Heading into March, my goal was to add on 20 new monthly supporters to my ministry team. But just two weeks into my face-to-face meetings, everything came to a halt. Hugs and conversations over café lattes abruptly came to a stop. I was suddenly partnership building in a pandemic.
At first, I just paused. I naively thought, This will pass quickly. Or Doing partnership building that’s not face to face just won’t be effective.
Let’s be honest. Support-raising propels you to still cultivate relationships with that friend from high school; that relative you usually only see once a year; that couple you’ve talked with only a few times at church, but you know they love the country you’re going to.
At times, this may feel false to you: I wouldn’t be pursuing this if there wasn’t money involved.
But you realize this is about more than money–and that the mission is greater than your discomfort. You also realize you’ve gotta persist in asking until the goal is reached.
Our family’s support raising journey chaos adventure fell around the birth of our first child. By the time he was 13 months old, we’d hauled him to 13 states. We’d lift him into his carseat again, and he’d start wailing. Poor kid.
I know that for a lot of us, the path is long and uphill.
Say you’ve got a fundraising trip scheduled to an area with lots of personal contacts–but not that much time. Would it be better to have a large dinner or dessert? You could present to a church and ask them for members to support. You could present to a Sunday School class. Bada-bing, bada-boom. Done.
What’s the best option?
We know: Sometimes you want so badly to be DONE with support-raising, for the love of Mike, that your prayers are confined to some version of ohpleaseohpleaseohplease help me find the money.
Don’t hate us for this? There’s a lot of richness to be found in this crazy, so-tired-I-could-sleep-on-an-African-bus journey.
So we want to give you something to hang your hat on–something to anchor your soul. We’ve given you 6 printable verses to encourage your support raising, so we’re taking the next natural step.
PRINT 1 CORINTHIANS 9:24-27 HERE.We know: The road can feel long in support raising, the discouragement real. Sometimes you might even wonder whose bright idea this was to go there this way.
We’re impressed by Support Raising Solutions’ top five verses for fundraising (a passage from Nehemiah? Who knew?). If you’re wanting to sink your teeth into the biblical basis for raising support, this page and this page could give you a rousing start, and here’s a longer one for all you theological (or seriously skeptical) types here.
So…we loved your enthusiasm for our 5 [Printable] Missions Scriptures to Memorize (*That You Probably Don’t Know Yet) for your Journey. Ready for more?
The BAM Review has published a pretty sweet summary of need-to-knows for Business as Mission–all in a tidy infographic. And please, click here for 50+ BAM job openings around the world!
Totally into BAM? From their think tank, BAM Global has produced a series of 19 Issue- and Region-focused reports on business as mission.
Fundraising ain’t for sissies. Not that it should, but some might report it makes you feel like you just walked out of the public bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe.
But what if there are resources to make your presentation just that much easier, and a touch more professional to inspire confidence? Though nothing can substitute starting with the right support-raising mindset (! Don’t miss our post on the fear of rejection in fundraising), we’ve gathered a few goodies to make you feel a little less…awkward.
Canva is an easy-to-use graphic-design website for people who’d love a little help in the form of professional-looking free templates and a drag-and-drop format. It’s frequented by non-designers as well as professionals. We’re talking templates for print as well as web: for social media (for your Facebook page, Insta feed, or blog), invitations (for that fundraising dinner a friend’s throwing), brochures, letters, flyers, slideshow presentations, posters–you name it.
