I spent 10 weeks this spring raising support. I learned a lot along the way and wanted to share the wealth. 

From observing thousands of missionaries raise support, Steve Shadrach has observed the following trends:

• For a Small Group ask or just sending a letter/email – 10% will respond (support you)
• Letters/Emails followed up with phone calls – 25% will support you
• Face to Face appointments – 50% will support you

I thought it would be interesting/helpful to share statistics from my personal experience.

I’ll highlight a few insights and then share the raw data below:

• 75% of Face to Face Appointments resulted in support (61% monthly supporters; 13% with One Time Gifts)
• It took 8 calls/messages (email/text/Facebook) to get one appointment
• It took 12 calls/messages to get 1 monthly supporter
• The average monthly gift was $102/month (a HUGE change from raising support 15 years ago when I mostly asked for/received $25 and $50/mo)
• For those that were long distance (too far to drive to have an appointment with) I emailed or Facebook messaged to try to set up a phone appt (click to download a Word doc of what I say in the email).
  • 27% of those emails resulted in phone appointment (so the vast majority never made it to phone appointments)
    • But with those that I was able to get a hold of on the phone (i.e. they answered my persistent phone calls), 77% supported us
      • My theory on the reason for that high percentage is that if they took the time to talk on the phone they had likely already made up their mind to support us.
    • Exactly matching up with Steve Shadrach’s stats, 25% of people I emailed/called supported us
    • Of those “conversations” that were just conducted via email/Facebook, 89% resulted in a “no”.
      • 3 people joined our monthly support team with just conversation over email/Facebook.
• So meeting Face to Face is the quickest (though slow!) way to raise support.

Statistics from My 10 Weeks of Support Raising:

Would love to hear from you: any insights jump out at you? What surprised you? Does this match up pretty closely with your experience?

Tomorrow I will share some Biblical foundations that were helpful for me as I raised support.

A little personal background:

I am not a natural support raiser – I’m not an extroverted networker.

This spring we needed to take 10 weeks off campus to work on raising support and, to be honest, I was dreading the experience. We have been on staff with Cru for 15 years and after our initial support raising, the most we had ever raised was $1000/mo (in a summer). This spring we needed to raise $4,000 in monthly support and I thought it would never happen. Yet God has provided in amazing ways and I have learned a lot along the way.

In the next few posts I would love to share some great resources and insights from this experience of raising support.

Steve Shadrach is a leading expert on support raising. He just released a new book on support raising The God Ask - endorsed by Ellis Goldstein (Cru’s Guru of Support Raising) among many others. Cru Staff- I have a hunch we’ll get a free copy at Staff Conference. I’d recommend following Steve’s organization: Support Raising Solutions on Twitter.

Steve gave a talk at Urbana on 5 Essential Keys to Fully Fund Your Ministry I’d highly recommend to anyone who raises support.

Great insights from the talk:

• The biggest need of the world is laborers (the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few…)
• The biggest obstacle = support (thousands want to do full time ministry but don’t/won’t raise support)

• We need to move from budget driven to vision driven…
• Most people in ministry make decisions based on “how much will it cost” instead of “will it further the spread of the gospel?” or “will it help my family flourish as I spread the gospel?”
• We don’t want the epitaph on our generation to read: “we kept overhead low”
• We want to change the world
• Aside: see this fascinating TED Talk for a totally different (secular), yet likeminded, viewpoint- Too many nonprofits are rewarded for how little they spend – not for what they get done.

• The average time for people to get to full support (across all ministries):
  • 18-23 months
• We challenge people to get to 100% in 100 days

• As we’ve trained 7500 people from 500 organizations in raising support, we’ve observed these Stats on Support Raising Methods:
  • For a Small Group ask or just sending a letter/email – 10% will respond (support you)
  • Letters/Emails followed up with phone calls – 25% will respond
  • Face to Face appointments – 50% will respond

Tomorrow I’ll share my personal stats and insights from 10 weeks of raising support.

photo courtesy of h.koppdelaney

It was John’s first week of school, and as he walked into the dorm cafeteria he passed a table where an upperclassmen with Cru offered, “Free Chick-fil-A if you fill out a quick survey!”

