How do you gather and communicate with supporters for fundraising experiences? What
Work for navigators
Been with as part time staff since 1994, full time since 1998 (fully funded, on support) Navigators don’t pay - lament over that - Navigators have such a godo platform, well-known name, could generate income for support staff Feels like navigators use field staff as way to generate income for business — feel like it’s unfortunate Challenges for field staff - is fundraising Necessary component in terns of livelihood, also spiritual aspect of having that community be behind your work Don’t like how much is placed on the staff to do that - living in southern California, having a 100k salary is nothing - need to raise 150k if not more — $1 million in 6 years — have 5000 staff members One donor at a time, build up base, eventually you get there Feel for new staff coming in, structural thing out of control General:
What’s your experience with ministry and missions? Didn’t grow up going to church, became christian in high school, went to navigator bible studies in high school Navigators took over Spiritual journey in college What does a typical day look like for you? Already had 2 kids by the time they went — balance between family and school First went as language students, learned mandarin, wife didn’t speak mandarin — gave them identity to be there in China Evangelism was natural as a family, had people over all the time from university they studying at, would go to class, take care of kids, play sports, have games, get to know others Had a team — spiritual community that they were accountable to. Day to day = a lot of relaitonships After language school, moved into vocation — joined a computer company - wasn’t profitable but allowed time to do miinistry, became English teacher - thinks its a good platform for China — house church started to form over the years A lot of spiritual interest in early 2000s - 2010s, from 2015 on there were a lot less — China has gotten so rich and technologically advanced, reliance on foreign expertise has decreased, so attraction of English learning, foreign investments etc wasn’t very valuable How did you communicate with your supporters while in China? Email — made sure it was secure Navigators - signed up for a secure platform that everyone had to be on — eventually landed on using gmail How would you evaluate security concern for platforms you use between 1 - not concerned, 10 - very concerned: 2 not very concerned — communicate well to donors about the concerns so they’re aware when they communicate to be careful Lorden does a training with everyone he communicates with The amount of communications is not that much Want there to be more communications — everytime he sense out a newsletter, such a endeavor Wish there would be easier way - text message or social media platform t Right now rely on emails — a lot of times people move and change emails and he doesn’t know and lose contact with them, even donors, have lost touch and don’t know how to get back in touch with them Have 50-75 donors, 300+ prayer list Not much converted from prayer to financial support — 10% How to convert prayer support to financial support? Make intentional fundraising calls or meetings to let them know needs and invite them to be a partner financially What was it like to try to schedule those meetings? Why did he want to avoid that? Felt like he had an ulterior motive for the relationship - not the same level of intentionality Hard to keep in close relationship with 300 contacts What would it look like to be keeping in touch Get feedback from donors and prayer support — is this helpful? Do you like getting my updates? How can I improve on them? Do you even want to be on this? Would be nice to get feedback and feel like the relationship is two ways. Often unsure how much they want to be Maybe people are on the list but not so interested anymore. set out for ideally monthly, later became every 2 months 4x a year “when it got bad” initially used to print and mail out everything; became all electronic physical letters were still helpful Lorden is 51 years old. Deals with older generations that appreciate a physical letter Emails get lost more easily than physical mail Make sure they can be remembered better — here’s a card, picture of us — visual element that makes Lorden comes to life Delivery assurance — not everyone opens email considering every other month electronic, physical letter once a year; want a quick and easy platform to communicate regularly Not married anymore, failure of marriage and fmaily system — ordered to come home, his wife stayed in china, Lorden took 5 kids home. Been a full time single dad for 4.5 years. She just moved back Navigators kept him on staff, gave her every chance to come back and used to be a lot of driving the kids, now it’s making sure kids are fed etc. job entails a lot of staff, student meetings, 1-1 discipleship relationships 4 out of 7 nights are at a function for ministry kids a lot more independent — turning 15 Communicate more frequently with supporters now. Walked with him through what happened with family — couldn’t keep it under wraps any longer Gave supporters a platform You don’t have to keep donating to this if you don’t believe in what I’m doing Haven’t lost anyone because of it Lost people because he returned from China Supporters romanticize give to people who goes oversees Have had 2 donors who communicated specifically if you go out to mission field again let me know. The nations are coming to college campuses in the US — I don’t have to go to go, couldn’t convince them to stay What apps or websites do you use on a daily basis? Why? How did you build relationships with donors? High school and college friends Church and navigator circles — people from natural relationships over the years Could you refer me to people who would be interested? Those haven’t been successful — those are successful for endeavors, e.g. 1 time goal, 50k to move to China — people give and fade out in the background Have 4 churches that donate to him regularly Elders at church, missions board Invite him to go in and share stories Met at a church that were interested in missions work Go to was the people on his prayer list that hadn’t been asked to donate — which one wouldn’t he have a problem calling up — low hanging How did people end up on prayer list? Friends from school Missions:
