Raising funds to meet the Christian challenge
For nearly thirty years, until my retirement after 50 years of ministry, I had the privilege of being senior Pastor and Superintendent of Wesley Mission, in the heart of Sydney, Australia, and developed in that time the widest ministry of any church anywhere in the world.
This one church is now responsible for a ministry of psychiatrists, psychologists and hospitals dealing with the emotionally ill, with 400 people engaged in counselling the troubled and those in crisis, with speaking to the entire nation through television, radio, and film, Video and DVD and the internet, in building significant relationships with the larger businesses in the land, of providing beds and food for tens of thousands of people each year, of providing accommodation for more than 2000 people including babies, children, youth, families, and aged people every night of the year, in training hundreds of disabled people in social skills, and thousands of unemployed people in job skills, in nursing dying cancer victims and in caring for children with AIDS, in operating the largest nursing service in the nation providing registered nurses and personal care workers to public hospitals, nursing homes and private patients; in training hundreds of young adults in creative arts and ministry, in supporting the prisoner, confronting the politicians, teaching business management to corporate executives, and in serving a million meals a year to the needy and providing garments of clothing to those who cannot afford regular prices.
Wesley Mission also packs pharmaceuticals, runs the largest citrus orchard in the nation, operates a commercial laundry for the Sydney University and many other clients, manufacturers metal household goods, runs three conference centres and many other kinds of work. [“Mission On: The Story of the World’s Most Amazing Mission” 1991.]
Wesley Mission has shown the way in its use of ministry areas in Wesley Centre, Pitt St. They were built at a cost of $40 million with another $280 million on a shopping and office complex and all were opened free of debt! There were thirty-two opening celebrations attended by 35,000 people. (“Wesley Mission: 1991 Celebration Committee” Lance Reece WCM Publications.)
Wesley Mission has shown the way in terms of multiple worship services in one building. This one church expresses itself through fifty-five services of worship each week in many different languages including Japanese, Chinese, Samoan, Indonesian, Rotuman, including daughter churches in Spanish, Tongan and Fijian, reaching out to ethnic communities. It is vigorous in church planting and has planted more than a dozen daughter congregations. Unlike other churches which have planted new congregations, it does not include their statistics in its records. It conducts its ministry in more than 500 buildings in one hundred suburbs and rural and regional areas.
Wesley Mission has shown the way in the manner in which it has turned a state of near bankruptcy into strong financial assets. This one parish church has assets of hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to the ministry of the poor and needy, more than any single parish in the nation, perhaps in the world! The 2004 Annual report, lists Wesley Mission’s assets as $334 million. All of its work depends upon fundraising.
There are no new silver bullets to aid low-cost, efficient fund raising. But after fifty years of fundraising I am convinced, however, there is still much gold remaining in the worked out tailings of previous mining efforts to raise funds. It remains only for us to sift through old ideas and consider some new workings with perhaps a different twist or approach that could unearth the gold that still survives.
1. Look everywhere for fundraisers
For example, I discovered amazing fundraising potential next to me in my bed. Twenty years later I realise that no other woman has raised so much money anywhere in Australia using only traditional methods and volunteers to aid the poor than my wife Beverley. She was an ordinary mother with no fundraising experience.
But Beverley was appalled at the plight of the homeless in inner Sydney, especially the more than 100 derelict men who slept in deplorable conditions in squalid dormitories in Francis Street’s “Night Refuge for Men”. While I worked to complete a new eleven-storey high-rise for them in Bourke Street, she realised that second-hand clothes, food and companionship were not enough, but that large sums of money were required to provide decent accommodation and basic care.
A quiet and reserved person, she did not find it easy to mix with the men nor to start raising money. Her four teenage children needed all of her attention. It would have been easy to forget the needs of the inner city. But she started immediately to care for them and to raise funds to improve their conditions.
Then in November 1980, several boats with Vietnamese refugees landed on the north coast of Western Australia including 30 children whose parents had been raped and shot by pirates in the China Sea. They were orphans. Wesley Mission was asked by the Commonwealth Government to care for them. However the Government provided only $5000 as a one-off grant for their care. Beverley decided to help provide accommodation and care for the 30 boys. Wesley Mission had a huge residence with 30 bedrooms waiting for sale in the inner city. In five days it was cleaned, painted and renovated by over 100 volunteers, including a large number of Indonesian Navy personnel who were visiting Sydney. These Muslims spent three days painting the building.