John took a minute to fill out the spiritual interest survey and went about his day.

A few days later a couple upperclassmen knocked on his door: They shared the gospel with John and ended with – “we lead a Bible study here in the Quads and would love for you to come tonight”. John started going to the study, went on Fall Retreat and started going to the bi-monthly Cru Leadership.

As he started the spring semester, John found himself again in front of the dorm cafeteria at a survey table. This time, he was on the other side of the table asking his fellow freshmen to fill out a quick survey (and later that week following up with them, sharing the gospel with them, and inviting them to the Bible study he was in).

[side note: we don't usually do surveys in the spring but did in this case because they were trying to relaunch a struggling dorm Bible study]

John made the comment to one of the Cru leaders – “it’s crazy how just a semester ago I was the one being reached and now I am the one reaching out.”

Since that comment “getting freshmen to move behind the table” has become our mantra.

We want freshmen to quickly move from being reached to reaching others.

A few ways we do that:

• Immediately involving them in follow up:
  • As you meet with a freshman during the first week of school and discover that they are a solid, missional believer challenge them to go do follow-ups with you.
  • They can just watch the first few appointments and then start owning more and more of the gospel conversation.
  • On our campus you cannot go into the dorms without a resident escort. Having a freshman resident go do follow ups with you is a door opener.
• Use Biblical content (we use Gospel Centered Life) in their freshmen Bible study that helps them:

1. Understand, for themselves, the radical message of the gospel (usually for the first time)
2. Understand the Great Commission and their role in it

• Talk often about your Community Group being a missional community, placed in the dorm to reach the dorm.
  • Challenge freshmen to invite their roommates, classmates, students on their hall.
  • As a study, brainstorm together how to reach more freshmen.
• Giving them early opportunities to lead:
  • Every fall we have a Barn Dance outreach that is exclusively planned by a team of freshmen
  • We encourage them to lead on our “Cru Serves” team and to lead prayer movements.
  • By late fall start talking to them about leading a Freshman Bible Study next fall (so they start looking for opportunities to get experience as a leader – like leading content one week in their own Study)

What are some ways that you help Freshmen move behind the table?

They share well with others (and expect to be shared with):

They are adept at finding information and expect it to be readily available. They are comfortable reaching out directly to people in a way that can be disconcerting to older employees whose workplace relationships have traditionally been constrained by the organization’s hierarchy.

As Nilofer Merchant has observed, social technology is changing the nature of power in organizations.

When you are accustomed to and skilled at finding and freely sharing information, it makes no sense to have information locked up in various parts of an organizational structure. In fact, it feels frustratingly antiquated. What this means for older managers: they must shift from being controllers of information to facilitators of its sharing and collaborative use towards achieving organizational goals.

I love this and think it’s extremely encouraging for the future of world-changing enterprises. Sharing and collaboration FTW.

What motivates Millennials is what motivates all employees:

It’s crucial to understand what motivates Millennials. The most powerful tool to build Millennials’ commitment to the organization is this: offering regular opportunities to learn and develop — not just through training, but through a variety of challenging tasks, the opportunity to work with people who impart valuable knowledge, and regular developmental feedback. As it turns out, this is how you build commitment in employees of all ages.

Despite what the stereotype might suggest, effectively engaging Millennials is not about letting employees wear jeans and bring their dogs to work, dude. The key is providing challenging, meaningful work, communicating, helping employees to see their contribution, and making sure they have opportunities to learn and grow.

In college ministry, I think we provide ample opportunities for:

• Challenging, meaningful work
• Opportunities to learn and develop

I think what we could improve on is “helping them see their contribution”.

Whether this is student leaders or Interns/Staff – we could improve at clearing communicating:

• “THIS is the meaningful, challenging work that you are doing.”
• “Here are 4 ways you are going to learn and develop this year.”
• “Through doing _____ you made a unique contribution and lives were changed eternally.”

