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This is the first week of the cohort coming together. In reality, most of the members of this cohort won't know each other, will be coming in with doubts, concerns, frustrations or might come with mostly desperation. In the end, everyone is coming to receive some type of help. So, this needs to be a safe space.

Allow for all parties to introduce themselves. Have them share the information that makes sense. Some suggestions are:

• Name
• Where are they coming from?
• What is their current ministry role?
• Why are they here? (think goals)
• What is their hope for the next 8 weeks and beyond with MTD?

Weekly Rhythms

Next, be sure to share with individuals how the call will likely go each week. Here are the questions we suggest you ask on a weekly basis:

NOTE: Go "around the room" so each person can report on their MTD work (couples can report together).

• # of Financial Asks. Feel free to inquire how it went.
• Something you’re thankful for in MTD this week
• Something that's working or a question or discussion item for your group → [If they can’t think of anything] What would make this call helpful for you today?
• Action items update from the previous week
• Optional: What’s in the way? What are some of the obstacles in your MTD work?

Once everyone has had a chance to share, we recommend taking the leftover time to walk through some specific strategies and skills that will be helpful long term. This week, we recommend going over what's called the "Magic Number". Please see below for some content to cover (and feel free to share this page with missionaries to read themselves)

Magic Number

The average gift you would need monthly per donor if you were to cap your support team at 60-75 people. 

This naturally leads those raising toward a larger goal to be asking for larger investments. 

How to calculate your Magic Number:

• Take your total monthly support goal (make sure it’s updated!)
• Divide your goal by 70 (or 75 if both you and your spouse will work MTD, or 60 if it's just you raising and you struggle to reach out to many people).
• This will give you the average dollar amount you should be challenging new and current donors to give. 
  **If a supporter is already giving above your magic number, please continue to ask them for an increase. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you to an amount.**

Example:

$7,000/month support goal divided by 70 =$100. That means the amount you ask people to give (or increase to), should be right around $100/month. *If your magic number is below $100, it's recommended you still ask most people to prayerfully consider giving "$100, or some other amount." 

Why does it matter? 

First off, it works. Donors feel honored and missionaries become funded.

Our support team feels honored while giving us the capacity to continually cultivate with a discipleship mindset. This means personal phone calls and knowing our supporters, as well as them knowing us. We simply cannot do this well if we have too many people on our support team. This is where the Magic Number comes in. By intentionally asking people to invest generously, we create the space to honor our supporters by investing generously into them. 

It builds long-term sustainability. When a raise or budget increase occurs, current donors are naturally engaged in increase asks vs seeking out more and more new donors to join the team

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