Beverley purchased sheets of plastic and sewed them into hundreds of plastic bags the size of a pillowslip, which she labelled “VIET-KITS”. Each included a list of requirements either for hygiene, educational, medical, or clothing needs for one boy. One Saturday night one son and myself drove to ministers of churches all over Sydney and gave the kits out with the request that the minister distribute them Sunday morning in church to hundreds of church members who each filled one bag with specific requirements for one boy. Within days we had enough for every boy for years.
From appeals on television and radio that weekend she was offered 120 truckloads of bedding, furniture, books, sporting equipment and school requisites. Health-care, cooking, language interpreters, staff and volunteers, all had to be recruited and organized, and with the help of others the children were all adequately provided for.
Over the next six years each boy completed the Higher School Certificate, and every one went to university, or institutes of technology, except three, one of which commenced a motor engine repair business and the other two opened their own restaurant. Beverley became a foster mother to orphan boys in the grief of their own loss and the difficulties of establishing themselves in a strange land with a different language, culture and country.
Beverley saw how much could be done by organizing volunteers and accepted the task of raising money to help provide for Sydney’s homeless, aged people, the disabled and children in care. Working with a group of mainly elderly ladies, she organized craft stalls, cake stalls, dinner parties, and the like and raised in her first year $72,000. Later it would be five times that amount every year.
When she saw what that money did in providing personal comforts, buses, furniture, holidays for the under privileged, relief for inner city families and the like, she commenced working full-time in an unpaid task of raising money.
She organized concerts, garage sales, book fairs, garden parties, dinners, dances, hundreds of stalls to sell cakes, food, and handcrafts, organized radio and TV ads, distributed handbills, obtained the presence of personalities from the media, political and ceremonial life. The leading celebrities in Australia accepted her invitation to attend dozens of special events.
Beverley used her own home to type letters, sew bedspreads, cushions, and aprons, bake cakes, and made floral arrangements. She constantly soaked tens of thousands of used postage stamps and packaged them. She organized letters to hundreds of companies (found in the phone book) requesting donations of outdated stock, off-cuts and factory seconds, which she distributed to others who made goods for sale.
At the same time over 400 volunteers were recruited and organized through monthly meetings, which she chaired. Soon help was being provided to fourteen children’s homes, a sheltered workshop, nine aged care centres, two hospitals and sixteen homes for the intellectually disabled, a total of 122 care centres.
A retired lady jeweler offered to repair fashion jewellery so Beverley set up a stall in George Street on the footpath, where she personally stood and sold the jewellery each week. While organizing hundreds of other volunteers, she led by example, becoming involved in all areas of fundraising.
No form of gambling, raffles, bingo or alcohol was used. Yet without these she had raised as clear profit after expenses a total of over three and quarter million dollars. Beverley worked voluntarily and never claimed any expenses. Sometimes the greatest resources are next to us. Look everywhere to achieve fundraising success.
2. Take some old ideas and make them new
Here are a bunch of ideas that have worked for me. Take any, add a new twist, and make it a winner!
I organized a garage sale, but made it “Our Nation’s Largest Garage Sale ever!” We wrote to hundreds of companies for out of date goods or superseded products. Just expanding the size to include thousands of suppliers of goods brought huge crowds of people wanting a bargain.
I started running self-funding courses according to the needs of the community. The first courses were Child Care, teenage sex education, marriage enrichment, methods of study, but to that we added courses in languages, crafts, dancing, computer studies, etc. The first year we had 17 courses with 2000 people paying to attend. Nine years later we had 68 courses with 39,000 people attending, who also paid for meals, gifts from stalls, generating personal interest and finances.
This provided me with a strong database, and we followed up those people for our deferred gifts and wills program. We were notified after some years that $40 million was in the pipeline to come to Wesley Mission.