A little intentional communication could help Millennials connect the dots in realizing that they actually ARE doing challenging, meaningful work that is making a difference.

What are your favorite takeaways from the HBR excerpts?

Enter Andrew Wise with this handy Executive Summary. Andrew just graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and was an intern with us with Cru for two years. His professional opinion on the book:

“this should be required reading for every college freshman/sophomore”

While I still plan to read the book…in the meantime this is a helpful, well organized overview of the book, chapter by chapter.

Some highlights:

“Our work can only be a calling if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests”

If this life is all there is… everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught…Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever.

Without meaningful work we sense significant loss and emptiness…Work is one of the ways we make ourselves useful to others and discover our identities.

Work of all kinds, whether with hands or minds, evidences our dignity as human beings because it reflects the image of God the Creator in us.

Choosing Work: “How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God’s will and human need.

Since we already have in Christ the things other people work for, salvation, self-worth, a good conscience, and peace – now we may work simply to love God and our neighbors.

If you have to choose between work that benefits more people and work that pays you more, you should seriously consider the job that pays less and helps more – particularly if you can be great at it.

All work is objectively valuable, but it will not be subjectively fulfilling unless you see it as a calling to love your neighbor.

Today young people are seeking to define themselves by the status of their work. It is a major identity marker.

• Many college students do not choose work that actually fits their abilities, talents, and capacities, but rather choose work that fits within their limited imagination of how they can boost their own self-image.
• Three kinds of jobs they see – those that pay well, those that directly serve society’s needs, and the cool factor.
• Results in students choosing work that doesn’t fit them or fields too competitive for them. Sets them up for dissatisfaction / meaninglessness.

Some highlights:

• If you strictly do Evangelism, the outside world sees it as recruitment, increasing your tribe, a power grab
• You need to combine Word and Deed.
• The best way to combine Evangelism and Good Deeds is on a personal level (more difficult to do on a organizational level)
  • You’re not going to love a friend without sharing the Gospel with them. And as a friend you will serve them as there is a need
• Keller’s two steps for setting up Evangelism:
  1. Let the other person know you go to church
  2. Let the other person know that your Christian faith means something to you, even in passing: “my Christian faith has really helped me here…”
  • There are a lot of simple behaviors that you should be doing, that will lead in a very organic way into deeper spiritual discussion
  • You should be doing the simple behaviors first:
  • Loving and caring for people
  • Being a person of integrity
  • Letting people know that your Christian faith
  • And it will just bubble up naturally
  • I think most people think, I have to find out a way to get the whole gospel out in one conversation or get in a debate about Creation and Evolution. That’s not the way to go. Be simple.
• He goes on to talk about how sharing the gospel in the city is more complex and requires more skill.

HT: @hanskristensen

I think it’s pretty interesting to see what correlation there is between

• number of surveys done the first week of school AND
• number of freshmen that actually get involved (in Bible studies)

So here’s Ron’s comments/questions and my answers:

Tim, I am interested in an analysis of the data on the card. It sounds like you got 3000 students to complete the card…

We do about 3000 surveys over the first few weeks at various events. The stats below reflect the 2500 surveys we do at tables we set up outside of dorm cafeterias on the second and third day of class. Why not the first day? Because our Cru meeting is on Tuesday, and Dorm Studies on Wednesday. When we do a survey with them we give them a “Free Chick-fil-A Sandwich” card and a flyer for Cru and Dorm Bible Studies (and we say, “you should join us tonight at Cru/Bible Study”)

How many of them indicated an interest in Cru?

Click to see full size

To download a Photoshop file you can edit to use on your campus, click here.

We don’t keep stats specifically on each question because it doesn’t affect how we do follow up. We follow up anyone who checks “yes” on either question.

70% of students checked “yes” on one of the two questions.

30% of the respondents answered “no-no”. Not interested in Cru nor Bible studies (we don’t follow them up at all).

Here’s the breakdown of how they answered:

“How interested are you in exploring spiritual matters in college (1- not interested 5= very interested)?”

