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Brainstorming Page - Missions App

Last edited 430 days ago by Timothy Fong

Stuff



Vision

All believers encourage, financially support, and enter the mission field through inspirational intimacy with missionaries.

Product Principles

Missionaries are content creators

Missionaries experience all the joys of creating content (from ideation to engaging with supporters) and little of the friction.

Content means cash

Supporters easily engage with content because the experience encourages and prompts giving. The entire experience generates a heart thankful to give.
“In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.”
1 Corinthians 9:14

Distraction kills

The product competes for scarce attention. The product, even before opened and throughout its use, invites engagement and overcomes the lures of alternatives.

Biblical Principles

All Christians Go On Missions

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:19-20


Christians Meets Financial Needs

“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.”
Acts 2:44-45

Product Summary

The app creates an intimate relationship between Missionaries and their Supporters.
It does this by streamlining content creation for Missionaries and by making donations simple and fun for Supporters.
It makes money as a % of donations, between 10-15% of total donated value, minus additional processing fees.
The primary channels of growth will be through mission organizations and churches.

Personas

Missionary - Short Term - Planning

I intend to go on a short term Mission
I don’t have the income to do fund it myself
I don’t feel comfortable raising from individuals

Missionary - Vocational

I currently am already supported by my church
I don’t often think about engaging with new supporters because I depend upon the church

On the Fence Missionary


Churches

Active Supporters

I give to at least one missionary
I wish I heard more frequently
Long updates and presentations are too heavy for me
I am open to more giving but just don’t feel compelled to do so

Prayer Supporters

I don’t give to missionaries
I personally know at least one missionary
I don’t give because X

Members of Supporter Community

Non Believer Friends of Supporters


JTBD and Problems by Persona

Missionary - Vocational (I want to...)

Raise sustainable support from my community

But I don’t have time to be always fundraising
But my community is too small I need help expanding my circle

Receive encouragement from my community

But I often don’t hear anything from them
But I am often too busy to frequently communicate

Encourage more people to go into the Missions field

But I am busy tending to my own field

My Missional work to expose the Gospel beyond my immediate relationships

But I am busy tending to my own field

Active Supporters

I want to be able to more regularly support Missionaries

But I am super busy
But I forget they are in the field
But I lose sight of what they are doing
But I would prefer to spend my money on something that feels more immediately gratifying
But I don’t feel a strong ongoing connection
But I feel the typical one time asks are too heavy for my finances

I want to be able to invite more people I know from my community to support Missionaries I support

But I don’t have an easy way to do so.
But the chance to invite support often occur through “mission fairs” which are cumbersome and infrequent.

I want to feel more connected to missionaries I support

But the communication is infrequent
But the communication channel feels too noisy and not intimate
But it sometimes feels too one directional
But it’s not engaging

Metrics

Active Missionaries

The number of Missionaries who are using the app in a given week to:
Post content
Respond to supporters

Amount Raised

The total funds that have been released to Missionaries from their Supporters. We want to see metrics that include:
% increase from past 30, 60, 90, 365 days
Total raised by period, including all time, year to date, past 30, 60, 90, 365 days
Top Missionaries in terms of total by time period
Top Supporters

Funding Per Missionary

Number of Supporters

Active Churches

Business

Minimum viable business

To be viable with two FTE, the business needs to bring in $500k in pre tax income within a year.
There should not me expenses > $100k per year, inclusive of G&A/S&M/IT.
On a recurring monthly basis, this is about $41.7k per month.
It should reach a minimum steady state of $1M a year within three years.

Financial model

A percentage of funds raised. The take rate for comparable businesses can range from 0 to 20%.
Right now 10% seems like a common number although we may want to consider increasing it to 15-20% initially because of the limited size of the market and then need to reinvest in growth.
We are a ministry, as well. We are not a faceless payment processing company.

Business goals and assumptions

This means $5M of donations would need to flow through the app to reach sustainability.
We are assuming an average yearly support of $50k per missionary.
To hit this goal, we would need 100 missionaries actively using the app for their fundraising.
If we assume that the support levels from Supporters average $500 per year, this means each Missionary has effectively 100 Supporters.
Assumptions / Scenarios
# Missionaries
Monthly $ / Supporter
# Supporters
Yearly Donation
Revenue
1
100
$500.00
25
$15,000,000.00
$2,250,000.00
2
100
$100.00
25
$3,000,000.00
$450,000.00
3
$0.00
$0.00
4
$0.00
$0.00
5
$0.00
$0.00
There are no rows in this table

Operational Goals

While the beginning will be hard, the business should be designed to sustain with a 20 hour week.
Contractors and automation software should reduce the time spent.