Once a brainstorm brought up a better way of motivating people to give their used clothing for re-cycling. Soon I had enough clothing to open 14 second-hand clothing shops and an export business to countries.
Once I read the annual report of the Waste Management Authority and discovered what products society needed collecting for re-sale. As a result we collected waste paper, bottles (to be refined back to sand for road base) and sold profitably until collections exceeded recycling demand.
Charity auctions are a great way to raise funds, raise awareness, and have a lot of fun. A DIY auction takes a lot of time and effort to organize, but can be very rewarding. It’s a good idea to have a strong base of volunteers to help out. A Cyber Auction could be set up by a young person who is computer savvy. Online auction sites are becoming more and more popular. Organizing an online charity auction doesn’t require much computer or internet knowledge, but you do still have to collect items to auction off, take photos, price the items and put them up on your auction site.
Dining Out and Entertainment Books, paver and brick sales with donor names engraved, chocolate and sweet bar sales, sales of Christmas Cards, cook books with recipes from celebrities and members, charity head shave, paint balling, blazing soccer ball competition, selling flower bulbs, children’s teddy bear picnics, go-karting, parachute jumping, plant sales, (once I organized senior citizens to grow plants in pots for sale. They presented me six months later with 22,000 pots for sale, raising over $100,000.)
Try rubber ducks down the river race, half marathon race, wrist bands, snail, rat, pig racing and so on; Tupperware, kitchen ware, clothing parties, street or block garage sales. This list is not exhaustive but is designed to stimulate your imagination.
Schools and offices often have a Mufti day or jeans day when donations are made for the privilege for wearing something different. My office had every Friday a mufti day raising hundreds of dollars. We have had job swaps auctioned, slave auctions. Of course a Fashion Show and supper, a Concert, Play, Musical Evening, Trivia Quiz all can raise funds. So can sporting competitions such as seven a side football, touch football, sponsored walks and the whole “Thon” family, MaraTHON, WalkaTHON, SlimaTHON etc.
I have over the years encouraged sporting fans to organize for me charity golf matches (always a good response especially if you can get some well known professionals to play a round and a number of celebrities to captain teams.)
Before he died, I asked Sir Donald Bradman to sign a cricket bat on which an artist had painted his portrait. It was mounted with wickets and ball in a glass case as a trophy and became the trophy for an annual cricket competition between large corporations, who paid for the privilege for having an Australian cricket legend captain their team and to play the competition on Sir Donald’s old oval at Bowral. A dinner and auction finished the day with a hundred thousand dollars raised each year we did it.
3. If you want to make big dollars
Business entrepreneurship has worked well for me. In one suburban area, I was responsible for building five blocks of strata title units that returned us a profit of several million dollars.
In the same way, I worked hard to build up a land bank of 1700 acres on the city fringes and on them later built retirement villages and housing complexes, a conference and retreat centre, and a home stay working farm for Japanese students, raising multiple millions for charitable works.
Travelling through over a hundred rural and regional areas revealed many deep social needs. These needs were quantified to me by the local mayors, social workers and professionals. As a result, we opened over one hundred offices, employed over 500 additional staff and won Government contracts to provide the required services in those areas. While meeting the needs of the areas, we generated many millions of dollars, at least five million every year through surpluses and efficient activity we were then available to provide services to meeting needs that did not have any government contracts.
I saw the potential of fundraising through the health care system. I got support to rebuild and expand a small private hospital and started employing doctors and nurses. This generated a good stream of funds, so we purchased a second hospital, then opened Wesley Mayo Clinic in Taree and a new hospital clinic in Carlingford. Soon we were employing 72 psychiatrists and a larger number of allied health professionals, nurses, psychologists, social workers and so on. This not only resulted in many people with improved physical and mental health but with financial excess to pay for other community services.
For many years I was heard daily on Sydney radio stations 2CH, 2KY and 2GB. These later grew into National networks. I never sought to raise funds for my charitable causes, as I wanted listeners to listen because of the excellence of the content and not be put off by constant appeals for money.
I did make and use all across the time schedule one-minute spots that kept informing the public of my concerns. This reinforced my appeal for money in our direct mails and our deferred giving program. A weekly four-hour Sunday night program reinforced all we did.