1 = 7%
2 = 13%
3 = 29%
4 = 21%
5 = 24%
No answer = 6%

So on our campus, about 25% of students are not interested in spiritual things. 75% are at least mildly interested. How does that compare to your campus?

How many actually got involved?

We noticed this a few years ago: it’s not important how many spiritual surveys we do, as long as we’re doing enough to have a plenty big pool of contacts to follow up (I’d say around 1000-1500). Doing more surveys does not result in more freshmen getting involved (at least for us).

That being said, we do feel that it is good to do surveys with as many freshmen as possible for several reasons:

• Every person we do a survey with, we get face to face with and invite them verbally and with a flier to a Cru event. And they get something free (Chick-fil-A card or sunglasses) - hopefully a very positive first experience with Cru.
• If we can do surveys with a high percentage of the freshmen class, we have a baseline understanding of where A LOT of students are at spiritually. As we bump into students later in the year (or the next 4), we can quickly look them up on Mission Hub and know “Michael was not very interested in spiritual things at all in August 2012 – he put 1-yes-no. Joey Smith met with him and invited him to a Bible study but he never came” 

Here’s what our stats showed us:

You notice from 2008 to 2009 we doubled the number of surveys we did. But it has zero impact on getting more freshmen involved.

Here’s what matters and causes more freshmen to get involved:

1. Having more student Community Group leaders. You can see how the growth in Freshmen in studies correlates with (and I would say is caused by):

   

2. The quality and thoroughness of follow up
• Quality = sharing the gospel on each follow up and having several relational touch points
• Thoroughness = tracking who we follow to make sure everyone gets contacted who wants to be contacted (Read The Secret to Keeping Students from Falling Through the Cracks if you want more info on that)

How many people (staff or students) were involved in collecting this data? How long did it take? Was it all done in one day?

We do tables for two days at five locations (4 dorm cafeterias and the Union) from 11am-1pm and 5-6:30pm.

Our 10 staff are at the tables both days at lunch. Students are present at the tables for both lunch and dinner. I would guess that we have 30 students at lunch and 30 at dinner each day. Maybe a total of 50-75 helping during the two days?

Right after we collect all the cards we divvy up the cards among students and they enter in the information into Mission Hub. I have no idea how long that takes. I would guess 5 hours for about 20 students?

We also do spiritual interest surveys at two big freshmen cookouts during move-in week, a midnight “Frisbees and Flapjacks” event, and our Cru meetings.

Hopefully that data/information is helpful for you as think through a gameplan for getting in contact with (and reaching!) freshmen in the Fall.

Would love to hear from you what you have seen on your campus – what has resulted in you getting more freshmen involved?

Gloria and Dave Furman are a great example of the long term fruit of college ministry. Dave was a student involved in Cru at the University of North Texas when I was on staff there and has led in college ministry on four continents. Gloria became a Christian through a college ministry at North Texas.

Through their church in Dubai and their writing and speaking, Dave and Gloria are having an enormous impact on the world for Christ.

Dave asked me if I would read and review Gloria’s book and graciously sent me a copy of Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home.

If you buy it by Friday, June 7, Crossway has a special offer: Purchase a copy of Glimpses of Grace and receive a free Glimpses of Grace ebook as well as one of Gloria’s favorite resources—the ESV Study Bible Online!

Glimpses of Grace is Gospel-soaked and packed with Scripture as it explores: “How does the fact that Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24) make a difference in my mundane life today?

I think one of the most helpful things in learning to live in light of the gospel is to see someone work through different scenarios and spell out how they preach the gospel to themselves. Gloria does a great job of diagnosing sin in her heart and showing how the cross of Christ intersects her life in mundane day to day struggles.

This book is not a quick read (thought it is rather short) and it doesn’t have any easy fixes – it doesn’t give 5 easy ways to be a better homemaker.

At first, I was frustrated by the book’s lack of “answers”. After several hours invested reading it, I wasn’t walking away with any easy solutions of how to glorify God in the mundane. I’m a list guy. I like bullet points and quick, easy-to-apply answers.

