Why Use the Prayer-Oriented Home-Group Fundraising Approach?

“I’ll do anything to help the Church except ask for money!”

If you have been active in your church for more than a few weeks you have heard (or even said) the above statement. Most people hate the idea of asking someone for money regardless of the cause. But alas, a need for a new facility arises and there seems to be no way to avoid a capital campaign. Your first thought may be “How can I raise $1,000,000 (or whatever amount you need); I have no idea where to start?” Other church leaders will have the same question and the obvious answer my seem to be hiring a fundraising consultant. That will raise your comfort level until you learn the following three facts.
 

1. A typical fundraising consultant may cost $30,000 to $50,000 or more up front.
2. The money still comes from your congregation. A good consultant will assist by giving you a plan, preparing materials, training volunteers, and providing the discipline to keep you on track, but volunteers from your congregation still ask for the money.
3. Volunteer solicitors don’t really want to do the job described in their training and prospects don’t really want to be approached by a fellow church member.

You can obtain a detailed plan from this website. With the guidance you get from this website, written by someone who has done this hundreds of times before, you can prepare all the needed materials. If you use a Prayer-Oriented Home-Group approach an army of one-on-one solicitors will not be necessary, thus extensive volunteer solicitor training will not be needed. That brings you to the topic of discipline. If fear is still a major concern, recruit your strongest leader, send them to this website, and tell them their challenge is keeping everyone on course. If it would help, you could always tell them some churches spend $50,000 for what they will be doing.

In summary, it is necessary to have a good plan, but it is not necessary to have an expensive professional continually read you the elements of that plan. Implementing a successful capital campaign can be done without the expected pain if you simply follow the instructions in this website.

There are an infinite number of ways to approach a capital campaign, but for a brief overview, I have grouped them into the Traditional One-On-One Approach, Multiple Creative Event approaches and my recommended Prayer-Oriented Home-Group Approach. Here is a general overview of each of these approaches:

The Traditional One-On-One Approach

This may be the first approach that comes to mind and it may also be the approach that brings up negative memories. This approach builds a pyramid of trained volunteer solicitors sufficient to reach all church members. The chairperson recruits five captains who each recruit five solicitors, who then solicit five prospects each. This size pyramid could reach 125 prospect families. For a larger church the addition of another level will enable you to reach 625 prospect families with each volunteer responsible for five other volunteers. Once this large organization is in place, your fundraising consultant provides an extensive volunteer solicitor training process. Campaign volunteers are usually very polite and agreeable, but almost never actually implement the training they receive. In spite of even excellent training the typical Campaign Solicitor gives a pledge card to their prospect with the following statement. “Here is your Capital Campaign Pledge Card; please get it back to me next Sunday.” Next Sunday arrives and the prospect forgets to bring his card. The next Sunday the prospect is not in attendance because there has been a virus going around. By now the Campaign Captain is pressuring the Campaign Solicitor to complete their personal solicitations. The next Sunday the prospect has a business meeting out of town. By now the Campaign Captain, the Campaign Solicitor, and the Prospect are at least frustrated and may even be mad.

The paid Fundraising Consultant attempts to provide encouraging words, but by now no one is listening. This negative experience goes on for not just weeks, but for months. The volunteer campaign structure realizes their highly paid fundraising consultant’s entire role is to assist in writing the printed material, conduct the training sessions, and trying to motivate everyone to stick to their original schedule. The fundraising consultant may accompany a Campaign Solicitor on a few individual calls, but with few exceptions, all the asking is done (or not done) by volunteer Campaign Solicitors from your congregation.

The campaign eventually gets done, but by then everyone is exhausted, frustrated, or even mad. With this approach to a capital campaign, it is not uncommon for division in the church to occur. What is most important, is all of the above negative aspects can be avoided with the Prayer-Oriented Home-Group approach.

Multiple Creative Event Approaches

A successful fundraiser once said there is, “Asking for money and everything else.” Since most people see asking for money as a negative experience, they frequently focus on “Everything Else.” The thinking is if they exhaust themselves, everyone will think they did a good job regardless of the result. There is an infinite number of activities that can be classified under “Everything Else”.Possible events include the “World’s Biggest Bake Sale” or “Hiking Across the Desert for a New Church Building”.One successful special event even involved dumping a bucket of ice water on your own head. These can be fun activities, but baking cookies, hiking, or soaking your head with ice water does not by itself raise money. Sponsorship of so much per mile or activity is needed to actually generate any money. I am familiar with an organization who had a night time golf tournament with glowing golf balls.

Everyone had fun and the non-profit even stated it was the best fundraising event they had ever had. There was only one problem. After all the expenses were factored in, this fundraising event actually lost money. This approach can be a great way to have fun or exhaust yourself, but it is not a great way to get money to build new facilities.

Prayer-Oriented Home-Group Approach

Now for the good news. Many Christians state that God is their source of supply. If they really believe that, prayer should be the central theme to their fundraising approach. If the solicitation discussion took place between the prospect and God, instead of between the prospect and a trained campaign solicitor, frustrations based on human interaction could be avoided. There is no need for extensive volunteer training or motivational report meetings. The campaign can be completed at a series of home meetings. All prospects are told (multipletimes) that their giving decision will be requested in a sealed envelope at the end of their home meeting. A Case Statement brochure and an Invitation brochure are given to every prospect again reminding them that their giving decision will be asked for at the end of this home meeting. A church leader reviews the Case Statement at the home meeting followed by a brief video presentation. At the end of the video presentation everyone is asked to place their completed pledge card in a provided envelope and seal that envelope. All of these sealed envelopes are collected and then taken to the Campaign Accountant who is the only person who sees the amount of anyone’s gift. The giving decision remains confidential with all the discussions about the given amount being between the prospect and God. No one can say “Ralph pressured me to give more that I wanted to.” I have had discussions with God where there was an initial disagreement, but as the discussion continued, I usually realized God was right. The entire capital campaign can really be that fast and simple as long as the following few necessary rules are strictly followed.

The solicitation is between the donor and God – no one else is involved in this decision. This personal confidentially is required to maintain credibility.

1. Donor prospects should never be surprised – Prospects must be told many times (and I mean many times) that their giving decision, in a sealed envelope, must be turned in at the end of their home group meeting. The emphasis on this detail cannot be overstated. It may seem crazy, but you will be protecting prospects from themselves. Some prospects may resist this detail for a simple reason. No one wants to say no to a needed new facility, but if they say yes, it will cost them money.
2. The easiest response for the prospect may seem to be postponing the giving decision. Just make sure you have done everything possible to communicate that their decision is needed at the end of the meeting. No one is saying any number for the donor to place on the pledge card, but a sealed envelope will be requested at the end of this home meeting.

NEVER – NEVER – NEVER distribute pledge cards before the meeting.

1. The Prayer-Oriented Home-Group creates a decision point. If a prospect gets their pledge card before the meeting, that decision point is lost. If you lose control of the pledge card, you will be chasing it from then on. Good Christians are always helpful, and if permitted, someone will think they are helping by distributing pledge cards several days in advance. The best way to prevent this problem is to keep every single pledge card under lock until the home meeting. Your good Christian friend will find another way to be helpful.

This may be a radically different approach than you expected since it does not require a large number of volunteer solicitors, or a major time commitment to volunteer training and personal solicitation. This Prayer-OrientedHome-Group approach is far easier, much quicker, more productive, and virtually without the possibility of offending donor prospects. If this sounds too good to be true, just consider the following fundraising misconceptions that you may have heard (or even said).