To help I encouraged Wesley Mission to put up $3 million to buy shares in the Broadcasting Company. I went onto the Board and eventually became Chairman. Gradually we bought more shares until we owned 73% of the share holding. As the company prospered we came to a time when we could sell those shares for $13 million that had cost us $3.5illion. But in the meantime we raised over $40 million through using the radio access to proclaim what we were doing, without ever asking for money for ourselves.
In the same way, I had a television program across Australia on the Channel Nine network. I never asked for funds for any work in which I was concerned. But I wanted world class programming material. So with the help of some Rotary friends, I established a documentary film making company and raised investment funds to incorporate it as a profit generating business. Within five years it was the most successful film making company in Australia making forty-six films in Europe, the Middle East and China, made in many languages and sold as television programs screened for millions of people and resold as videos and DVD’s for millions of dollars.
The original investors were very happy indeed with their tax discounts and the dividends paid. Likewise I have had publishers publish some 57 books sold through bookshops at a surplus.
In fundraising, some organizations host a dinner and invite those who may have been contributing. This helps donors see their money is used well. I did that twice a year, but monthly I ran free bus tours of our various works complete with lunch and morning and afternoon teas. Each bus was captained by one of my fund-raising staff that would promote our work while people were being driven.
I would always request a few celebrities to show up at fundraising events to add to the appeal to those attending. I regularly ran corporate breakfasts for the same purpose, and one breakfast with a great speaker, lots of fun, and an inspired moment involving the Commonwealth Bank offering to match donations, resulted in over $500,000 being donated before the breakfast ended.
For twenty-five years I ran major donors dinners, one of which featured a musical floorshow and charity auction which each would raise about half a million dollars.
For many years I would host a monthly luncheon for corporate CEO’s in our Wesley Boardroom and catered for by our own restaurant. Of the 22 present each month, eight were from companies that financially supported Wesley Mission, eight were from companies we hoped would support us this year, and four were key senior staff from Wesley. I would speak about our successes and plans to meet serious social needs in the community and introduce a well-known person to endorse us. The eight who supported us would always boast about how satisfied they were with their support and company satisfaction with Wesley Mission. Inevitably the other eight would say how they were planning to become major corporate donors.
Thirty years ago I looked at the poor facilities that were the headquarters of Wesley Mission Sydney and realized we had two valuable resources: air above us, and dirt beneath. We decided to redevelop our property and over the next twenty years demolished the old property, dug 7 levels underground for a massive car-park, and built a 40 level office block above, a shopping arcade, a restaurant, a thousand seat theatre, a new church, hundreds of offices all at a total cost of $320 million and by leasing out what we did not use ourselves, opening it debt free! Since that time we have run Wesley Conference Centre as a profit-generating centre.
Once I talked a difficult Board into paying $120,000 to rescue a huge citrus orchard from poor management and financial poverty. Over the next 20 years that brought us $22 million surplus that we allocated to child care.
HomeWorld was a large display village with more than 100 premier homes built by 40 of the nation’s top builders competing against each other for public approval. What they needed was to generate more interest in their site. I persuaded them to donate to us one black of land for a charity house. We then got local and national press to donate advertising space to promote those making generous gifts, weekly local radio broadcasts alerting the community to progress, a national TV reality programs telling all what we were doing, and key sporting teams every Saturday conducting barbecues for members of the public who flocked to meet their sporting stars.
Allam Homes built our homes. Aussie Home Loans provided a $100,000 interest free loan to the purchaser. BBC Hardware house provided over $100,000 of materials. Harvey Norman provided over $100,000 of furnishings. Boral provided over $100,000 of building materials. 2UE provided over $100,000 of advertising. The Sun Herald donated $100,000 of advertising and TCN 9 made a special Current Affair program on the development. Daewoo gave us their most expensive car for the garage. The pool was donated by Blue Haven pools. Lego conducted a national Lego Competition on site for kids with Air New Zealand took the four people to Disneyland as the prizewinners. 200 people paid $200 each to go on a Captain Cook evening dinner cruise featuring an auction by Alan Jones with all proceeds coming to us.
