What are you looking for?
Why are you raising money? You have an awesome idea. You see some need in the community you can fix. Unfortunately, you don’t have the resources you need to make it happen.
How many times have you heard these sentences?
“We can’t do that… we don’t have enough money.”
“It’s too expensive.”
“We are going to have to wait to do that until we have more in the bank account.”
“We could never raise that much money!”
Those statements reflect a mental bias towards scarcity.
People who have a scarcity bias think, “There is never enough to do x, how could you consider doing y,” where the ‘x’ represents what you are already doing, and the ‘y’ stands for anything new that you want to tackle.
Does Jesus teach us to think this way in the Gospel? NO! Look upon the lilies of the field, who neither spin nor sew, but are arrayed in finery greater than that of Solomon. Over and over again, Jesus tries to teach us to entrust our material needs and plans to the Lord. He will give us what we need at the moment that we need it.
The foundation that needs to undergird all of your fundraising is a firm desire to see the will of God accomplished in your parish. Because, if you seek first the kingdom, all things will be added unto you. ALL THINGS! Those scarcity statements don’t take God’s infinite power and unlimited resources into account. Rather they are echoes of the Israelites who refused to believe that God would conquer the Promised Land on their behalf.
How do you change your mindset? How do you establish a firm foundation for your fundraising? Everything good starts with prayer. A keen desire to seek to know and accomplish the will of God. As you seek, God will in fact inspire you with the direction that He wants you to take. When you move in faith in the direction He has laid out, He will provide the resources you need as you need them.
Faithful fundraising starts with the mindset, ‘If it’s God’s will, it’s God’s bill.”
Why is this new philosophy a game changer? If you can say, “I don’t know how we’re going to raise the money to do x, but I really think that God wants us to do it,” then you have the beginnings of a winning fundraising campaign. That’s the moment that you get to walk by faith and not by sight.
The Almoner hopes to help you lay the plans that you need to raise the funds that you need to accomplish what God has planned for you. While planning is good and useful and necessary, you still have to learn to walk by faith.
The first and most essential step in your plan is to decide to move in faith that God wants you to know His plan and He’ll help you do succeed.
Learn more about how to use the Fundraiser’s Playbook to improve your fundraising with this helpful guide: How to use the Fundraiser’s Playbook.
Would you like to learn more about raising money for Church and Ministry? Check out Letters From The Almoner, now available on Amazon.com.
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