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‘Development Fundamentals’ Survey: Christian Nonprofits Share Top 10 Ministry Fundraising Boosters

Mike Buwalda, CSA Stewardship Connections Editor


What are other Christian nonprofits doing to improve their development programs and ministry to donors?

Below you’ll find the top 10 ways to boost your ministry development program, according to a recent survey of Christian nonprofits. Following the list is a compilation of the actual responses I received from your peers in the survey.

  1. God: Christian nonprofits acknowledge that God is the source of all that we need. Practically, that means we pray first. Gather staff and volunteers and ask God for the funds. Thank Him for the support received. Pray for your donors and their needs. Give your development efforts to God. Practice biblical stewardship and help others understand God’s way of handling money.
  2. Staff: By far, the factor cited most often by Christian nonprofits that saw an improvement in their development efforts was staffing. That includes hiring gifted new staff members as well as training existing staff. The benefits of hiring good staff include multiplying the impact by involving more people (including staff, volunteers, and the president), asking “more and better” for gifts, and better allocation of the workload.
  3. Plan: Be intentional, strategic, and consistent. Review your data and plan accordingly to reach your various constituencies. Find ways to become more efficient in your daily operations. Invest in software for record keeping and relationship building.
  4. Relationships: Ask your major donors to help you with things besides money. Build on past work with foundations. Be in touch and consider asking more often.
  5. Consultants: A number of people said consultants were very helpful to them. Some were even mentioned by name (see survey comments below). Consultants are helpful in planning, executing special projects, and getting fresh motivation to bring their programs to the next level.
  6. Communications: Ministries and Christian schools that are happy with their development programs tend to be very visible. They have a well-considered message, they send out many mailings, they often contact donors by phone, and they get creative with media like the radio. In short, they look for ways to reach more people with more information about their ministry.
  7. New Donors: Begin with a strategy to expand your base of support. Get out of the office and speak to new groups about your ministry. Develop “points of entry” events to make it easy for people to meet you and learn about you. Then be sure to follow up with the new folks who come your way.
  8. Special Campaigns: There is a double benefit in doing capital, endowment, and estate gift campaigns. Not only do they raise a lot of excitement and money for a specific cause within your organization, but they also create a ripple effect that translates into more visibility and more dollars down the road for other parts of your ministry.
  9. Volunteers: Involve supporters directly in your ministry. Ask them to serve on a development committee, or to provide help in your development office. Train volunteers to make phone calls for you to raise funds and thank donors. And be sure to keep your volunteers informed.
  10. Christian Stewardship Association (CSA): CSA was cited several times as an important resource to ministries and Christian schools. CSA’s annual convention and Institute provide valuable training from highly credible speakers. Others mentioned how CSA introduced them to people and consultants who gave their ministry development programs a big boost.

From Your Peers
Has your development program improved? What is your ministry doing to improve its development programs and ministry to donors?

We just had our largest gift year ever in received donations, pledges, and estate planning and have made some important changes to the department staffing in the last year. The challenge before us is hiring the right people to fill several open positions. But, in general, yes it is a stronger and more efficient operation than it was a year ago.

Rick Bee
Biola University


It has improved dramatically! We did a strategic plan (hired a firm that was at the CSA conference in Houston a couple of years ago. That conference really kicked me in high gear.) We hired a development director last November. We increased our marketing budget from $40,000 per year to $140,000 per year in 1 year and we started an aggressive endowment campaign. These things combined with our aggressive approach and the faith of our board of directors is really starting to show results. The future is looking much brighter. God is blessing the process!

 Bill McCuaig
 Ceta Canyon Camp and and Retreat Center


Our development program has improved greatly over the last year. Although there are many factors contributing to the Mission’s success (increased direct mail and grant writing efforts, improved special events), our endowment campaign is likely the greatest reason for the improvement. CWRM was chosen to participate in the Kresge Foundation’s Partnership to Raise Community Capital—an effort to help raise awareness of the need for endowment to help secure the future of our state’s nonprofits. Although our goal was not large ($100,000), the exposure in the community through the partnership and one third match from the Kresge Foundation, as well as the help of our own Wyoming Community Foundation, paid great dividends in our overall development success in the past 12 months.

