Building a Confident Mindset About Raising Support
By: Sara Payne, Magnify Missions Coach
Email: sara@magnifymissions.com
I remember a season in my life when I had to do a significant amount of fundraising in order to go overseas and accomplish the work I felt passionately called to. I had just graduated college and was incredibly inspired to get out into the world and go be a missionary. At the time I thought I would be living and doing ministry overseas for the rest of my life. I was preparing myself for a lifetime of raising funds, asking for donations, and financially depending on other people. As a starting point I was required to raise a year’s salary-$25,000, and I had to secure that salary for future years. This meant finding not just one time donations, but long-term, monthly donations. I had some minimal training on how to go about raising those funds. Most of it involved the standard “Ask Letter”, setting up appointments, and asking for referrals and connections. I believed in my mission and my purpose so I felt confident talking to people about it. Still it can be awkward to ask people to consider giving you their money, especially strangers. I ended up getting funded, but never quite fully. The generosity of a fellow teammate helped me get the rest of what I needed so I could go out into the field. When I transitioned to becoming a full time teacher (a different mission field in the United States) it was a relief to get a paycheck each month and be able to support others. I wasn’t worried about whether or not the money would come through or if someone would forget to give or just stop giving entirely. I knew I could depend on God, but people were less reliable. Needless to say it was a nice change up to get a paycheck I could depend on. Somehow I felt more stable and secure even though it was still the Lord who was providing. Years later I still wonder what made raising support such a burden.
My husband feels similarly about fundraising. He has been a part of his current ministry for almost a decade, and he absolutely dislikes asking for money. Thankfully for him his ministry operates with a funding model that focuses on raising funds for the entire ministry through church partners. All donations then go into a collective pool. Out of that pool comes each individual person’s salary. So if he decides to move on from the ministry, the funding will still be available for the next person who takes his role. In this case it’s not about funding a specific person, but about funding the ministry itself. I don’t think either model is right or wrong, but I do find people’s reactions to ministry fundraising intriguing and worth taking a closer look at.
The Drudgery of Raising Support
In my own personal experience and in my work with missionaries the sentiment towards ministry funding often is similar to that of doing the chores around the house that you don’t really enjoy but are necessary-like taking out the trash, cleaning dishes, or my personal dislike of putting away the laundry. You’d rather be doing something else, but you know when you neglect it, it piles up and starts to stink. So you maybe put it off until you are in a crisis and can’t find any more spoons or in my case workout pants, and then you begrudgingly tackle it all the while wishing you were doing something else. “Who needs to wear pants anyway?!” you think to yourself. Okay so maybe that’s just me. What is it about this aspect of ministry though that really just feels like drudgery? In a survey Magnify Missions did with missionaries, 44% identified raising support as the area they struggle with the most. Fifty percent of those same missionaries said that they would like to either have a professional help them raise funds or entirely take over maintaining communication to supporters. It’s interesting to me that we serve a God who literally says in Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.” It’s not an issue of resources here, people, God owns it all. It’s an issue of mindset.
The Mindset of a Finisher
For the last 6 months I have been training for a half marathon. My husband turned 40 this year, and he decided it was a good year to train for a marathon. I decided to train alongside him for what was a much more realistic and doable goal for me-a half. I had run several half marathons a decade ago, and I wanted to see what my body was made of 10 years later. We adopted a little girl just over a year ago and being a mama definitely comes with its joys and wear and tear. Between holding her and my long runs, my hips and lower back were aching weekly. Also, we had to train in the muggy summers of Indiana which was taxing on my body especially on days when I had to do my longer runs. During the course of that time I started listening to a book called, The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zinsser. It was an excellent book to listen to while I ran because it was literally all about training your mind to think of positive outcomes and believe the reality of those outcomes. Dr. Zinsser’s work involves training military cadets at West Point, world-class athletes, many who have been Olymipians, as well as business professionals. When you’re climbing up a hill on mile 9, your clothes are soaked, and you feel like you are in the tropical forest exhibit of the zoo - that is when you most need someone telling you to have the mindset of a finisher. I couldn’t exactly give up in the middle of listening to a book that was all about persevering, envisioning success, and having confidence in yourself.
The Dilemma of The Sewer Cycle
Each week I listened to the author share story after story of individuals who had trained their minds to achieve success in their respective fields. He identified confidence as a skill that could be built and developed and he shared the science and research to prove it. His work made me think about other areas of my own sphere of influence, especially my job. I started to wonder what it would look like for the missionaries we work with to apply these same tools to their fundraising efforts. At the time I was helping coach a client who needed to do some significant support raising. He needed to tackle a good deal of debt their family had accumulated from medical bills and a recent move to a new state to work with their current ministry. They were clearly burdened by the debt, and it came up often in our sessions. You could tell he wanted to eliminate it, but every month when we would talk about his progress on raising support he would be at the same place. Something else always came up that took his energy and time elsewhere-there were more pressing matters or ministry needs. Support raising was on the back burner, and it was staying there.
