Fundraising in Mission Maker Magazine

I warned earlier this year I might be ignoring this blog. I wish I had more to add from this year but I don’t. We’ve done very little proactive fundraising, and have been very busy with work and personal travel. Our money will run out again in February or March of the coming year barring another large unforeseen donation, which is entirely possible by God’s grace.

Today I’m just going to point you to an article about fundraising in the recent Mission Maker magazine, which dropped just this week. Unfortunately the magazine isn’t posted online, so I can’t link directly to the story.

The article starts on page 38, and is set up as a conversation between a donor and missionary in the process of raising support. The two go through some basic rules of import related to fundraising. They stick to proven principles that I was taught and aspired to in our own support strategy.

What caught me off guard though was the article’s claim that you need to communicate (phone, letter, email, small gifts etc) with every one of your donors ever three weeks. Personally. Treat them like a friend.

That’s great, but over the top. I don’t treat my friends like that. Some of my friends I don’t see that often (however unfortunate this is). However, as a general rule I followed the rest of the advice which includes regular communication (with attainable goals outlined therein) and thank yous. We did these.

And we’ve still always fallen well short.

I started to think, then, about the missionaries I support. One couple is good about updates. We get weekly emails from them and bimonthly newsletters. A family in Thailand and couple in England both send monthly emails. Another in SE Asia communicates often enough but a little more erratically. Another Thailand family is very erratic, barely getting out three newsletters a year (and he’s a journalist!?!).

I also support my boss, who also struggles to get three newsletters out a year at this point in his life. And he’s the director of our small operation.

The rules are still good, but every three weeks is over the top. In fact, I might be annoyed if I heard from all of the missionaries I support that often, especially if there wasn’t much to report. What I want is sincerity and openness when we do communicate, even if it’s only a few times a year. And I also want a concerted effort to be made to see people face to face when on furlough.

Some donor/supporter relationships will be the kind that will naturally tend to very regular communication. Do everything you can to foster those. Some start out this way, others will become deeper over time, and can turn into this kind of relationships.

But our most significant donor by total gifts, is a couple we haven’t talked to once since the ask. They get our newsletters and donor thank yous, and we have (rarely) exchanged personal letters, and we have tried to have dinner or coffee with them when we were in their city but it’s never worked out. And still they give. And give.

This is one of the anomalies we were told to expect during our training seminar. We expect our friends and family to believe in us (if they’re Believers) and give, and are surprised (and sometimes hurt) when they don’t. Sure, prayer is important, but it’s saying something much more strongly when you back it up by putting your treasure into God’s work. We understand you can’t give to all of your friends and every opportunity. God will lead you into certain ones; you will follow the kinds of ministry that you’re heart chases after. But please tell us when this is the case. Don’t leave us hanging.

This very generous couple on our support roles, though, my wife and I barely know. This is the anomaly. Yes, do as much as is reasonable to keep up relationships, to make friendships with donors. But remember that you have to play it by ear too. Not everyone will need a phone call every three weeks. Not everyone wants one.

A new way to ask for support

Via YouTube, of all places, a personal appeal from a guy who was heading to Japan (and since posting the video late last year actually is in Japan now):

He has a number of these addressed to some of his close friends that he posted. I like the idea, but I’m not sure how certain potential donors will think of it. Younger generations will probably be fine with it for the most part; my one concern is that, being in such a public forum (you may be able to restrict access, making the video private to your friends), it may seem like an attempt to guilt a person into giving from the perspective of certain personalities.

As I already said, though, my own personality finds this creative and commendable.

Mailing list

Recently I’ve been wishing our mailing list was smaller.

We were encouraged in support training to create as large a list as possible: Christians, non-Christians, lovers, enemies, family, friends. So we did. And in some ways it’s paid off. As I’ve mentioned here before, a couple of people started giving just by our sending them a newsletter.

But newsletters are a ton of work for us. Some larger organizations seem to have office people to do the mailings for staffers once the letter is created, but in our smaller non-profit we each write, address, fold, stuff, stamp and seal ourselves. My list is about 450 individuals and churches; we send 5 newsletters a year.

The reason I’m wishing for a smaller list isn’t because of the labor involved though. I’ve been feeling a desire to cull from the list people we don’t really know. I was reminded of this again when a lady called asking to be removed from the list. She’s a distant relative of my wife, and even though we were at her husband’s funeral we’ve never actually talked to her. On the phone today, she didn’t seem to have any idea who I was. I didn’t make any effort to explain, either.

I think I’ve come to trust that God will put in place the people He has to be a part of our support team. That said, I’m still not ready — even though I’m wanting — to cull our mailing list. The balance between faith and action never seems to be very clear to me.

Responding to communication

My office-mate, a 20+ year missions veteran, has told me numerous times that communication has to be done in your own style.

But the same kind of communication doesn’t work for everyone, and missionaries don’t have the time to write personal letters to all 400 people on their mailing lists. Further, mailing lists often include people unfamiliar with how support-based missions works.

That said, I get very few responses to our mailings. Of the few I do receive, most are positive. Once in a while they aren’t. This afternoon I got one that wasn’t — although, in all honesty, the response was trying to be encouraging, albeit through a critical lens. This same person has taken issue before with our communication in monthly prayer emails, particularly with regard to our mention of physical or emotional prayer items. Prayer notes, based on my own experience, often contain requests for intercession related to health.

The respondent in question is, most likely, a person who doesn’t have a very good grasp of Evangelical missions in America. The person also comes from a generation and background (culturally and familialy) that was more reserved. His replies basically say “buck up” or “stop whining.” Included are references to God’s strength and related Scriptures.

While I know to take this respondent’s notes with a grain of salt; it is impossible to communicate with perfect clarity to hundreds of people using the same words, and this person’s replies almost always seem to be based on a misunderstanding of our emails. But I don’t want to completely disregard the exhortation. Maybe I am being a bit whiny. Maybe we’re not relying on God’s strength wholeheartedly. I really don’t want to be like this, whether in real life or in emails. I’m an optimist, usually finding the good in any situation (of course, even though I formulate most of the outgoing notes, my wife filters what gets sent out and is basically my polar opposite).

I don’t want to focus on the bad things in life; I want to have a grateful heart and continually realize all of the good things God has given me. But, then again, I don’t feel as though my email said what the respondent thought it said.

I’m sure this will be, to a degree, a constant challenge throughout a missionary’s career — communicating with donors, potential donors, family and our general mailing list. We do take into account every response to every mailing, good or bad.

Of course, good responses are much easier to deal with.

Finding other options

This past weekend my wife and I drove up to the town of 45,000 my parents live in looking at real estate. Cost of homes is a fair amount less there (although taxes are more, so you have to find something quite a bit less to lower your mortgage payments).

Our hope is to be able to find a way to continue working part-time, as our support allows, with the ministry from a remote location. Our hope is this:

1) Sell our house.
2) Move to a larger community with more part-time employment opportunities.
3) Use profit from the sale of the house to create a less-expensive housing situation.
4) Continue working, for two to three years at least, part time with the ministry.

There is actually a possibility that my father will purchase a building where we could live rent and mortgage free! We’re working hard to see if this will work, although it presents a number of complications we have yet to face in our young married life, causing us to move forward cautiously.

There is a distinct possibility we will lose a little support if we can work this scenario out, however at this point we probably have enough to sustain part-time hours for the foreseeable future. If we can work this out it should also provide, hopefully, a less stressful period of life after these very high-stress five years past. During this recuperative time we hope my wife’s health will right itself and we’ll be able to determine our next step in life.

I know I’ve said this before, but it deserves to be said again: The support lifestyle is really very different from the non-support lifestyle. It is, at this point in my life, impossible to convey the nuances of this to people working an 8-5 job — or even working in other non-personal-support-based ministries. Someday I hope to be able to elaborate on this sentiment (some of the differences are fairly obvious). Part of our frustration is a lack of communication from people we communicate with. Seldom do we get responses from our prayer emails or newsletters.

Recently a thank you from a friend irked my wife. Her frustration stems from people who try and support us in ways other than giving financially. We know not everyone can give, but when it seems to us we communicate very clearly our need for money . . .

. . . what’s that saying? “Put your money where your mouth is.”

Or in more Biblical terminology, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart also.”

Post fundraising trip ramble

This is our last prayer update that went to about 100 people via email:

Praise God for some new support in the last few months. Many thanks to our new and long-standing financial partners.

However, we are staring at a cliff. I’ve shared this year in earlier emails how we are using up the “reserve” fund while I work full-time, since [my wife] quit the newspaper. From the looks of it, we’ll have enough money for paychecks in August and September. After this, without a very significant increase in our support level, everything is up in the air.

It’s difficult to talk about and consider what could very well be the end of our service with Mission Data International. We envisioned our five year commitment to [the ministry] as a springboard into long-term, cross-cultural overseas service. The thought of having to quit, find other work and then come back to missions at a later date does not seem very feasible in our finite, human thinking.

At this point, my goal remains to serve with [the ministry] through the end of the year, if funding allows. We have begun work on a long-term mission website, and without our help it will be very difficult for it to launch in 2007 as planned. Better yet would be for us to be 85% funded by December, giving us at least an opportunity to consider continuing our service with [the ministry] into 2008.

Right now donations meet 60% of our support budget every month.

It is not our practice to ask for financial support in either our newsletters or these prayer notes, but present circumstances make it necessary. If God leads you in His way to give to our service with [the ministry], please do so this month. Our greatest need is for regular donations, be they monthly, quarterly or yearly. A monthly donation of $40 is equal to 1% of our budget.

We really are staring at a cliff. We still have peace about our circumstances. God has been faithful since we began this process almost five years ago. We have never lacked, though we have had to lean on patience from time to time.

A supporter we chatted with on our recent fundraising jaunt exhorted us to stick with it as long as possible. That we will, but truth be told we’re both worn out emotionally, and my wife’s health troubles don’t help our energy level. I was reminded as we traveled of how different the support-based lifestyle is, and how difficult it must be for people who haven’t experience the fundraising process. On the outside it’s easy to believe things are quite similar, especially for those serving in full-time ministry stateside. But behind the scenes the gearing is very different.

We’re now talking seriously about what we might do if, in the next two months or less, we don’t have the support we need. We know the God we serve is big enough for any task. But our minds are beginning to wonder if the door isn’t closing on our full-time service with this ministry. It’s difficult to concentrate on the continuing task of fundraising when thinking about new possibilities, when considering the possibility of needing to sell the house and move.

It’s also difficult to think of quitting the process. As the email cited above states, we have had new support come in. Our support level has always increased. It just hasn’t increased quickly enough. How long does a person persist? What does a slowly closing door look like? We’ve already done the part-time ministry/part-time work thing, and we don’t feel the need to go back to that model. It does not seem sustainable to us, and our missionary salary is barely enough for us to get by on as it is — especially when we’re concertedly spending the money necessary to get my wife healthy again.

Some changes are likely ahead, without a Divine and seemingly miraculous intervention.

Why people give

From Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing blog:

“People take action and give for deeply personal reasons. The more our messages resonate with our audience’s perspective, the greater power they contain. No one has ever told me that they gave because of a beautifully crafted mission statement or an attractive brochure. No one.”

I can personally point out a few notable exceptions, particularly a certain kind of business-minded male. These types, which I’ve come across at least two or three times, are extremely interested in the direction and business plan/model of an organization.

I would also add that a number of our own donors seem to give because of relationship. Katya’s examples from the aforementioned post elude to this but she didn’t say the word relationship. I’m convinced some of our donors don’t have the foggiest idea of what we do — other than “it deals with the internet” — but they give because they know us and trust us. This is somewhat frightening to me.

Her thought is on track though, and missions may be a bit of a different ball game than what she’s used to playing. People don’t generally give because of mission statements or brochures (although these surely won’t hurt, as my wife the wordsmith and myself the designer will tell you).

Articulate vision

After a week or so of pondering how to go about fundraising in this new year I’ve come to realize part of the key will be clear communication of the need.

This is not a novel concept, per se, but it has not always been possible. When we began raising support four and a half years ago, we didn’t know much of what went on in the M-DAT office. We had never worked in the office; we lived 400 miles away from the office. So we did our best to explain the need, and God began to provide.

I’ve created another blog. Blogs help me remain disciplined in thinking and researching certain topics. This blog, IPMBlog.com, will help me better articulate the need for mission information to be available online.

And the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that being able to communicate clearly the importance of this ministry in light of present internet use. It’s still God that moves in a person to give, still God that provides so faithfully — even if it isn’t in the ways we hope and expect. But being able to articulate the need is key, especially in this still fledgling [internet] industry, where older generations may fail to see its influence.

Nobody likes to tell people “no”

Hearing “no” is a given in support-raising, and some of the time I would rather hear it more often.

Now that you think I’m crazy, let me explain. On some occasions I begin to wonder if people aren’t being euphemistic. I can’t know for certain, and you have to give people the benefit of the doubt.

But it still felt like people were telling us they would think and pray about supporting us when they really meant, “No, we don’t want to support you financially.” We would also give the people the option, at the appointments, to defer for a time. I would then mark them as an “ask in future,” and get back to them in a year or so.

But their answers didn’t change.

People don’t like telling other people no. Dan Dewald, according to his MySpace website, doesn’t like telling people “no.” Lawmakers don’t like telling people “no” according to John O’Conner for the Peoria Journal Star. The keeper of the blog My Life as a Mommy X 3 doesn’t like to tell people “no.”

But I would much, much rather hear “no” than be strung along.

I don’t really like sharing this, because some of my friends made me feel like this at times, as though they were stringing us along. And like I already mentioned, we can’t know for certain and I have to give a person the benefit of the doubt. Then why, you ask, share I this?

Because I hope that the person reading this will be better prepared for the fundraising process because of my sharing.

Can a donor be a friend too?

After we’d been on the fundraising trail for 18 months or so, a good friend of mine asked me a question. He and his wife are planning to go into missions when he’s done with his degree(s).

In a nutshell, he wanted to know “How did we keep from looking at potential donors as the money tree?” That is, how do we maintain a sincere relationship with our donors, potential donors and other people on our mailing list of 350-400? Can it actually be done?

Keeping honest and sincere relationships with people who we had good relationships with to begin with hasn’t been a problem for me, or for my wife as far as I know. With people who we didn’t really know or hadn’t seen in many years — of which there were plenty on our mailing list — it was naturally more difficult.

And then there were the people who I knew well but my wife had never met, and the people she knew well but I had never met. As much as possible, we tried to make it so that both of us were at our support appointments.

Most of the time this hasn’t been an issue. The people that support us do so with confidence. They believe in us, and those that understand the work we do (mobilizing is not well-understood) believe in the work we do. Sure, I do have to remain conscious of my own sentiments, ever vigilant to keep from letting fundraising issues encroach on friendships — both with friends who support us and with friends who don’t support us.

However, there isn’t an easy formula for keeping relationships separate from fundraising. Perhaps I’d suggest, however, a Scriptural platitude: Abide in Christ.