 Risa Petrie
 Director of Development
 Central Wyoming Rescue Mission


Our development has definitely improved in the last 12 months. The main reason, I believe, is we have a development director focused on raising money and raising awareness of LCS in the Lansing community.

 Jim Koan
 Lansing Christian School


Much improved. More major donors are involved hands on. They want to do more than write checks. Our volunteer associate trainer program has given them opportunities to invest their skills and abilities—a stewardship of life approach. About 200 of our key financial partners are now teaching biblical leadership around the world.

 Doug Carter
 Senior Vice President
 EQUIP


 Yes. Why?
 We added a staff member so our workload has improved.  Existing staff members received more continuing education so their skill levels improved.
 We made progress toward the public phase of our campaign so our progress has improved.
 We increased our annual fund total despite being in a campaign so that shows improvement.
 We overhauled our Web site so that aspect has improved.
 We hosted more point of entry events so our prospect pool has improved.
 We received more funding from foundations so that channel has improved.
 We are being more strategic each year so you could say all is improving.
 Slow but sure we are making good progress.

 Gary Hoag
 Denver Seminary

 

Unaudited receipts through the end of fiscal year 2005 exceeded goals. The projected gross annual income was $14,812,000. Actual receipts were $14,849,456. Expenses, projected to be $3,542,844, came in lower, at $2,531,356. This means our net income was $12,318,100—more than $1 million above the expected $11,269,156. Reason for success: Donor acquisition and first time donor strategies worked to achieve the income goal. Expenses were kept down. Armed Forces Ministry (chaplain support) continues to bring in significant totals toward its ministry. However, this is not surprising considering the Iraq conflict, which keeps this ministry fresh in the minds of donors. AFM direct mail brought in $336,964. The total from all sources is $604,344. The annual budget for this area is $325,000. Reason for overwhelming income: the Iraq war.

 Ronald E. Nelson
 Director, World Mission Support
 The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod


 Yes it did. Why? Longer time for donor development since this is a new program for LifeWay. Web presence, in a limited way.
 More support from existing divisions within LifeWay. President has come on board to help raise funds.

 Bob Hawley
 Lifeway


Mike, our overall stewardship effort has been very successful. That is a result of 10 years of ongoing training, teaching staff and boards the difference between fundraising and biblical stewardship and ministry to funding partners. Additionally, we now have a full and complete training program for stewardship for all new staff to take. Also, the 7 years of stewardship staff attending CSA Conference and Leadership Institute has made them much wiser and on top of issues needed in the ministry!

 Ralph Stewart
 Fellowship of Christian Athletes

 Our development program has improved (thank God!). Our donations are up and it seems like our personal contacts are growing.

Reasons:

  1. Thank you God, first of all! We begin most days in prayer. I don’t say this lightly at all. I had never done development work prior to working for Reasons To Believe, so I’ve desperately needed the Lord’s wisdom and guidance. We also thank Him for our donors and ask Him to provide new ones. It’s been fun to see His answers. Seems like a number of the big donations come from people I didn’t even know about. The praise belongs to Him.
  2. We’ve become consistent in what we do each month over the past 1 1/2 years, and people have commented that they’ve noticed improvements in what we are doing. So, I think that inspires greater trust, perhaps?
  3. We have been getting out there to meet people more through donor dinners and desserts.
  4. We’ve enhanced our customer service department so that they are more trained and able to help people better. They are also now actually soliciting donations during the conversations they have with people calling in to purchase products. They also help people become aware of other products that are similar to what they've called in about.
  5. Did I say prayer?!
  6. We sent a gift to our major donors last fall as well as at Christmas.
  7. We’re more intentional about sending follow up letters to those “names” we collect at events. This started longer than 12 months ago, but I think it helped lay the groundwork.

 Esther Attebery
 Reasons To Believe

Yes, our overall program has improved. Early in the year we spent time reviewing historical donor measures and determining a plan of action for the year which was very helpful.

