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Renew your mind
Let’s face it: It’s been a while since you’ve really turned all your focus toward full-time MTD, and many of us, when we think of picking up that phone, have a few buried fears. They are, in some ways, the same fears we faced when we raised our initial support. But they also have the potential to be more insidious because now they can be compounded by the memories of our past experience.
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You may find it helpful to review some of the available materials on the biblical examples of missionary fundraising in scripture and the practical advantages of MTD in today’s world.
Resources
Set your attitude: Boldness
In addition to refreshing our hearts and minds on our call to ministry, the appropriateness of MTD and our call to do MTD, a return to MTD is an opportunity to review the things that God has done over the last years. What are the effects of your ministry efforts? What stories have moved you? What experiences have challenged you? What important tasks are still undone and people unreached? What needs drive us to seek the power of Jesus to do more?
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“With five years of campus ministry under my belt, we’ve found our Christian character and ministry skills increase with every gospel moment or challenge. We are having a greater impact than we have ever had, and this thought has convinced us to be bold in asking for your increased financial support. This is the right time.” |
Establish two clear goals: a dollar amount and a date
The questions of “how much do you need to raise” and “when do you need it?” are key. We need concrete goals here. “As much support as we can get” is true for nearly any missionary, but infinity makes for poor communication and vision as we lead ourselves and our ministry partners into the next phase of our ministry.
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Let's look at an example. Jeff has a current support goal of $6,514 but is showing only about $4,950 in active recurring giving each month. He’s getting by, but there is not room for ministry expenses. And because of the lower funding, Jeff hasn’t taken his last offered raise, which would increase his support goal even more. The shortfall is $1,564. After prayer, Jeff decides to set his intermediate goal at $1,500 of new financial support and celebrate if it goes even above and beyond that. |
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Jeff has found that he’ll be able to cut away from full-time ministry responsibilities in mid-April and has most of the summer set aside for MTD. He’s hoping he can meet his goals by the end of June but isn’t sure. In order to communicate a clear deadline for donors, however, he chooses July 15 as his deadline. This leaves enough space so that donors don’t delete an old email just because they think the date has passed.
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Jeff writes further, “In order to return to full-time ministry, we need to meet this goal by July 15.” |
Resource
Use the MTD Goal Setting Worksheet to help you figure out a good deadline.
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Prep: It Takes Time!
Common mistake: underestimating the start-up time needed to get to full-time MTD momentum. The following checklist is the kind of thing that can be done part-time while you are pulling out of other ministry responsibilities but may take several weeks:
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- Write a letter introducing your full-time MTD time before it starts
- Update your missionary profile on Reliant.org (see Solomon page instructions)
- Have you created a missionary profile card to give out at appointments? (see Staffnet instructions)
Game Plan: Who to contact in the right order
- Partners = current recurring gift financial partners
- Prayer Partners = the wider mailing list; receive regular prayer updates; may give special gifts
- Former Partners = previously gave on a committed basis but don’t any longer
- Alumni = student or individual impacted by your campus ministry, church plant, etc. who may have moved on but still have loyalty to your work
- Current Ministry Participants = appropriate ask of people who currently benefit from your ministry (review biblical concerns and local ministry/church policies first).
Depending on your experience in ministry and your freedom to travel, we recommend the following orders of priority:
Full-time Staff with longer than four years since initial MTD and time/ability to travel
1. Current Partners
Location A
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11. Local networking or other contacts
Full-time Staff with longer than four years since initial MTD but restricted time to travel
1. Current Partners
2. Current Ministry Participants
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5. Prayer Partners
6. Former Partners
Full-time Staff with less than four years since initial MTD
1. All Pending Names from Initial MTD
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5. Referrals as received from all of above
Resource
Use the Location Detail Worksheet to help plan trips and strategy.
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Communicate early, concretely and often
This is your chance to continue to turn donors into partners. Donors passively sit on the sidelines, and we fear that they will withdraw funding if they see ineffectiveness or something they do not like in the ministry. Partners, on the other hand, have a sense of ownership or stake in the ministry. Even though they are not on the frontlines, they see challenges as problems of their own — ones they want to help solve.
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- Write a brief prayer letter that stands out and only explains the funding shortfall and your plan to return to full-time support raising. Keep it very short and noticeable in order to maximize the chances of getting read. Don't feel obligated to give a ministry update at the same time — you’ve done this in other letters.
- Send in “multiple dimensions.” If you typically email your prayer letter, send a postal mail copy to everyone as a follow up. If you typically use postal mail, send an email with the identical letter attached. (“I just recently sent this in the mail but wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it, so I’ve attached it to this email.”) Handwrite intros or p.s. on the postal letter.
- Promise to call every letter recipient, then do it. If you are following up Current Partners, this may already take months. It’s worth it. You want them to know what’s going on. Depending on the circumstances, set up a time to meet in person, a distance appointment or do a call for decision.