We then auctioned the Home for Hope including all the furnishings, car, swimming pool and interest free mortgage. Each house built on these lines was sold for a million dollars or so. We also won Housing Industry awards for best architecture, use of water, recycling etc for the whole of Australia. My team and I completed twenty, high cost houses including one on the Gold Coast, one north of Brisbane and three in the Hunter, that were auctioned with the total proceeds coming into Wesley’s accounts to be used in social welfare.
All work was donated and total proceeds went to help Wesley Mission’s full range of ministries to the homeless children, youth and adults. This building initiative has brought us in over $5 million in cash in the first few years and a total of about twenty million when all were sold. Our homes then won national awards for design and construction, and our fundraising concept won us national fundraising awards.
In the last 30 years, these examples of fundraising have resulted in $1 billion raised and spent. I have personally been involved in raising $600 million. These are national records.
Even in retirement in Parliament, I use the facilities of Parliament to help charities and in the past nine months have helped raise $650,000 with a similar amount raised last year.
4. Can we fund the Christian challenge?
Chapter 10 in my autobiography covers fund-raising. Christian stewardship is more than money raising, it raises people, and enables ministry around the world. How to go about fund-raising with integrity:
1. TEACH STEWARDSHIP
Start with doctrine of Christian stewardship
16 of 38 parables cover money- spending, acquiring, utilizing
500 verses about prayer, 500 verses about faith,
2,000 verses about acquiring possessions and spending.
All ministry work can be destroyed by misuse of money.
Teach/Preach through the books of Bible will allow you to cover a
full range of topics including stewardship.
Stewardship is the use of all assets given by God in ways that
please Him.
2. TEACH TITHING
Tithing says the first fruits belong to God.
Our response is to the grace of God, not a legalism.
You must practice tithing before you teach tithing.
Tithing is 10% of all you have earned.
God gets his 10% tithe either willingly or unwillingly.
Encourage people to declare that tithe so church can budget.
Church Offerings only go toward Church ministries.
It covers evangelism, missionary outreach, worship expenses.
They do not cover overheads for social welfare work.
Over many years I raised my own salary and that of my secretary so as not to be dependent upon Church offerings.
3. DO NOT BE GREEDY
Do not ask for too much.
Do not ask the same people for additional money.
Do not ask for funds for yourself.
Appeal for cancer programs, wildlife funds, bush pilot ministry.
Develop practices of generosity in your own life.
Try to live a simple lifestyle.
Give things away constantly.
Be generous with friends, church, community.
Change lifestyle habits so you can be generous.
Live economically, wear second-hand clothes, purchase carefully.
Share short-dated foods, day-old bread.
Churches can have clothing closets and food pantries.
People will trust you with their money if you are not greedy.
4. SHOW ABSOLUTE INTEGRITY WITH MONEY
Always give something back to donors: a business card, receipt,
thank you card or note of acknowledgment for gift.
Write up a receipt even if the donor refuses to take one.
Utilize the funds in the way intended.
Anonymous Pitt St donor of $5,000.
Refuse ALL personal gifts.
Benefits of receipts: name and address for database.
Receipts detail how the money is to be used.
Receipts demonstrate integrity and credibility
5. PRACTISE ACCOUNTABILITY
Be transparent.
Acknowledge Gifts: $100 or less are acknowledged by staff.
Gifts over $100 are acknowledged by letter from your Senior Pastor or CEO.
Gifts over $500 are acknowledged by hand written note from and a personal thank you phone call from your Senior Pastor or CEO.
Personal responses provides a contact that is greatly appreciated
Donors usually can be counted upon for additional gifts
Companies receive a hand written note and thank you phone call.
Also they are invited to the donor luncheon as a thank you.
Major Donors’ Dinner- annual evening meal, ask them to pay for
the meal, 800 guests, special guest speaker,
When I speak on program, no funds asked for that evening.
Print a good financial report
It is also a request for further donations
Staff training clearly explains the boundaries.
Keep a copy of their acknowledgment.
Non-Tolerance Policy to Theft.
They will be forgiven, supported but prosecuted and fired.
MBWA- “management by walking around”.
Checking on people and nudging people back to being honest.
