months, and I thought she would be a perfect person for you to glean from. Without further ado, here are Emma’s top 5 support raising tips.
(*Emma’s name has been changed to protect her identity)
1. Make a Crafty, Well-Executed, Invitation Letter. I got a lot of compliments from people on my invitation letters. The design evolved a lot throughout the process, but the basic philosophy was to make a letter that was cute, hard to ignore/forget about, fun to read, and fun to make (kept me from getting bored!). Same deal for the thank-you notes. I’ve attached some pictures below.
2. Have Patience and Time. I invested ridiculous amounts of time in my face-to-face appointments. My ministry partnership development training gave me a lot of badly needed structure and organization (which I could not have done this without). I found that extravagant time invested in face time with potential partners yielded rich returns not only on pledges, but also on life stories, advice, prayer, encouragement, and relationship.
My longest face-to-face was 4 hours. It actually revitalized me when I was in a support raising slump. My longest phone call was 2 hours, but gave me the opportunity to speak life into someone struggling with depression and also witness to them about Christ! (I prayed for this person over the phone and they broke down in tears saying that they had felt an amazing presence of God!) The time I invested was totally worth it for me.
“I found that extravagant time invested in face time with potential partners yielded rich returns not only on pledges, but also on life stories, advice, prayer, encouragement, and relationship.”
3. Ask the Unexpected People. As I type this email, I have just received a $100 monthly pledge from someone who I have not talked to in over a decade. Almost without exception my most generous, enthusiastic, and faithful partners are people I either met briefly one time, or haven’t kept in close touch with over the years. I heard in my training that it ISN’T those you expect to help who do, and found this to be very true! This has also given me a lot more confidence in asking.
“Almost without exception my most generous, enthusiastic, and faithful partners are people I either met briefly one time, or haven’t kept in close touch with over the years.”
4. Take a Sabbath. I am a dismal Sabbath-taker and need so much growth in this area. After my sending organization’s training I decided to get serious and I got an accountability partner who was also raising her own funds. With her accountability I picked out a middle-of-the-week day (people tend to want to meet on weekends, and church can be work when you’re in ministry) to lounge around in PJs, bake, read the Bible and devotionals for hours, and watch kung fu movies on Netflix. I found that this not only rested me, but also gave me perspective and helped me evaluate where I was spiritually and emotionally each week. It was great motivation to work harder the rest of the week so I could take that full day off.
5. Use a Short Video. I got a quick 3-minute blurb from a video created by my senior workers in France. It is a video with people and places from the actual city and church plant, and I used my smartphone to pull it off of YouTube and show to potential partners during appointments.
The video not only established a great emotional and visual connection to the ministry, but it gave me a short break where their attention was off of me so I could breathe, pray, and assess how the appointment was going. It also saved me a lot of talking because it explained the vision of the ministry with uplifting background music. As far as security concerns go, I carried around a pair of small headphones so that if the meeting was in a public place, people could watch it without every person in a twenty-foot radius hearing about the mission.
– Emma
As her coach, I saw Emma succeed by sticking with the process and remaining consistent week after week. I also saw her creatively think outside of the box, but while doing so use the principles and techniques she knew from training to be tried and true.
Have you been successful in getting to 100%? Give us some of your tips in the comment section! – JF
Overcome Major Obstacles to Get Fully Funded
Recently Support Raising Solutions, a ministry of the Center for Mission Mobilization (who are the amazing team of people behind The God Ask by Steve Shadrach) published a blog post I wrote on Overcoming Major Obstacles to Get Fully Funded. I’ve included an excerpt below. Click on the link above or just below to read the full article.
In my time as a support coach, I have yet to see a ministry worker not make it to the field because they were unable to raise their budget. I’ve seen people not go to the field because they got engaged, accepted a different job, or had medical issues—but it has yet to be money that has kept someone from going to the ministry they felt called to. That being said, I’ve seen numerous ministers scared that they were never going to get to the magical 100% mark. Some just freeze up, unable to move forward because of obstacles and fears. So let‘s talk about the obstacles and fears we face when raising our budgets. What are some of the most common? And what can we do to overcome them?
#1 Obstacle: Perspective/Lack of Biblical Understanding
Viewing fundraising as a necessary evil instead of a vibrant ministry can be the largest hurdle someone raising support can face. I once heard it said 90% of support raising is perspective. After listening to numerous workers talk about their struggles, I find this overwhelmingly true. Workers who can’t seem to see the awesome ministry opportunities raising support provides them are the same ones who can’t seem to get to full support, and ultimately will probably walk away from their ministry calling. Viewing support raising as ministry is vital to staying engaged long-term and excited about the process.
If you go into an appointment seeing it only as a means to an end, you’ll pass up the opportunity to minister to the person across from you—and miss being blessed yourself! Other effects may be:
- Coming across as disingenuous
- Being sloppy and cutting corners
- Awkward and fearful to make strong/bold ask
So, how can we overcome? Seek out a biblical understanding of support raising. Discover what God has to say on the subject by checking out resources such as the bible studies in the appendix of The God Ask. Ask others who have been successful in raising their support about their overall perspective. Pray continuously, and ask the Lord why He came up with this idea of Christian workers raising their personal and ministry expenses from others. He has already given the answers in scripture, we just have to find them.
….read 3 other obstacles and how to to overcome them by visiting the Support Raising Solutions blog
Financial Partnership Development 