 Kevin Heyne
 Spring Hill Camps

World Relief's private income though July is running 5% higher than the previous year. This excludes our disaster income, most specifically our Tsunami fund. Disasters of this size enable us to raise significant amounts of restricted disaster income and some incremental unrestricted income, but it does hurt ongoing restricted fundraising. We have had success in our church relations areas, and we have spent time on organizational messaging, which has enabled us to better articulate a case for support. Acquisition of new donors is one of our biggest challenges.

 Becky Graninger
 World Relief

I feel like ours has improved over the last 12–24 months with a number of changes that have been implemented. I feel that in two areas we gained strength. One area is with our Office Rep team that calls our mid level donors and prays with them. Our aims are to build them up, encourage them, to generate loyalty to TWR, and hopefully challenge them to jump up into the major donor level. A second area has been in the area of using U.S. radio to communicate what God is doing through TWR and invite people to partner along with us. We have seen tremendous growth in this area in the last 1–2 years and are looking to expand again in 2006.

 John Summerville
 Trans World Radio

Our Development Department has improved because our two department staff learned how to conduct capital campaigns and a consultant developed a development plan.

 Jay Craig
 Shiloh Christian Children's Ranch


Yes it has. We hired a full time person in estate design. He has conducted 80 face-to-face meetings with people. Our relationships with foundations are paying off as they are making grants to us. We are attempting to build more intentional relationships with major donors.

 Randy Dirks
 Bethany International


Over the last 12 months, our best development tool has been “Will and Trust” seminars. Not only have they been good information sources for our people, but the positive response in future funding to our church has been significant.

 Mike Graham
 Southeast Christian Church

 


No, it has deteriorated slightly. Best guess—competition for donor dollars from disaster efforts. Also, more Christian donors seem to be adopting the stance that gifts overseas are needed more urgently and used more efficiently.

 Dan Ward
 New Hope Center


Yes, our development program has improved a good deal over this past year. Income is up. I attribute this to better communication and some new staff in our Ministry Advance division.

 Daryl Anderson
 Associate Executive Director
 EFCA International Mission


No. Our development over the past several months has suffered to some degree. I believe one of the major reasons is a change in policy here in our office which took effect January 1, 2005. We introduced a shared administrative cost (i.e., overhead) to our project funds and donors have responded negatively to this by finding other avenues of getting their funds to the projects they wish to support.

 Jim Black
 North American Baptist Conference
 Senior Leader Worldwide Outreach


I think it is a little better, although the next year will be challenging due to rising gas costs and the hurricane relief efforts. We are trying to concentrate more on Major Donor Gifts ($1,000+). We are finding golf events and bowl-a-thons are not as appealing as they once were since every organization seems to be doing them now.

 Mike LeMay
 Q90 FM


We were down last year over the previous year as follows: Enrollments down 9%: 2003–2004—242 students, 2004–2005—220 students. Donations and fundraising down 1%: 2003–2004—$108,574, 2004–2005—$107,634. Reasons: As a Christian school, we are finding that an increasing number of Christian parents are being lead to take a more direct role in educating their children and are home schooling. In spite of rapid growth in our community, most Christian ministries throughout the valley are struggling with revenue and support. There appears to be an increasing “consumerism” in the Body of Christ resulting in worldly values and priorities.

 Jim Eldred
 Business Administrator
 Monroe Christian School


It improved because we got more information to more people about our programs and our needs. We are speaking to civic and church groups. We are sending appeal letters to more people plus we added a full-time assistant to my position as Director of Planned Giving and Major Gifts to cover south Louisiana. We never had anyone in southern Louisiana.


 Bob Flournoy
 LA Methodist Children’s Home


Our fundraising among foundations has improved over the past 12 months. The main reason is the result of past work and the Lord’s blessings. We need to do more fundraising among churches. This is a much needed area of improvement. I spend 4 months a year in the U.S. fundraising for the work over here [in India]. Thank you and God bless!

 Tom Christenson
 Director, South Asia
 Evangelism Explosion International


 Yes, it has improved a lot. Some of the reasons:

 Jim Sprague
 Pregnancy Resource Center

We showed immense improvement, particularly in our Annual Fund and phonathon. We introduced more segmentation, monthly and quarterly giving plans and strategies, and moved to an all year-long phonathon with professional training for our students.