“What happens isn’t what you expect, but what you inspect”
Seek to keep communication open
Don’t try to hide problems, problems can be solved
6. ASK
You won’t receive if you don’t ask.
Ask for others, helping other ministries.
Ask face to face. Not just from the pulpit.
One on one meeting with the prospective donor.
The Bible says, “You have not because you ask not.”
People are honoured if you ask big.
Do not insult them by asking too little.
If God presents a problem, He will provide the resources.
You can do miracles if you ask enough people to help.
Do not discount the help from all of the people.
Ask a lot of people to give just a bit.
7. WHEN YOU GET A GIFT, MULTIPLY IT
God can take a gift and feed thousands; multiplying effect.
Ask the donors to find more donors to assist in the work.
e.g.- lawyers each getting 12 more lawyers on-board.
Raise corporation expectations above small amounts. BHP/Biliton.
8. INNOVATE
Do not steal other charity’s donors.
Do not go to other churches to ask for money.
“Where your money is, there will be your heart also”
Where the money goes, the hearts and interest will follow
Pastors resent you for taking their parishioners’ interest.
Do not use similar means of fund-raising as other charities.
9. COMMUNICATE THE NEED AND ANSWERS
Jack Richardson and Barney Horne $12 million and $10 million given.
I conceived the idea of a family makeover centre to change the lives of all family members at the same time. We brought together a wide variety of our resources to create a multiple resource, cohesive program to work with dysfunctional families whose multiple problems require a total response. Intensive commitment with families are needed if a real difference is to be made. One organization, announced it would spend up to 20 hours with selected families. I planned 168 hours every week for nine months with families in what is the most intensive and extensive intervention according to family need, ever in Australia’s history.
I asked the Government to lease us a section of public housing. The families live in a large-scale community consisting of extensive lawns and gardens, with three two-storey blocks of accommodation each with eight 2 & 3 bedroom units.
There is also a Family Makeover Centre, which consists of a new hall, stage and kitchen, which will become the focal point for many of the group activities and training programs. Small rooms are also available for private consultation. This was a surplus building I purchased for $100 from the Australian Defence force, then asked them to move it with army engineers onto our site.
The aim of the Family Makeover Centre is to take in damaged, at risk, homeless, single parent families on the Department of Housing waiting lists and help them to discover skills for independent living in the community. Multiple resources are available to cover each area of disadvantage. There is a maximum accommodation capacity of up to 60 persons in this community. Our aim is to work with 9 families at a time.
We also house on-site staff. The families, most of whom are headed by a single parent, stay for up to 9 months paying New South Wales Department of Housing rates to rent the 2 & 3 bedroom properties. These rates are a fixed percentage of the income of the families and generally speaking we care for severely disadvantaged people so their rents are extremely low.
The types of families housed on this site vary according to their homelessness, risk factors, alcohol and drug dependence, gambling problems and the like.
Each person lives in a family unit, which we furnish. Each family is supplied with a gift of a computer with Internet access because the teaching of family members to become computer literate is part of the total program. We use benevolent and charitable organisations to provide whatever welfare needs the family might have, and specialist teams from our medical and psychiatric, counselling and family support services as required.
There are continuous programs conducted over the nine-month period. They include the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous groups for those people for whom this is appropriate. There are quite a number of people in the local surrounding community who also come in for this program. Groups of gamblers also meet weekly.
There are a series of other programs run by other competent trained personnel over the nine months including programs developing self-esteem, credit and financial counselling, strong programs of mental health services including professional psychological interventions using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. The staff conducts these networks work in association with the Psychology Departments of the Universities.
There are other programs concerning Gambling Counselling, training in Child Protection issues, Family Values and Parenting Models.
One difficulty often found is finding a way to motivate family members to gain such help so these families are encouraged to attend whatever program has been worked out with them by our case-managers. Both children and parents can earn credit points by attendance, which are then redeemed towards significant family holidays. I approach travel firms for some holiday sponsorships. That solves the motivation issues.
Each family has two mentors to help in educational support doing such things as homework help for school and TAFE students and lifestyle help for mothers including cooking and family management.
