Super Short Summer Survey #1
Super Short Summer Survey #1By Shane Bennett
The next three Practical Mobilization columns will be devoted to mining the collective brilliance of the Missions Catalyst tribe. Thank you in advance for taking a few minutes from your elongated days (or nights, friends in the southern hemisphere!) to share your thoughts. They matter.
Somewhere high on a long list of kindnesses God has extended me is the strong sense that there is much, very much, that I don’t know. Like how to manage money, for instance. This has never been natural or easy for me.
Recently, in an additional kindness, God connected me with a financial coach. (If you could use a financial coach, shoot me an email and I’ll connect you to my guy.) He is wise and Jesus-y, and he makes me do hard stuff. He says hard stuff like, “Shane, I want you to call every single one of your donors once a year.” Ack! That works about to three a week. So far, I’m batting about .800 for the month since he gave the assignment.
This has me thinking, though. How many of my donors really want to talk to me on the phone? If you call me, you’d better be bleeding out your eyes or offering me a speaking gig! But Brian asserts this is a component of my ministry. Calling donors, asking how I can pray for them and actually doing so while on the call will bless people. (He also says it will help my support!) So I submit.
But I also wonder. What types of communication, and at what intervals, do donors really want? Personally, I’d like to hear more from the friend to whom I give a small monthly gift. At the same time, I have a dear analog-only donor who’s given monthly to my work for decades with, sadly, almost no information from me.
You probably donate money to support-based workers. You may also live on the gifts of others who give to you. Would you help all of us by taking two minutes to fill out this brief survey? The insights and experiences of our Practical Mob tribe will be helpful to many.
Thank you to the kind folks at Pioneers, Support Raising Solutions and Stewardship Ambassadors for their input on this survey.
One respondent will be chosen at random to receive a US$25 Amazon gift certificate, so answer away.