How do you summarize your purpose as missionary College age students — see window with young people as they discover identity, calling in life, loss in that even among Christians — see work as mainly to help disciple young believers and outreach to those who don’t know Christ - American student ministry and international student ministry How did you get into missions? Stayed on ministry as associate 1999 went to China — was there for 20 years 2 short term missions trips, in 1992 and 1994 — 8 weeks in China with Navigators — opened his heart to possibility, first time to missions, orientation, training, write support letters 1992 - english teacher at high school, stayed with families 1994 - worked for tentmaking office bulding with other missionaries, helped with their office work both gave him a lot of access to local Chinese, 1994 - worked full time in computer company, volunteered part time, went to Bangkok, connected with Navigators What made you move from part time to full time — wanted more spiritual training, felt gifted in ministry 1998 - Preparation to go to China — new staff orientation Fundraising, psychological testing, onboarding Past 3.5 years back on US side, was in HQ in Colorado Springs - UC Irvine Don’t always look at fundraising reports — sometimes just forget, think things are pretty good, funds are coming in What’s in the way of you looking? Is it taking time, the steps to take? — just forget sometimes I should be looking at them more, should be on me, be part of my job to do that Right now shows red — donors who give regularly but missing — rule is to reach out and communicate — hey I noticed your regular giving isn’t coming in over the past few months, is everything okay? When was the last time I talked to this person? It’s hard to ask because there hasn’t been intentional deep relationship prior to the ask. Had I felt there was intentional, relational development, it would be easier to ask. I also need to have reasonal expectations — to maintain good relationships with 75 - 300+ people The 35 that he would have no problem calling, text and call regularly as things come up — at least 10 that he texted this week Correlation between frequency and depth of relationship Depth of relationship → ease of asking for financial support History of relationship — What tools do you currently use to update your supporters? (e.g. mailchimp) Why? What have you tried? What tools do you currently use to fundraise? Why? What have you tried? Excel to manage financials WeChat is a security breach What other tools or products do you use in missions? Why? If you could summarize, this is really hard
It’s really hard to ask because there’s not enough frequency/relationship building It’s easy to ask when there’s history and trust — not just Limitation: that trusted group stays small Is there a way with limited time to increase the number of people who trust him by virtue of some increase in frequency of communication Lorden feels bad that he sees them transactionally Lack of frequency in other times of relational transactions If I heard back from them and I communicated more frequently in a way that wasn’t an endeavor — Felt like needed something interesting to say, not always have creativity This season is changing through advice of others and learning from past — making newsletter very short these days, include at most 2 pictures, a couple bullet prayer request, 1 paragraph In the past, used to be 3-4 paragraphs Increase frequency: monthly Always include: ministry update and/or personal life (especially family — most of donors care of his family life) Always feel pressure to include something about ministry Have to prove that he’s working, that the worker is worth his wages Put pressure on self — this is donor income, I am accountable to that Would rather the donors initiate giving than Lorden ask Debrief with Tim
Priorities in questions
potential richness for mining — Start with “Tell me a story about …” — get deeper into context later Discovery, Support, Ending support Want discovery outside — hunch it’s not the top pain It’s an intentional marketplace - someone’s going to approach me, or I know someone who’s going to go Takeaways
Increase conviction on thesis: it’s hard to ask because of lack of depth of relationships — frequency of communication, feedback from supporters, multi-media with pictures not wanting transactional, not wanting to appear like you have ulterior motives — preference for donors to offer to give rather than to ask — north star - what if the product was so effective that you don’t need to ask Tracking — make positive feedback loop where it’s not — perhaps app does it on his behalf — fall off Wasn’t concerned about security Training = a good proxy (passwords for prayer, substitute words etc) 