- Consider sending funding updates every few weeks via email or online. Invite partners to follow along as you pursue your goal! Create a visual graph. A concrete date and dollar number make this possible.
Asks
Prioritize your ask according to your needs and who you are contacting.
| Financial: Increase Recurring Ask | “Would you consider doubling your current monthly giving to Reliant?” |
| Financial: New Recurring Ask | “We’ve loved sending you our prayer updates for a while now. Would you consider becoming a regular monthly giving partner? |
| Financial: Special Gift Ask | “We understand that you’d prefer just to give in noncommitted annual amounts. Tell me this: We have an important upcoming cost of$1,000 for seminary training this summer — would you be able to consider giving to Reliant to cover that cost?” |
| Referrals: Re-asking for Names | “I know a couple years ago you helped us meet a few other people to tell about the ministry. Thank you! Now that we’re back to full-time support raising, this might be a key way to help again.” |
| Referrals: First-time Names Ask | “It’s great we’re getting to speak again because there is a really key way you can help that we haven’t been able to talk about before…” |
Aim high on your ask for increase
The people most committed to our ministry are those who have already invested time, money or emotional energy in it. Our partners, sending money each month, care much about the success of what we are doing. Further, they are not likely to be offended by a strong ask. If they can’t say yes, they likely wish they could.
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| “In order to meet this goal, would you consider doubling your monthly gift to Reliant?" Not all of us will be able to do this, but many of us will, and we believe this investment is seeing much fruit right now. We pray you can give as generously as you are able and God leads. Regardless of what you can do in addition, we remain incredibly grateful for what you are already investing. Thank you. We’d love to give you a call really soon—let’s catch up since it’s been such a long while. This is a good excuse to connect. |
Special Gift Ask
If your goal is monthly, avoid the special gift ask until you’ve asked clearly for recurring giving first. Donors need to understand clearly what you need. They may think that giving an additional $500 right now is just as good or better than increasing their monthly gift.
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| Important policy reminder: Even though we have personal needs, we can’t directly ask people to give toward, say, a car repair because this isn’t a direct Reliant ministry need. Think “Could I legitimately reimburse this cost?” before you use it as an example. |
Names Re-Ask
When asking for referrals with those you have previously asked this, be sure to:
- Acknowledge previously bringing this up. “I know a couple years ago you helped us meet a few other people to tell about the ministry. Thank you! Now that we’re back to full-time support raising, this might be a key way to help again. We need more people to join the team.”
- Report back on results of the previous request. If you were able to share with someone, or especially if someone became a partner, lead with this story. Often we forget to do this, and partners might not realize how crucial this is.
- Remember the basics: connect things to the ministry need and remind them that you are completely dependent on others helping you like this, brainstorm before getting contact information, etc.
- Invite them to feel ownership of adding people to the partner team. “You and our current financial team will be able to cover some of the increased need for Reliant, but if we work together we can add others to the team who care about campus ministry as well…”
- Ask about previous referrals that never seemed to pan out. “Does it make sense for me to try them again?”
In-person or not in-person?
For many of us returning to full-time MTD, we will have to decide how many in-person partners appointments we can do.
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For most of us, a full-time return to MTD that lasts longer than 4-6 weeks should likely involve seeing many partners face-to-face and related travel. This investment in relationship will pay dividends in better responses to both financial and referral asks and the long-term stability of your team.
Digital Technology & Social Media
As the world has turned digital, some of the best new MTD tools are digital — and formerly reliable paper letters and normal phones aren’t always the best basic go-to. In fact some will find that with cell phones and universal caller ID, the phone call has become a less obvious option for initial contact with MTD. Since these things change, consider your full-time MTD a good time to get up to speed on the latest so you can be most effective with MTD.
Quick Tips
- A personal missionary website, even if very basic, is almost more important than a printed piece.
- Personal emails work well as a first “hello” tool to re-initiate contact with partners.
- Sometimes a text message works in place of a voicemail.
- Facebook and Twitter status messages can help communicate with those that love and feel ownership with your ministry, including ministry partners. “We reached 50% of our special financial goal for this summer today: keep praying!”
Resource
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Checklist
- Renew your mind on your call to ministry and MTD
- Set your attitude: boldness
- Establish two clear goals: a dollar amount and a date
- Prep! Get new photos, scrub your data, more
- Game plan: chose who to contact and in what order
- Communicate early, concretely and often
- Know which ask is appropriate and refresh
- Know how to ask for an increase
- Decide how much in-person MTD you need to do
- Get current with the digital world
Resources (Complete list)
- Biblical Principles
- MTD Goal Setting Worksheet
- Editing Your Reliant.org Missionary Profile Photo & Descriptions
- Creating a Missionary Profile Card
- Location Detail Worksheet
- MTD & Facebook
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