Episode2

Adding time in your week

Corrie Guckenberger, 13 year veteran with Back2Back Ministries, discusses best practices for managing your time and commitments during support raising. We know you’ve got a life, and we want you to live it while also raising your funds effectively!

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Healthy planning

At Bootcamp, we encouraged you to plan administrative time each week and to frequently evaluate your schedule, ensuring you maximize your time for meeting with future ministry partners. This week, we will feature some tips to add more time to your week and gain momentum toward reaching full support.

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” –Ephesians 5:15-16 [ESV]

As discussed in numerous sessions during your Bootcamp, support raising can consume your mornings, afternoons, evenings, and weekends. We don’t want you to get burnt out or to neglect your family. We want you to make strategic choices about how you spend your time during this support raising season. There are a lot of tasks to work on for support raising, but they are not a substitute for doing the work in support raising.

Work ahead

One strategy to avoid getting mired in these background tasks is to dedicate time early in the week to make phone calls and set up your appointments for the following week. Make use of the organizational tools, like scripts and the contact management software that you prioritized setting up during and after Bootcamp. Then pick up the phone. Keep making calls until you’ve filled your appointments for the coming week.

Do you still need to back out of more commitments so you have adequate time for support raising?

• What “good distractions” are still on your calendar? Are you overcommitted to various things that are keeping you from support raising for your calling? [Volunteering at the food pantry? Coaching little league?] Consider sharing your complete schedule with your accountability partner to ask for input on potential activities to postpone for this season.
• If you are married, have you and your spouse ensured that you are on the same page about changing your calendar to gain the Big Mo’? You may want to look back at Part 7 of your workbook to help you with this conversation.

Go full time

Raising support full time can lead to you becoming fully funded three to four times faster than doing it part time. Appeal to your organization’s leadership if you must in order to allow you to draw some ministry income during your support raising season. If possible, make use of the “special ask” to establish a Springboard Fund so that you have living expenses taken care of. Having three or four months of living expenses available to care for you and your family’s needs will allow you to have a greater focus. Not everyone has or needs a Springboard Fund, but it might be the single biggest step you can make toward creating time to focus on becoming fully funded!

If you haven’t yet, read My Top 5 List of Special Asks by Steve Shadrach to expand on this idea.

 

May God bless you in building your team of ministry partners,

The SRS Team

 

This Week’s Self-Improvement Challenge

Is your appointment request script helping or hurting you? Take some time to clarify and refine it to ensure that it is concise, clear, and inviting. Rehearse your appointment request script (with a partner when possible) to become more confident in your delivery, and to make any needed adjustments. Then practice, practice, and practice it some more out loud!

Spend some additional time in prayer before you pick up the phone for the first time each day. Ask God to bless you with focus, to speak through you, and to give you guidance about who to call.