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.

Pledgers who don’t give

You’ll always have some people pledge who never follow through.

There seem to be three categories of this kind of giver:

1) The person who pledges and never gives.
2) The person who pledges, gives a few times and then isn’t heard from again.
3) The person who pledges and gives seldom and randomly thereafter.

Of these, the first two are most common in my experience. Dealing with non-giving pledgers is tricky business. You don’t want to seem too eager to get their gifts by sending a slew of reminders, but some communication is prudent. Do take into account the personality and circumstances of the giver when deciding how to approach them. Some people have good and sincere intentions but simply forget, every month. Some people may be out of a job or lose a job after committing to a regular donation. If said donor is generally jovial, I’m more likely to approach them more often and more bluntly.

Two things I’ve leaned on are thank-yous and Christmas gifts. We’ve made a practice of sending donors small notes of thanks in the middle of the year, as well as inexpensive gifts around Christmastime. I use these as a reminder to people that they are a part of the team, although after a certain “point of no return” — that is, if a person hasn’t given for, say, 18 months or more — I’ll drop them from the thank you list.

In truth I don’t think this tactic has actually revived any of the non-giving pledgers. Even the two, that I can think of, “jovial” donors that I’ve given face-to-face or phone reminders to haven’t begun giving regularly, or at all.

Thus it seems to be a fact of living on support: You’ll always have some people pledge who never follow through. Plan on it when creating your budget and fundraising strategy!

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.”

Faith rewarded?

Our finances are getting a little be touchy — not that they’ve been anything to lean on — as we come close to a time when the money seems to, very frankly, be running out. We have a number of expenses, health related mostly, that we could cut but have decided are important enough to stick with until the bitter end.

We do have health insurance, but we don’t use it. In fact we’ve never used it. The expenses related to my wife’s health are through a specialist outside of our state, and is the kind of doctor health insurance companies scoff at anyway. Costs associated with this doctor can average around than $200 or more a month. We also see a chiropractor. Before moving to work with the ministry we did this regularly, but couldn’t afford it just after moving. When I began having mild dizzy spells after sitting at length in front of a computer, which is what I do all day working with the ministry, we both (for different reasons) began seeing the back-cracker regularly again. This costs us $140 a month. And the dizzy spells haven’t returned!

We’ve been able to manage these two costs, although my wife hasn’t been taking the supplements she needs to be all of the time. But since she quit working earlier this year things have become progressively slimmer in the checkbook department.

Earlier today I moved $750 from our savings to our now meager checking account to cover some other unexpected expenses. I felt the need to see the dentist after a tooth, which has bothered me in the past, became a bit sore again. The tooth ended up being fine for now, but my wife is also in need of new glasses. We’ve gone the cheap route for glasses the past four years, but are feeling like this pair needs to be a bit more tailored. Between the dentist and new glasses we’ll easily spend $400, if not more.

Just after getting back to the office today my wife called me. She reported that the mail was just delivered, and it included two things: A large package of nonsensical papers from the health insurance company, and a personal check from one of our donors. The check was in the amount of $500. This will easily cover our dental and optic needs for the month, and should allow me to restore the money I moved from the checking account.

Such uncanny timing has happened in the past, in fact with this same donor. Her commitment is truly inspiring.

Now if we only had about five others like her, in giving and commitment!

What constitutes justifiable spending?

Earlier this morning my office mate shared a story with the rest of us. He told us of a friend, of modest means, who asked his very well-off friend a question. Modest means asked how a person could justify spending $2 million dollars for a home, as very well-off friend had done. Very well-off replied that the millions he spent on his house were less than 1% of his annual income, and how could modest means justify spending 20-30% of his entire income on housing?

(For a bit of context, we were discussing the merits of purchasing a Wii. All of us in the office are of very modest means. We also all work in the internet industry, and thus are — from time to time — intrigued by video game technology. I gamed on a Wii for the first time just two weeks ago, and must say it’s quite fun.)

The above example, of course, is not really an apples to apples comparison. The idea of two million dollars to me is, well, unfathomable. I won’t even pretend to understand the budget of a person whose two million is a measly 1% of his annual income. Those of us around the M-DAT office would be living in cardboard boxes if we only spent 1% on housing, as would most Americans. Bear in mind I’m coming from a very run-of-the-mill perspective here, living in a small community where housing prices are generally considered “affordable.” I’m not in certain real estate markets, where a cool two mil might get you a two bedroom flat.