But I think Gloria is right in her approach. The reader will have to put in the effort for heart-probing gospel analysis.

And real change (and joy in living in the mundane) will not come from 5 easy steps. And it’s not quick. It will come from learning how to (and, in the case of this book: “watching” someone) apply the gospel to real life struggles.

Two chapters that stood out deal with Gospel Hospitality and Pain- in which Gloria shares honestly about their struggles as church planters in Dubai and her husband Dave’s debilitating nerve damage in his arms.

I recommend this to not only homemakers but all Christians (including men and single women).

The book gets rave reviews from a who’s who of Christian bloggers from John Piper to Jennie Allen to Challies to Justin Taylor.

And here’s some good insight on why men should read it.

To get a taste, here are some great quotes from the book: 

I used to believe that this journey of sanctification—the adventure of God working in me, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13)—would only be accomplished when I am free from the “distractions” of my life…I saw my roles as wife, mother, homemaker as things that detracted, or took away from, my spiritual life. For example, if I set my alarm clock to attempt to wake up before one of my babies and had my plans foiled, then I would think, “Well, there goes my communion with God today! Thanks a lot,_____!”

Glimpses of Grace is about how God’s power in the gospel can transform us for his glory as we live by faith—right where we are in the mundane of our homes. It’s about how God has made us new in his likeness of true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24). The grace of God in Christ radically changes us. But how does he change the way we wash the same dishes every day?

 “If God doesn’t rule your mundane, then he doesn’t rule you. Because that’s where you live.”

The grace of God is “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Consider this book a gospel training manual in living for God’s glory in the mundane.

The dirty dishes are not my biggest problem in life, even though it seems like they are when they’re stacked up to the ceiling and I’ve got a million other things to do. The biggest problem in my life and yours is sin.

Dirty dishes in the sink or red crayons smushed into an electrical socket by a curious toddler are not just worrisome ordeals in your otherwise uneventful day. They’re opportunities to see glimpses of grace.

Re-preaching the gospel and then showing how it applied to life was Paul’s choice method for ministering to believers, thereby providing a divinely inspired pattern for me to follow when ministering to myself and to other believers.

Your spiritual life is not restricted to early mornings before the noisemakers in your life wake up. If you feel that God meets with you only when the house is empty or quiet, you’ll view every noise and every noisemaker as an annoying distraction to your communion with God. Or worse—there are times when I’m tempted to think of my whining toddler or ringing doorbell as obstacles that Satan has put in my way to take my eyes off Jesus. The temptation is to believe that if you could only transcend this spiritually devoid existence, then you could meet with God on a higher level. This idea is not only practically impossible and pastorally unhelpful, but it is unbiblical as well.

When any of these good things turns into something we resent or complain about because we feel it is an obstacle to fellowship with God, our heart has manufactured an idol.

The purpose of a home is to serve the people who live there and the strangers who are invited in. Homemaking as unto the Lord is an adornment of the glorious gospel!

What does life-changing faith look like on a day-to-day basis in the midst of the mundane? Simply put, faith looks backward and forward. Faith looks backward to the cross and believes that Jesus has purchased every spiritual blessing for us with his blood (Eph. 1:3). Faith also looks forward to the reward of all that God has for us in Christ. This is the kind of faith that changes the way you live today and makes you into a homemaker whose goal and delight is in God and in being conformed to his image.

Contentment can’t come from Action Steps…Rejoicing in the Lord is primary to your contentment, because only the Lord can eternally and sufficiently satisfy your soul…Learning the art of contentment involves thanking God for the things he’s given us. Our gratitude to God for his blessings is a vehicle that God uses to give us something far more satisfying, namely, himself…God is the giver of all good gifts (James 1:17) and he uses these gifts to raise our soul’s affections to greater heights than any good thing in this world ever could. All of God’s gifts serve this purpose—to raise our soul’s affections for him.

