Coronavirus and Fundraising?

Question: With the Coronavirus pandemic shutting down much of the world, what can you do now in fundraising? Nothing? Wait until things improve?

Answer: Now is the time to be active in your giving partners’ lives. Now is not the time to withdraw! Your giving partners need your encouragement, but it will take time.

Donor Ministry Ideas:

• Phone a giving partner who might be struggling. Listen to her. Pray with her over the phone.
• Send a physical note, text or email to a partner just to let him know you are thinking of him. Tell him you are concerned. Share a scripture.
• Send money to a giving partner who has lost a job. Yes, you, the mission-worker give to a donor!
• Offer to babysit for a busy mom who has taken a second job to make ends meet.
• Take some warm food to a partner and his family.

If you show compassion to your giving partners in their time of need, they will never forget it. I once went for a two-day visit to a discouraged giving partner who had stopped support. He had lost his job and was having trouble finding a new one. We talked, laughed, read the Bible and prayed—an “encouraging time,” he said, thanking me for interrupting my schedule to spend two days with him.

After returning home, I felt led by the Lord to send him $200. He was shocked and said I would never know how much it meant to him. A year later he finally found a good job and re-started his support—at $200 per month! 

I didn’t send him the money in hopes of getting it back! I simply felt compelled to help a struggling brother.

But for those on your mailing list who have not lost their jobs, make a financial appeal—not to “bail you out” but to partner in your gospel vision! If people in your ministry are suffering, tell your new giving partners that part of their support will go to help these sufferers directly.

Donor ministry takes time! But it is time well-spent. Your giving partners are worthy of your investment.

What can you do today to bring a smile to the face of a struggling giving partner? Who comes to mind? Go! Encourage him or her today!

“And one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” — JAMES 2:16