This program is dependent upon corporate and community support. I sought support from significant corporations to not only provide financial support for one family, but to provide two members of their staff to act as mentors with that one family covering both the educational and lifestyle mentoring. Some staff are interested in helping as well as in the company’s financial support. The Prime Minister commended this program with a gift of $250, 000.
We also provide scholarships for children allowing each child to receive a scholarship enabling them to join a local sporting team including the purchase of sports gear, or a culture program including music lessons.
It is an important part of our total program that every family upon leaving the program has an appropriate family member employed. Wesley Uniting Employment provides the skills training to enable them to get suitable jobs. The staff also makes sure each family gets into their own independent housing.
When we support the family we support the whole nation. We reduce the cost of dysfunctional people in society, reduce the cost of the welfare system, and reduce the costs of running hospitals, jails, and charities. When we have better families, we not only have a better nation, but we are making a contribution to a better world.
10. REFUSE UNWORTHY METHODS OF RAISING MONEY
Do not use alcohol to raise funds or gambling, raffles, etc.
11. SELL ANY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES YOU HAVE
What professional services do you have to sell?
Can staff provide services for other organizations?
Legal staff, print shop, graphics, psychiatrists, counselling services, book keepers, printing, musical services, catering, marriage and funeral services.
12. COMPETE FOR CONTRACTS
13. SALE OF WORKS
Can volunteers provide services to raise funds?
Sewing items, cooking meals.
Spring Fair, Auctions.
14. INVOLVE AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN
Break down a problem into manageable portions and let each
group take a portion.
In 1988 I was troubled by the numbers of young teenagers on the inner city streets all night. I appointed a couple of tough street workers to start work each night at midnight. With the approval of the Company, set up office and counselling in an all night “McDonald’s” store. This helped us to make contact with these nocturnal ferals, and the presence of our staff kept the store safe. Soon it was seen a more permanent place was needed on the streets.
I asked the Rotary Club of Sydney to raise $170, 000 for the program. We leased a three storey building in the CBD, paid a bunch of graffiti artists to decorate it inside and out, and opened 24 hours a day. Free food and dry clothing was provided by the firms of Rotarians. Kids were encouraged to watch videos and talk with our staff. When a sense of trust was established they were invited to go to the second floor. There was gym equipment, snooker and other games – and another counsellor. As trust was established then we invited them to discuss their alcohol or drug dependence, why they had left home and how they could develop a plan for their future.
Many of them were helped to return to school or into employment. 7,000 street kids in crisis were helped in the first year. More than 1,000 completed intensive counselling. Hundreds were re-united with their families. Then we purchased 8 specialized “Street Smart” vans equipped with hot drinks and food and trained 400 counsellors to work on rosters to every night reach those on the streets. The Rotary Club of Sydney won an International Achievement Award for this Street Smart Project.
In the video of “StreetSmart”, played in Rotary television programs all over the world, was a very developed young fifteen year old, Amanda. She had the body of a woman and the mind of a child. She had been a ward of the State but had run away from foster homes and youth centres. The State did not know where she was. She had been abused constantly by every adult she had met. She would not let us help her. She mistrusted all adults! While I was speaking with her, on the film, she was lying on a beanbag. Her very ample bosom heaved, an effect I did not have on young women those days.
And to my surprise from between her breasts a pet rat crawled out over the top of her Tee shirt. The rat crawled up through her hair and sat on the top of her head. This was her pet rat she nursed in her bosom. Not long after that film was made, I told her story on radio and six weeks later received a call to say police had just removed the body of a 16 year old girl from Croydon Rd, Hurstville. She was lying on the footpath and the police had found a rat inside her Tee Shirt. Was this the girl I had known? Could I identify her? She was buried with only half a dozen present. When I was talking with Amanda I realised that all the adults who figured in Amanda’s life, from the time she was first raped as a seven year old to the time she died on the streets at sixteen, were rats, and the only one who demanded nothing from her was a rat.