Best Albums

Everyone Needs to Buy Immediately:

Easily the two best albums of 2013 so far. The only yet-to-be-released album I can see being able to compete would be Arcade Fire (or maybe CHVRCHES’ full length album):

Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City (click to play on Spotify)

Amazing album. I can’t imagine anyone not loving this album. And surprisingly deep lyrically – an Unbeliever (in his words) wrestling with God and the certainty of death.

The National – Trouble Will Find Me

This album is growing on me with every listen. Dark and moving.

Take them for a few Spins on Spotify:

• Great albums top to bottom. Click to listen to them on Spotify:
  • Caveman
  • CHVRCHES EP
  • Local Natives
  • Phoenix

Best Songs

So many good songs this year- hard to pick among the best. I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the 50(ish) best songs so far. Click “Follow” (within Spotify) to add it to your playlists.

At the very least, go out and buy these 14 songs (or listen to them over and over on my Spotify playlist!). So good.

1. James Blake – Retrograde
2. Vampire Weekend – Ya Hey
3. Caveman – In the City
4. CHVRCHES – Recover
5. The National – I Should Live in Salt
6. Local Natives – Heavy Feet
7. Vampire Weekend – Step
8. Atoms For Peace – Default
9. Vampire Weekend – Don’t Lie
10. Caveman – Where’s the Time
11. Phoenix – The Real Thing
12. Ivan & Alyosha – Running for Cover
13. High Highs – Open Season
14. Youth Lagoon – Dropla

Share in the comments what your favorite albums/songs of 2013 have been.

This is a fascinating read to understand the minds/hearts of many college students:

An Open Letter to the Church from My Generation - a blog post by Dannika Nash, a college student in South Dakota.

The post contains many insights on Millennials, including:

• How deeply they are influenced and shaped by media (music, TV, Twitter) – especially in the new flat world

“So many of us were brought up in churches and Christian homes, and even if we weren’t, we’ve experienced the traditional Christian culture that just resonates from South Dakota’s prairie land. We know conservatism; we know tradition. But we also have Twitter, we watch SNL, we listen to Macklemore, and we read Tina Fey. We’re more in touch with the rest of the country than the Midwest has ever been.”

• Their aversion to the culture wars (and hollow rhetoric)

“We want to hear about equality and love in a gentle way. We’re sick of the harsh words of both sides. Say what you want about my generation, but we can smell fake from a mile away.”

The bulk of the post deals with Dannika’s plea to the church to not make Millennials choose between God and equality for gay people.

“I was forced to choose between the love I had for my gay friends and so-called biblical authority. I chose gay people, and I’m willing to wager I’m not the only one.

So, my advice to you, the Church: You CAN have a conservative view on gay marriage, or gay ordination. You can. But I want you to have some serious conversations with God, your friends that disagree with you, and maybe even some gay people, Christians or not, before you decide that this one view is worth marginalizing my generation.

We want to stay in your churches, we want to hear about your Jesus, but it’s hard to hear about love from a God who doesn’t love our gay friends (and we all have gay friends).

Love,

A College Kid Who Misses You”

I know Dannika doesn’t speak for every college student. But I would venture to guess that she speaks for a majority of them.

Over the last year (really since the uproar over Chick-fil-A last summer) I’ve been intrigued by the rapid shift in public opinion on gay marriage, especially among college students. The latest polls show that, among young people, support for same-sex marriage is at an all-time high of 70 percent.

I agree with Matt Morton: “Most of us aren’t eager to go to war over moral, political, or cultural issues, when our primary purpose is to make disciples of Jesus.” But for those of us in college ministry, we NEED to be thinking through how we respond to this colossal shift in the audience that we serve.

For many college students this is a defeater belief - a ”consensus belief that automatically makes Christianity seem implausible” – Tim Keller.

I haven’t formulated many answers yet. I think Matt’s response is a good start: asking students “would you be willing to first consider Jesus Himself before asking me about homosexuality?”

What are your thoughts?

How do we affirm an orthodox Biblical view of marriage and homosexuality while still loving gay students (and the majority of students that have gay friends)?

How do we address this issue without making it THE issue?

photo courtesy of UMaineStudentAffairs