 Harold P. Hazen
 Vice President for University Advancement
 Taylor University


Overall, I’m quite pleased with the development program progress. With respect to our systems in place, great care is taken to ensure the accuracy of our records and proper gift recording. My staff is painfully detail oriented in this regard (which is a good thing!). The most marked improvement in our department comes from the communication among staff members, the increased efficiency aspect of the dat-to-day operations, as well as growth in our alumni relations segment and Web based development vehicles (which is still in progress). We will be wrapping up a fundraising campaign at the end of this year and undergoing study towards another in the future. It has been and continues to be a blessing, being involved in such a challenging vocation, and ministry just the same.

 
 Scott E. Long
 Director of Development
 Winebrenner Theological Seminary

Yes, the overall development program has improved in the last 12 months. The primary reasons include a focus on praying for the overall effort and our donors, dedicating a full time professional in charge of the annual fund and quality consulting advice specifically targeted on our comprehensive capital campaign.


 Gordon Flinn
 VP Marketing and Development
 Simpson University


Yes, our program has improved. We have established a better structure for doing development work with a major gifts focus while maintaining our annual support levels. We are now geared to move forward with a major gifts program that will be strategic, well planned, and efficient. We have become better stewards of the time and budget that we have been provided to generate the support to carry out the College’s strategic plans.


 Rick Van Dyken
 Trinity Christian College
 Executive Associate to the President for Development


We have improved and did so by very strategically and intentionally working with our various constituency groups to produce these positive results. To help us in this endeavor we retained professional counsel from the John R. Frank Consulting Group. Specifically, John B. Savage has been instrumental in helping us achieve our specific goals through targeted training, monthly meetings and providing additional support resources. We are excited about this coming year and the opportunities presented through our positive improvements last year. We are expecting great results!

 Dilenna Harris
 Vacaville Christian Schools


We have improved slightly. We are in process of hiring a development officer. Any improvement is due to working with a development consultant, applying development principles, and hard work. Thanks!


 Glen Osborn
 President
 China Outreach Ministries


I would say that our program had definitely improved. Having no background in development, CSA (and your presenters) has been my primary source of direction. The information has been creditable, well presented, and from quality individuals.
Thanks.

 Ron Collins
 OMS International


Yes, definitely improved, thanks to outsourcing to McConkey Jonnston.

 Gary Brumbelow
 Interact Ministries


Yes, it improved. God provided more money and some new good people were hired to keep the momentum going.

 Wes Wilmer
 Biola University


Yes, our program improved. Why? “If we could explain it, God didn’t do it.” A quote from Warren Weirsbe. We have a fundamental philosophy and theology of relationship development, and a great team of gifted people that certainly add value to the mix. But we cannot take credit for our program’s improvement. We pray first and always witness God’s hand of favor at work. To Him is the glory.

 Jim Loscheider
 Vice President of Donor and Development Ministries
 Samaritan’s Purse


I assume that you are focused on a Planned Giving effort when describing a “development program.” We have a stewardship program that is underway and is operating well. As to PG, we have a link on our Web site to a number of pages that were designed by a consultant and, quite frankly, we have had essentially no response from any one in our congregation. We intend on expanding our effort in this area in the next year and have entered into an agreement for consulting services in this area.

 Steve Vlahovich
 Grace Community Church (AZ)

I find that our performance in fundraising last year, mirrored the national trend, as it relates to higher education institutions, that is —we raised more money overall, but had a slight drop in the number of donors who gave. This meant that the donors we did have either gave larger gifts or gave additional gifts during the year.

 Steve Onnen
 John Brown University


Definitely, yes. First, we switched to Raiser’s Edge software and feel like we are miles ahead of where we were. The things we are able to do now and the research potential have placed us in a position never before experienced at our university. Secondly, we have come off of our most successful campaign to date and most successful local campaign as a part of that. The key was our volunteer help and inviting people to be involved in the project. Those people are now anticipating the fruits of their hard work. The key now is keeping them informed and involved during the construction process.

