You leave the information meeting excited. In fact, you may have never been as excited about anything in your life as you are about this. It is an opportunity to touch lives and make a difference in the world through a
mission trip. You can picture yourself there-serving, helping, sharing. With the volunteer application form in one hand and the trip brochure in the other, you sit down to read through the materials. Everything is great except for one part of the brochure-the part with the dollar sign in it.
“How can I ever come up with that much money,” you ask yourself. They talked about fund raising in your meeting, and you know other people who have done this, but still-it’s a lot of money! Where do you start?
First, take a deep breath and then pray! The saying, “Where God guides, God provides,” has proven true countless times over. Second, come up with a fund raising plan. God does provide, but He also expects us to demonstrate our commitment. Consider creating a plan with five parts: the support letter, friend involvement, fund raisers, social media and personal sacrifices.
For many mission trip volunteers, the first-and sometimes only-tool they use to raise funds is the support letter. This is a letter sent to family and friends outlining the mission you are undertaking and inviting them to consider supporting you. In the day of electronic everything, many people have abandoned the hard-copy support letter for email versions. After all, you can put together an email campaign quickly and you save all that money on postage. My suggestion, however, is to stick to snail mail.
There are several reasons why “old fashioned” just might be better. First, people are so inundated with email today that your message can easily be lost or ignored. Second, there is something special about getting a personal letter in the mail. It is a rarity these days! Also, people typically don’t make the decision to give support the moment they hear about the need. They ponder it, talk about it with their spouse, etc. Your hard copy letter is a physical reminder that they need to make a decision. Chances are it will lie around their house for a couple days before action is taken, but it will be visible. Not so if it’s an email sitting in their in-box. They may never see it again or think to come back to it.
So what makes for an effective support letter? Three things: brevity, clarity and a response mechanism. Brevity-keep the letter to one page. People have short attention spans plus keeping it to one page forces you to be a better writer. Clarity-tell why you decided to go on this trip and exactly what you will be doing. Response-ask the person for their support and give them a means to send it by providing a return envelope. If they can give online, make sure that information is include as well.
What about people for whom you only have an email address? Go ahead and put your support letter verbiage in an email. Just make sure it includes the elements mentioned above. Since you can’t email a physical envelope, the message should include a link where they can give instantly or where they can print out mailing instructions (instant is best!). Also, email should be even shorter than a traditional letter. You can include a link in it to more information if necessary.
The second part of your funding strategy should include your friends. Yes, you want to talk to them about supporting you, but also ask some of them to be part of your fund raising team. Brainstorm funding ideas together. Encourage them to help you find the funds. Sometimes this means they help with fundraisers (see the next point) or they ask people they know to help you. Sometimes this means introducing you to people they feel would be excited about sharing in your trip. Also, your friends may be willing to donate airline miles or materials that could offset some of the trip’s cost.
Third, consider a variety of fund raisers. Many restaurants, for example, will donate a portion of their sales for a day if you bring in extra traffic. The same may be true for other types of businesses. Another fund raiser is to offer services, either for a fee or a donation. These may be services that you do, or that a friend would do for you. Everything from babysitting to car washes to a variety of professional services. Garage sales are another great fund raiser.
One final fund raiser to consider is selling items from the country that you will visit. I recently saw this announcement on the social media site Twitter: “Selling bracelets for $2. Made in the Philippines! $1 goes to a girl’s mission trip. $1 goes to the Philippines! Get one!”
Fourth, use your blog, Facebook and other social media outlets to let people know about your trip, but do it with tact. I’ve seen a lot of posts where people almost “demand” donations. Big turn off! I saw one post that said, “I hadn’t heard from this guy since high school and now he’s hitting me up on Facebook to fund his mission trip.” The reality is that people who don’t have a clue who you are aren’t likely to give, and neither are those who do know you but haven’t heard from you in years. Do use social media to inform, and do provide links for people to get more information and donate. Just don’t be pushy about it!
Finally, consider what personal sacrifices you will make to fund your trip. Someone summed this up well with the following statement on Twitter: “All these people asking money for mission trips. I wonder how many of them are giving any of their own money!” Asking others to sacrifice for you is fine, as long as you have done some sacrificing yourself.
So, if you are excited about serving abroad but scared that you can’t possibly come up with the money, pray about it and create a plan. Don’t let fear keep you from doing what you feel led to do. Don’t say “no way” without giving it a shot! Write a great support letter. Mobilize your friends. Utilize fund raisers. Spread the word through social media. Make sacrifices. You can raise the money-and you will probably grow a lot in the process!
Frank Banfill is president of MaxPoint Ministries (www.maxpoint.org) and is a former missions executive. He writes for Ministry Travel (www.ministrytravel.com).