We realized we need a safe accommodation centre for youth like Amanda. At a dinner of businessmen, Max Connery, a Sydney Attorney approached me to give me a cheque as a donation to that work. I said “I do not accept cheques from lawyers.” That stunned him. “But I want to give you some money” he said. I told him I wanted three infinitely more valuable gifts: prayer for our work because Christians are able to sustain the pace only through the support of praying friends; his continuing interest for at least three years, and his influence to gather ten more solicitors to hear about how they could help homeless youth. He volunteered all three and gathered together 14 lawyers to hear our story.
With that group I again said: “Put away your cheque books. I need three infinitely more valuable gifts: prayer for our work, your continuing interest that goes beyond just a cheque, and your influence to each gather ten more lawyers to hear about how they could help homeless youth.” So I then addressed 140 solicitors and judges. I told them about the homeless and asked them: “I want you to pray for our workers, to continue your interest for at least three years, and I want you to take out your chequebooks now and fund a new home for street-kids!” They gave me that night $200,000, and the donation of a large property called “Stepping Stone” and have raised $500,000 since!
15. SELL CHRISTIAN PRODUCTS
DVD’s, CD’s of good quality materials.
Program and teaching materials.
Ask for volunteer board to run the venture.
16. SET UP A WILLS AND ESTATE PROGRAM
Teach donors to think in terms of also tithing their estate.
Don’t be greedy about this request. Ask them to consider tithing their estate and give the rest to their families.
With every receipt have a check box asking if they want will help.
Have a special training date with volunteer lawyers to help.
Cost of the will is minimal. $25 to your work.
17. HAVE OTHER PEOPLE PAY FOR WHAT YOU WANT
Advertising spots on their radio programs.
Mobile ministry vans sign written with donor acknowledgement.
18. CONSTANTLY HELP OTHERS
“He who honours Me, I will honour, says the Lord.
19. EFFICIENT COST CONTROL
People will give if there is little or no waste
Efficient use of resources.
If you have made a mistake try to utilize the mistake.
20. APPRECIATE
Honour donors. You can never thank them enough.
Have dinner appreciation occasions.
Look for any ways that you can show your appreciation.
There is never a shortage of money only good ideas, a willingness to sweat, and a willingness to ask, of people.
Hudson Taylor, “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”
I want to congratulate Elevation Church, the Christian Outreach Centre Varsity Lakes on being people who both spiritually and practically is meeting the needs of the poor here on the Gold Coast and also in the two-thirds world. What a record of accomplishment they have! Storehouse One is a Food Distribution Centre, providing free and low cost groceries to those in need here on the Gold Coast and in the northern NSW districts. Working in conjunction with the Brisbane Food Bank and other local companies, Storehouse One has more than 500 families using this service as well as three women’s domestic violence shelters, local churches and other charities also receiving from Storehouse One.
Then I think of you School Shoes Program: in 2008 & 2009 you provided brand new schools shoes to children on the coast living in disadvantaged circumstances. The shoes went to children at the special school mentioned above, local primary and secondary schools as well as the children of Storehouse One families. 230 pairs of shoes were given.Then at Christmas 100 toys were distributed to children. Senior customers enjoyed a free Christmas Eve Luncheon at the Burleigh Surf Club. Global Care is supporting the education of children living in after care homes in Cambodia. COC Brisbane has set up these homes and you have committed to the education.
The meaning of the incarnation of Christ is: God has come to live among us! Our discipleship means following Him in helping the poor today. Nothing epitomizes the life and teachings of Jesus so much as His care for the poor. If all the words of Jesus were lost, His words about caring for the poor would remain in mankind’s memory. “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matt 25:35-36
We are saved by faith, but judged by our actions. The standards by which nations and people who have not heard the Gospel and those who have heard and do not obey it, is of how they cared for the poor. Every generation and country has poor people. They live in unhealthy, crowded and dangerous conditions.
If we neglect the poor, we suffer personally and spiritually. There is one test of the extent of our love for Him: how have we cared for the poor? That was the thrust of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
In the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. The only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the neglect of the poor. ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor. “Proverbs 27 He who gives to the poor will not lack, but he who hides his eyes will have many curses.”
To fulfill the Christian challenge, requires imaginative and innovative fundraising and that requires commitment and original thinking. I wish you well as you fulfill your part of meeting this challenge.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC
