Support Raising from Your Pastor’s Perspective

By on February 5, 2019   /   Fear and Perspective   /   Leave a comment

  Almost a quarter of a century ago, my wife and I were fresh out of college. Our first full-time mission was reaching college students with a parachurch ministry. Our history of support raising up to that point primarily consisted of funding stateside and international summer training projects. However, in this work we needed to trust God to provide us with regular monthly support from individuals and local churches. We lived the highs and lows of this experience for eleven years on two different campuses. It was amazing to see how God provided and how He gave us a team […]

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Warning Flags in Field Staff Funding

By on January 15, 2019   /   Leaders, Leadership   /   Leave a comment

As a leader watching over the support health of field laborers what are some warning flags that should grab our attention? We all know a major contributing factor to workers leaving the field is the area of finances and MPD. Once workers have reported to their assignment location, and we’ve supported them through the natural seasons of team and locational culture shock, adjusting to a new work and personal life, etc., we need to be watching for signs to help us determine which staff may need additional coaching with their MPD. Financial stress can be caused by any combination of […]

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Eat Healthier, Read More, Get Fully Funded

By on January 2, 2019   /   Fear and Perspective, Strategy and Planning   /   Leave a comment

The New Year is a time when people tend to look ahead, make goals, start fresh and consider trying new things. We want to lose weight, go to the gym, eat healthier or read more. Sometimes these New Year’s resolutions lead to the change we hope for, yet often our intentions are good, but our follow-through is not. Maybe you also have goals in support raising you hope to reach this year: “This year I will add 5 people each month to my newsletter list. I will add three people to our financial support team this quarter, or I commit […]

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Many Hands Make Light Work

By on December 18, 2018   /   Infrastructure, Leaders   /   Leave a comment

“Many hands make light work.” Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru), remembered this teaching from his mother as he was struggling to raise all the funds for the organization in the 1950’s. It was at that point he ushered in a new paradigm of funding his organization. No longer would the annual budget be limited to what one or a few people could raise. No longer was an annual budget the determining factor of how many more campus ministers or missionaries could join their ranks. By empowering all of the staff to mobilize the ministry partners […]

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How to Write an Awful Newsletter

By on December 4, 2018   /   Communication and Relationships, Preparation and Tools   /   Leave a comment

  Not again, I thought. I felt like banging my head against the wall. As Assistant Director of MPD, my job includes skimming staff prayer letters to hunt for good stories. Some staff write exceptionally powerful newsletters. But at that moment, I had stumbled onto the “What Not to Do Newsletter.” The author, “Joe Staff,” wrote with good intentions but had effectively written a newsletter most partners wouldn’t want to read. Here’s where Joe went wrong: Too Long “This is the newsletter that never ends…” sounds like the childhood ditty, “This is the song that never ends.” Some staff write […]

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Your Team Needs a Champion

By on November 20, 2018   /   Coaching, Leaders   /   Leave a comment

On every sports team you have key roles. You have the coach who creates and executes the game plan and calls the plays. You have a team captain who does whatever it is that team captains do. You have your key positions like quarterback and pitcher. But I am always most impressed with that guy who is rallying other players at the start of the game, giving pep talks on the sidelines, whose energy raises everyone’s spirits and abilities. If Ministry Partner Development (MPD) is a team sport (which I think it needs to be), I call this person the […]

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Meaningful Gifts Create a Tradition of Thankfulness

By on November 6, 2018   /   Family and Finances   /   Leave a comment

Being a husband and a parent has made me realize you only get one shot to make life as special as you can. Days pass into years so quickly, you can easily miss opportunities to make life more meaningful. So we have made time to build traditions with our family that are fun, make people feel special, and most of all make our family feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. Several years back, my wife and I were encouraged to create a tradition to honor our supporters. Our support team is so faithful to give and pray, and […]

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How Our Asking Has Evolved Through a Contextualized Approach

By on October 16, 2018   /   Culture, Leaders   /   Leave a comment

  In 1 Chronicles is a detailed account of the mighty men who joined David in order to “turn Saul’s kingdom over to him, as the Lord had said.” It mentions a small group of men from Issachar, “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do–200 chiefs, with all their relatives under their command” (1 Chronicles 12:32). One of the challenges we face as Partnership Development professionals is prayerfully seeking wisdom to understand the times. We must stay aware of the context in which we live and minister, discerning how it affects our relationships with those we are […]

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It’s Time to Get Personal

By on October 2, 2018   /   Special Asks   /   Leave a comment

If you are a new missionary raising support or a veteran missionary living on support, there is an important time of year quickly approaching I wanted to remind us of. There are more charitable donations given between November and December than any other two months in the year. Check out these statistics from www.neoncrm.com. Nearly one third (31%) of annual giving occurs in December. 53.8% of nonprofits start planning their year-end appeal in October. 28% of nonprofits raise 26–50% of their annual funds from their year-end ask. 59.9% of nonprofits make between 1-3 donor “touches” for their year-end campaign. We […]

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Graciously Letting Underfunded Staff Go

By on September 18, 2018   /   Leadership   /   Leave a comment

  My friend Melissa has been homeschooling her ten-year-old son Ethan since he was five. This past school year was a rough one. Ethan is strong-willed, and he fought his mom at every turn about doing his schoolwork. Melissa, normally a calm, laid-back woman, found herself yelling at Ethan multiple times a day. The fighting wore her out, and she knew she wasn’t honoring God. She prayed, did some research, and came up with a new plan. If Ethan didn’t have all of his schoolwork done by 5pm on Friday, he would lose his screen time for the weekend. Brilliant! […]

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