Product

Features for the Missionary

post

Post videos, text, or photographs.
Should be one click easy.
Text
ImageURL
VoiceURL
Date
Poster
Post.png

reply

Reply to comments to any format.
Only one thread deep. Meaning:
A reply to the main Post can get replies. But those replies cannot get additional replies.
Open: @ mentions auto complete and with notifications....is this essential? (can’t do)
PostID
Reply Text
Date
Replier ID
Heart Count
Gift Count

Reply.png

notifications

See a thread of all replies, comments, gifts

invite

Invite people to become part of community.

manage community

See who is a member of the community

fundraise

Define a campaign for fundraising. Basic budgets can be set. But also additional projects out in the field.

live events

Schedule and hold a live streaming event.

reporting

View giving and subscriptions in order to get a picture of financial stability.

basic budgeting

Create budgets and see how much of the buckets are being funded in real time.

withdraw

Withdraw donations in the local currency through a bank.


Features for Supporters

accept invite from Missionary or Supporter

Missionary and Supporter can invite others to join a Feed or Community belonging to a Missionary
The invite provides the Invitee the following information:
Who is the Missionary
Profile
Location
Mission
Organizational Affiliation
Accept to Join
Information on what it means to Join
Get an intimate glimpse into their life
An opportunity to be in community with other supporters
No financial requirement to join the community
For security, it is not anonymous - other people will know your basic identity

feed

Scrolls a feed across all missionaries being supported.
Click to enter reply
Scroll infinitely along the time line

This is a query:
poster In follower?
Feed.png

view profile

Supporters want to know more about Missionaries.
The Purpose of the Missionary profile is to increase trust and create inspiration for the Missionary to give and support.
The page should create a fun experience for supporting.
Display Profile Info
Life Verse
Supporters (privately unless in)
Recent shares
Display Profile.png

payment method


reply

Same as for Missionaries

post (pre-joining invite)

This is for the supporter before becoming part of a given community.
It should allow the potential supporter to see a given post. Click to see a public facing profile.
It should then have a call to action to actually login. This means there is a secondary login widget and it appears on every public, unauthenticated login page.

Sign up flow should return the user back to the given post, but display the Replies just like any authenticated user.

Challenge:
The primary use case will be for users who do not have the app, in which case dynamic linking must be working!
Display Post as Invite.png

invite

Invite people to be a part of the community.
This probably has similar, shared functionality as the ability to invite.
Invites can be made from a given Post belonging to a MIssionary

gift

Supporters can directly provide recurring support.
They can also make one-time gifts for specific campaigns run by their missionaries.
They can either use debit card or credit card.

tax reporting

Receive an end of year tax statement

sharing

Supporter can share a piece of content to their friend circle or community.
That piece invites someone else to become a member of the community
The content is private until shared
Some content cannot be shared at the discretion of the Missionary

matching challenge

A Supporter can set up a matching challenge where funds will only be released when matched. This is only possible after some threshold (total giving in the month for example).

reporting

Supporters want reports in their giving.

Go to Market

Name

About missions support, ideally without using that word or any likeness
Give us room to expand into different markets
Convey the sense behind missions (sent)
Must be easy to understand and spell

Content

Content on missions for
Guest post on Relevant

Business Development

Direct outreach to organizations that have a vested interest in improving the support experience for both missionaries and churches.

Risks

Missionaries don’t embrace the tool

As our primary customer, if missionaries don’t want to solve the pains we are solving, the product will fail. Possible points of failure:
They prefer to stick with old modes of fundraising
They don’t want to increase the level of communication with supporters

Newer missionaries don’t exist

Another thesis has been that the new generation of missionaries will embrace this approach. Points of failure include:
There is dwindling next generation missionaries
Next gen missionaries who do embrace the tool are short lived in the field

Support drops

People don’t want to give to missions
People who do give already to not want to give more through the platform

Calendar of Events



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