15 Expert Missionary Fundraising Ideas
In this article, I am going to share with you 15 of my favorite missionary fundraising ideas. Whether you are just beginning your missionary fundraising journey, or you have hit a rut and are looking for something to help you reach your next goal, these fundraising ideas will help you along the way.
Missionary fundraising can be an incredibly daunting task. It’s extremely difficult to decide the best route. Do I use digital content? Do I ask people to support me? We want to help you. This is why we created this article, with 15 missionary fundraising ideas to help you on your missionary fundraising journey.
Missionary Fundraising Ideas Video Tutorial
We have created a video tutorial that shares 15 of our favorite missionary fundraising tips to go along with the article. Feel free to check it out below.
15 Missionary Fundraising Ideas
1.Letters
This has been one of the most common missionary fundraising ideas for over 20 years. Many people would type a template letter, and then write the name of the person or family they are sending a letter to.
Though this is a great way to maximize efficiency, it can sometimes come off as impersonal. Try this, take a day and hand write letters all day. It’s not an easy task, but I can almost guarantee that the number of people who decide to give will at least double.
2. Have an Easy Link to Give
When we first began fundraising we would write a ton of letters, speak to groups, and create some videos.
Our sending church was a smaller church that used a third party software for its finances. This meant that the link for somebody to go to to give was a long and hard to remember link.
I would say “If you’d like to give, go to crossfellowship.aware3.net/give” every time. Eventually, our pastor helped us and we purchased a domain to link to the giving website. We then only had to say, “Go to smithasia.org to give.” Much easier to remember.
Maybe you can’t have that much control of the website where people give to you, but you can use a QR code, venmo, or cashapp to help make it more user friendly to donate.
3. Utilize Social Media
If you’re like me, you may have a love-hate relationship with social media. Oftentimes, it seems to be more hate than love.
Posting regularly about your fundraising on social media can be an extremely helpful way to connect people to the work the Lord is calling you to, that you might not think of on your own. This can also allow other people to share about the work you are doing.
When we moved overseas, we announced it on Facebook, from there we had friends and family share it on their own. This caused a couple of people to begin following along and even some to give monthly.
4. Make a Video
Video is one of the greatest tools we have today. We often don’t think of video to be helpful when thinking through new missionary fundraising ideas. I am sort of biased, because one of my favorite things to do is videography, but it’s not just me who thinks that. Instagram, the popular social platform, is trying to become more of a video based platform.
Making a short video talking about what the Lord is calling you to do, is an incredible missionary fundraising idea to help spread the work about the work the Lord is calling you to.
5. Choose a Box
A missionary fundraising idea we used when we were initially raising our funds, we created a graphic that contained 100 boxes numbered from 1 to 100. We asked those who desired to give to choose a box, or multiple, and the boxes would represent the amount of money they would give each month. This is very similar to idea number 6.
6. Create Graphics
Similar to the box graphic, try to create a graphic that helps people visually see how close you are to your goal. This could be a thermometer that gets closer to the top as more and more people give, or a bucket that gets closer to overflowing.
This helps people see how close you are to being funded and can help encourage them to give.
7. Start a Newsletter
Newsletter are one of the greatest missionary fundraising ideas to communicate with their patrons. If you don’t already have one, I highly recommend watching the rest of this video, then without stopping get started on creating your newsletter.
We recently created a video that is 9 tips to help enhance your missionary newsletter. Head over and watch it using the link in the description.
8. Speak to Small Groups
Another missionary fundraising idea that many people only tend to think of speaking in front of congregations in a service. It makes sense, the bigger the audience the potential bigger for gaining new donors.
The downside of speaking in front of large groups of people, is it is oftentimes impersonal and easy for people to scoot by.
Speaking to small groups have way more opportunity for being personal and having 1-on-1 conversations as well. This helps people to become more engage with your story.
9. Get Advice from your Pastors
A really great way to learn best fundraising tactics is to learn from people who have experience doing it.
Pastors, whether that is teaching pastors or missions pastors, tend to be decently connected in working with missionaries and seeing what has worked before or works for current missionaries they have.
Connecting with them can provide great insight to things they have been able to experience as others have gone before you in this process.
10. Reach Out to Churches
Reaching out to churches is definitely not off limits. A lot of times, churches have processes for these things and it can be difficult to convince them to give to you.
I would recommend approaching it as gaining advice for best ways to fundraise. Worst case, you get some extremely helpful missionary fundraising ideas. Best case, you get advice, and a new patron.
11. Meet with People to Share your Calling
It’s hard to gauge the best way to navigate relationships sometimes. I tried to avoid using pressure tactics. At the same time, you still need to raise money and meet with people.
Meet with as many people as you can. Share with them what the Lord is calling you to. Share with them your fundraising goals. Ask them pointedly, “Would you consider praying for me on this journey?” Most likely, they’ll say yes.
Tell them about your email newsletter, and then the opportunity to give if the Lord leads them. You don’t want them to feel pressured to give. You want them to give because they affirm in and believe in the calling the Lord has put on your life and the Holy Spirit has given them the desire to support you.
12. Know the numbers
I’m not talking about the statistics of unreached people groups or unbelievers in the area you are trying to reach, though that is great to know.
I am specifically talking about your fundraising goal. As people find out, some may ask,
“Well, how much are you wanting people to give?” You want to have that answer. “If 100 people give $30 a month, then we will reach our goal.”
This is what I mean by numbers. Have an amount to recommend when people ask. Let them know they can give more or less, but definitely be able to answer those questions.
13. Care About People
When you’re fundraising, it is incredibly easy to constantly be stressed. You only have one goal in mind, right? Answering the Lord’s calling, and reaching your fundraising goal.
I’ve had people I haven’t talked to in years reach out to me wanting to “connect.” Come to find out, they really just wanted to ask me to support them. Even if it wasn’t true, it felt like all they cared about was me giving to them, and not me as a person.
When meeting with people to talk about what you are doing, care about them. Ask what the Lord is doing in their lives. Ask how you can pray for them.
14. Don’t Stop Early
When we were fundraising, we were amazed by the ways the Lord provided our funding and how fast it happened. Near the end of our time in the states, we had the opportunity to speak at a friend’s small group.
We were basically done fundraising, so I talked about only needing like $50 more each month. Going into the meeting, our friends had told us they thought everybody in the group might give.
It’s hard to know what difference it may have made, but in my sharing with how we were basically done fundraising, it seemed most people took it as “we didn’t need anymore people to support us.”
I am not telling you to lie about how much more you need, but the Lord could absolutely provide more support than you need to help work as catastrophe insurance, extra savings, or something along those lines.
15. Pray
Fundraising support can be an extremely daunting task. It’s hard to come up with new missionary fundraising ideas as well. When we began the process, I was regularly anxious and stressed. I regularly tried to wake up early and just sit there praying and meditating on scripture to help calm my nerves.
Not only that, but if we believe God is sovereign over our fundraising and prayer plays a part in our fundraising, then we should prioritize praying throughout our fundraising process.
I hope these missionary fundraising ideas help you on your journey. If you enjoyed this video, we would love for you to follow along on our channel and website, as we will release content like this every week.
Also, check out our course Modern Fundraising for Missionaries. In the course we will teach you how to utilize digital techniques to help you on your missionary fundraising journey. You’ll learn everything from email marketing tips, to graphic design basics, lead development, and more!
Visit our website, schoolofmission.net to learn more, and we will see you next time.