And thus it’s very, very difficult for me to comprehend how I might spend even one million bucks on a house. Of course, unlike many American dreamers, I have a staunch aversion to McMansions — to all things oversized, overstuffed or generally inconsiderate of practical spatial considerations. I don’t need three-gazillion square feet; nay, I don’t even want three-gazillion square feet. I don’t say this to knock people who want to recreate the open prairie in their master bedroom closets; it’s just my personal preference. I’ve said before that there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a large house (speaking outside of cultural, social and sustainable concerns).

In many things I’m not a very detail-oriented person, much to the chagrin of most employment classifieds. However, when it comes to architecture (and most things visual), I’m extraordinarily particular when I can be. Thus, if I built my own million-dollar home, for me to give attention to an exponential myriad of details — resulting in a significant cost increase — is feasible. Construction methods, materials, moldings, sustainability and so on.

Still, I cannot imagine my own precisely detailed, non-McMansion ever cresting the two million dollar mark.

While traveling in late May we visited people who support my wife and I in our service with the non-profit we work for. Somehow, over dinner, Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges came up. This led to a brief discussion about Walton’s failed attempt to purchase The Gross Clinic late last year. Our friend across the table listened in cynical disbelief at the 60 million dollar figure the painting eventually sold for, lamenting how people like my wife and I struggle to live in a missional and support-based lifestyle when numbers like these are somewhat regularly thrown around for paintings. And this is a serious consideration. What if Philadelphia, instead of raising $30,000,000 in pledged money (in order to secure the $60,000,000 plus loan) for a painting raised the same money in two month’s time to feed, house, cloth and provide jobs for the roughly 25,000 homeless people in the city? If a metropolitan area can mobilize so quickly for a painting, why not for people?

And I say this as an artist.

I wish someone would buy my paintings for sixty million, or six million or even six hundred dollars, knowing such financial tension exists in a lot of people’s personal budgets. I’ve come to a point where I desire to not pass judgment on how people spend, knowing the difficulty of such decisions. I say “desire to not” because it’s very difficult to not pass such judgment (as a human being) living on support.

Getting back to the Wii, my boss was having a hard time justifying the $249 he needed to shell out for the system when the people depicted on posters around our office live on that amount of money in an entire year. My officemate, friends with modest-means, noted that even people who live on so little spend 1% of their income on entertainment.

When donors are disagreeable

At church Sunday my wife took a lot of notes. She took a lot of notes on how she disagreed with the sermon topic overall as well as numerous details.

We were visiting a supporting church.

I still know a number of people in this church, including my parents, but it is still awkward when — particularly in the case of a church — a supporter is living or preaching something you don’t agree with. And I don’t really know what more to say right now other than “it’s awkward.”

Child trumps missionary

In our fundraising efforts, my wife and I have been met with many reasons for a person not to give. A lot of the time it comes down to your (purported) basic lack of money. Despite being the most wealthy nation in the world, with an insane amount of resources, we can always find something new to spend our raise on other than Kingdom work. The newest video iPod (or fandangled up-and-coming iPhone), a larger house, a newer car. Our options seem limitless, and we’ll buy on credit if we don’t get the raise.

One of the more common excuses related to a lack of money is a new child in the family. Admittedly, I can’t (yet) relate to the expenses surrounding the birth of a child (to my wife’s chagrin). The idea, however, does scare me quite a bit; it seems like a very significant expenditure on a partially-supported missionary salary. However, we are commanded to fill the earth. And even if we weren’t commanded, the wiring in women everywhere would see to the perpetuation of the human race (thankfully).

We have plenty of friends with children who give to our service at M-DAT, but I was reminded recently, again, of how expenses related to the birth of a child prevents people from giving. How can a missionary tactfully respond to such a situation? Is there any viable response other than “OK?”

By no means am I coming down on people for having kids, and each family’s giving circumstances are different — their abilty to give and their desire (or lack thereof) to give. If missions giving is a priority, people will find a way to give regardless of other expenses. This post, in reality, is probably venting certain frustrations as much as anything.

My apologies; I usually try hard to steer away from this kind of teen angst!