MissionFundraising.com/JimWaltersOnline.com

Mission Support and Church Fundraising Resources

Archive for the ‘donation letters’ Category

Welcome!

Welcome to MissionFundraising.com and JimWaltersOnline.com

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I’m Jim Walters, a pastor and avid supporter of missions. On this site, we are providing a whole bunch of Mission Support and Church Fundraising resources. Some are free, others cost just a little bit. We hope you find what you’re looking for, and that you find these tools useful.

You can find out more about me, and how I’ve come to learn a little bit about fundraising by reading the About The Author page.

You can take a look at the handbooks I have to offer by going to the Products page. I even have something you can download for free: “Top Ten Youth Fund Raisers.” Just fill in your name and email address at the upper right-hand corner of the website, and you’ll be on your way!

Be sure to scroll down and view the blog posts. These often have good, insightful information to help you learn and keep focused on your task: fundraising for mission support, church planting, etc.

Check back often because we’re just getting started. Let me know how these items work out for you.

Jim Walters Jim@JimWaltersOnline.com

How Not to Win a Pastor’s Support

Part One

As a missionary you need the local church pastor’s support, in order to get church budget support. Here are three big pitfalls to avoid, if you want his heart inclined toward your need. Do NOT do these:

#1 Attend a service without advising him, then grab him at the end while he’s trying to field people coming to the altar for more heartfelt reasons. The moments just before and after the end of a church service are sacred to the pastor; trying to grab his attention for your agenda is a sure turn-off.

#2 Call the pastor and say, “Hey, we’ll be in town Sunday, can we share at your church?” Do what? You’ve had those airline tickets for months, yet you wait to the last minute to notify me? Maybe out in the mission field you plan things on short notice, but back home we’re planning services three to six weeks out minimum. To hit me up at the last minutes, makes me feel disrespected and misunderstood — you are showing that you are not aware about how things are at home.

#3 Just drop by the office and ask if the pastor has a few minutes. This assumes two things: (a) the pastor is in, like he’s going to be in the office and available anytime Mon-Fri, 9am to 5pm, and (b) the pastor has nothing to do right now and can gladly give you an hour. Again, it’s disrespectful and just not smart — you wouldn’t do that to your dentist, your hair stylist, or your accountant — why do it to a pastor you’ve never met?

Do I sound like Mr Gripey and Whiny Pastor? If so, it’s only because all three of these thing have happened to me in the last month. I really do love all missionaries, if I had access to money I would increase all their support, but honestly, sometimes I think a lot of their financial problem is that they work like uninformed neophytes when it comes to building relationships and raising support.

You can find helpful tips on raising short term mission trip, or church planting support, on this website. Just go to our product page.

Jim Walters
Jim@JimWaltersOnline.com

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Donation Letters: “Do I use Color or Black and White?”

That’s what the missionary candidate wanted to know, as he was preparing to send out 100 very nicely prepared donation letters.  He said that the local copy place was asking fifty cents per copy more, to do it in color.  His original was in color and looked great. It spoke of competency, confidence, and clarity.

“Let’s do the math on this thing,”  I said.  You’re in the middle of mission support, for a short term mission project (actually it is for two years) so the stakes here are big.   You’ve got 100 prime prospects, with whom you will follow up by phone or personal visit.  The cost of the postage is the same, whether you use color or B/W.  The extra cost for color is $50, for the 100 letters.

Suppose that only ONE person more responds positively, because of the high quality and strong appeal of the full color letter.   That one person contributes $50/ mo for 24months, and you reap a return on investment of 23 times your cost going in — that’s like 2,300% return.  If you can find me that for my retirement funds, I’m “all in,” so to speak.

Jim Walters

Jim@JimWaltersOnline.com

Now is the time for great fundraising letters!

In these hard times of economy, some churches and many missions-minded Christians are thinking, we must back off and do less. No!  We must advance and do more.  History shows that giving to churches doesn’t necessarily have to go down during recession times, although that will be the tendancy unless we step up and take action to raise mission support.   
 
Now is the time for great fundraising letters!  Now is the time for upgrading missionary support systems, through more effective communication. More effective doesn’t mean more often, and it certainly doesn’t mean begging or panic messages.  Rather, it means laser-focused messages that communicate the vision of the mission. Write donation letters that expound upon what God is doing in the field, through short-term missions, through nationals who are stepping up, through prayer.  Tell the story in a way that communications the vision, not the shortfall.  People give to vision, not to need. People will rally to you if you are caught up and passionate about what God is doing through your work.

Jim Walters

A Better Donation Letter

As the senior pastor of a large church, I read a lot of donation letters. Plus, I once served in full-time missions and raised mission support for several years. I did it all wrong, of course, and now looking back, from the perspective of one who reads twenty or thirty of these letters every month, I see that clearly now.

Too many fundraising letters look like “letters to Grandma” and highlight mostly what the family has been up to, how the kids are doing in school, and where recent travels have taken them. But the people who are supporting this mission aren’t especially concerned with family news — they want to know what God has been doing through this ministry! When committees at church meet to discuss church fundraising or to ponder missionary support issues, they are not concentrating on whose family is having the most fun out there, or whose kids are winning the most awards in schools or sports. The question they are asking is, “Where is God at work, and how can we support that?”

Jim Walters

Economic “virus”

So the economy sneezes and church fundraising catches a cold.  Missionaries and church planters are getting pneumonia.  But it shouldn’t be this way.  The vast majority of Americans who had jobs last year are still working hard at those jobs this year, and being paid as much or more.   Forget about the folks who are out looking for work. There’s more than enough people still earning full pay who can finance the work of God on this earth.
 
The real problem with church fundraising is that too many of our leaders are afraid to “make an ask” because we are afraid we’ll turn them off, and worse than that, lose them.  I say “we” because I am one of them, but after thirty years of ministry, I have figured out that people are just as likely to rise to a financial challenge as they are to run from it. Besides, as John Maxwell has famously said, “You choose who you lose.”   And James said, “you have not because you ask not.”  Now there’s a creed for fundraising in a tight economy.
Jim Walters