 Terry A. Zeitlow
 Assistant Vice President for University Advancement
 LeTourneau University


 The Advancement Office of Tabor College saw improvement in a number of areas:

 1) Record in total gifts receipted in one year
 2) Increase in total number of donors and total number of alumni donors

Our strategy this past year was to expand our donor base. We did, however, see a slight decrease in church support; although, church giving still accounts for about 25% of annual fund income to the College. Gifts from foundations and corporations also declined. Kansas is limited in the number of foundations with interest in Christian higher education. Tabor College is located in a rural community, thus corporate giving has never been a strong area of support.

  Jim Elliott
 Tabor College


Yes, we had more staff and we were more focused on moves management with current donors rather than expending significant effort finding new donors.

 Anita Deyneka
 Russian Ministries


Our fundraising improved over the last 12 months. We have hired two additional people in that area and are funded for the third.

 
 Wayne Gardner
 Toccoa Falls College

Yes, improved. Why? Only the Almighty knows. My observations:

1. We simply worked at development. We had a very industrious Development Director who came to us with virtually no experience as a development director. I think that she hit her stride in a number of areas during the last fiscal year. She worked really hard and really well and in several areas with considerable creativity. Because her work of directing our development effort requires her to direct the work of others (including myself in this area), her effort multiplied in more effective work on the part of several other people. The result: We asked more and better than ever before. Our development improved in quality and quantity.

2. The economy in a key geographic area for us improved. Thus, our stepped up efforts happened at a time when a key area of our financial pool was richer than it had been, or that it perceived it had been, over the last several years. Thus, (more + better work) x more favorable environment = more money.


 Anonymous by Request

We were able to add Raiser’s Edge software and lay the ground work for a planned giving program for Village Missions. We also were able to raise the awareness of biblical stewardship in our mission.


 Larry Shetenhelm
 Village Missions


I would not say that we saw significant improvement, although our giving was up slightly from previous years. We have not actively cultivated a development program largely because our board is reluctant to make an investment in staff, and does not really trust an outside agency to represent us.


 Garry Sutley
 Central Pennsylvania Christian Institute


Total funding is down due to an extremely large bequest that was received in 2004 and because special event income has been down.

 Randa Noble
 Rockford Rescue Mission


Yes, we had a better focus on donors and sharing needs of the Kingdom work.

 Evelyn Lemly
 Bible League

Yes, we were blessed with increased income through our volunteers, our newsletter, and our telemarketing efforts.

 Steve Davis
 Bible League

Yes, I'd say our overall development program has improved in the last twelve months in a number of ways.

  1. By changing the way we report income to the board, showing them the variety of means we employ to do fundraising, we have raised their level of awareness and interest in the process.  The development committee attended two seminars related to major donor fundraising this year and has begun to help in building relationships with our major donors.  The entire board has become involved in thanking donors with personal notes and phone calls.
  2. We adjusted staff responsibilities to improve the "fit" of each staff person to their particular role.  In the process, each one has developed a broader knowledge of the overall development program, and we are more capable of helping each other effectively.  We are making a concerted effort to develop a Policies and Procedures manual for development.
  3. Our direct mail program has been pretty strong, but this year we added a "Matching Gift" appeal in June/July.  The response to that appeal made the summer slump a lot less "slumpy."
  4. We have had a monthly donor club for ten years.  This year we added a major donor club called "The Hope Builders Society" and are customizing each communication with this group to cultivate relationships.
  5. A bequest started an endowment fund for us and we are looking at ways to encourage endowment gifts.
  6. I attended a "Moves Management" seminar and read Donor-Centered Fundraising, which have made me much more diligent in thanking donors promptly and with relevant information about the difference their gift made.  "Moves" has also made me more consistent in keeping records of contacts and planning for the best person to make that contact.
  7. We have re-established regular Awareness Luncheons for leaders in the community to come to lunch, a few at a time, to have lunch in our conference room with the Executive Director.  They view a short power point presentation and take a quick tour of the high points of the Mission.  We emphasize the positive contribution the Mission makes to the quality of life in our community by changing lives, one at a time. 

Bebe Dorris
Kokomo Rescue Mission

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