Have you ever thought fundraising is hard?
I definitely have. I ran a marathon once with my home church and tried to support raise for World Vision to bring clean drinking water to kids in Africa. I didn't even raise the cost of the race. I had to pay for the race out of pocket anyways, so money was still raised for them, but that was super discouraging! I didn't even particularly want to fundraise and now I know that I'm bad at it. Great.
Then, about a year and a half ago when I was fundraising again to go on a one-month mission trip to the Philippines, my missionary friend recommended that I read this book called The God Ask by Steve Shadrach. I like reading, so I figured why not. That book completely altered my perspective about fundraising and inspired me that I could do it again but successfully this time. It was so inspiring, in fact, that I would read a few pages of it, get fired up, and then send out an email to ask for donations to my trip. Rinse and repeat and before I knew it I was fundraised! $3500 had never felt so small.
When I came to GoCorps, I didn't know how much I would need to raise, but I knew that I could fundraise. I also felt confident that the Lord was truly calling me to this work in the Middle East. Because I knew that He was calling me, I knew that He would provide; all I had to do was trust and do what He was telling me to do.
GoCorps trains its Goers to fundraise by giving us a presentation, a standard ask amount, a spreadsheet to keep track of everything, and more. They also teach us about why fundraising is a good thing and why we should not be insecure or unsure of the work we are setting out to do. GoWeek, the week-long training camp, gave me the tools to do the work; after, all my wife and I had to do was to go do it!
So we started fundraising. Our goal? Almost double what my Philippines trip cost in monthly support. Intimidating, to say the least. My wife and I expected to take months and months to raise all of that. The reality? It took barely a month to have enough real people (and churches) tell us that they would donate for us to get fully funded. We are still fundraising, but mostly so that we can have more people on our team, informed of what we are doing and praying for us so that our work is successful (and so that our churches will be less burdened by us)!
God provides for His children. He has provided for us. And He can provide for you too :)