Why was it on the back burner? For this client, it was intimidating and overwhelming. Each time he would think about making calls he would have doubts and fears set in-”I don’t deserve this money…Why would they support me?...They're already giving, why would they give more?” He envisioned the worst outcome and doubted his ability to successfully execute the call. The Confident Mind identifies this as “The Sewer Cycle” (Graphic below). The negative conscious thoughts (Don’t screw up!) lead to unconscious emotions (Frustration, Worry) which leads to a negative physical state, which ultimately leads to poor execution (or no execution) of the task at hand-in this case calling supporters.
Capture and Make Obedient
Here I was encountering the exact scenario I was hearing the author share about in the book-athletes and military personnel choking and not following through. This was a different context, but the outcomes were the same. When it came to game time, sitting down to make calls, he wasn’t showing up. His mind was getting the best of him and redirecting him to anyplace but where he most needed to be focused. 2 Corinthians 10:5 calls us to, …”take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Our negative thoughts, doubts and fears shouldn’t find a place to land in our minds. We are called to first take those thoughts captive. I literally envision our negative thoughts as being some kind of fierce animal like an alligator. I just spent a week in Florida so it’s fresh in my mind. Have you ever seen one of those things being captured? It thrashes and snaps and makes every effort to be free until the rope is on it and it's been tranquilized. We are supposed to capture and then make our thoughts obedient to the lordship of Christ. That means some major training needs to take place. Because that alligator isn’t going to become tame and obey anyone overnight and neither are your negative thoughts. We have to teach our minds to redirect and move our thoughts instead to “...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8). We as believers have every reason to be confident because of who our God is.
Envision the Win
I began to ponder what it would look like to coach our missionaries to use the same techniques as these athletes and West Point trainees. What if they took the time to envision themselves making a successful phone call or appointment and securing a new donor or an increased donation? I started to develop my own exercise for what they could envision and think through: What would the room look like? Are they in a comfortable relaxed space? What are the words they would use? Did they create a script and practice out loud or even with a colleague? How would they feel as they picked up the phone and explained their ministry and need and then made the ask? What would be their thoughts? What negative thoughts would they need to leave behind and what positive thoughts would they need to replace them with? What would be their body language as they sat down across from a possible donor? What if they thought of themself as confident, poised, and ready to make a big ask? After imagining the scene they could then shift to reflecting on and applying God’s word based on Philippians 4:8.
What is true about this situation?”
What is the right way to approach this?
Is my thinking about myself pure?
Is my thinking about this donor right?
Is my approach to the task of fundraising admirable?
Is my thinking about the person I’m calling excellent?
Is my diligence in completing this task praiseworthy?
In The Confident Mind Dr. Zinsser notes, “The First Victory begins with accepting and utilizing the connection that decades of mind/body research has established: your conscious thoughts have a huge influence on your performance by the way they shape your mood and in turn affect your physical state.” If we could train ourselves to literally think through, envision, imagine the best possible scenario or outcome then the positive results should follow. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” The renewing of our minds requires filtering content and being selective about what we let come in or what we put on replay. If we have a repeated thought cycle that raising support and communicating with donors is drudgery or that we’re not good at then it WILL be a drag and we won’t raise our funds. Self-fulfilling prophecies are actually a reality. We have not only the opportunity but also a command to think differently about our work and circumstances. Thankfully we have a good Father who absolutely loves giving good gifts to His children. If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11). If you’re looking for a jumpstart into the fundraising process, I recommend checking out this free resource: Building Your Donor Base. Start asking and envisioning the possibilities.
Sara Payne is first and foremost a beloved child of God. She likes to surround herself with people who love Jesus, be out in nature, work out, cook, and drink delicious cups of coffee. She is married to Ryan, an amazing man who loves Jesus, and also is (in her opinion) a rock star with a band called Attaboy. They have one beautiful little girl named Isabella, who is a joy and delight! Sara’s first job after college was as a missionary serving overseas in Budapest, Hungary. She then transitioned into being a full time English teacher in a PBL school on the south side of Indianapolis, IN. There her mission field was high school students. After getting married, she worked for Magnify Learning as a Branding Manager and PBL facilitator. Since becoming a mama, she now works for Magnify Missions where she is able to combine her love of missions and teaching to serve and coach missionaries around the world.
