Have you ever wondered how to raise money for your ministry? In this episode, we’ll be talking about practical tips and steps that you can take to raise support for your ministry so that you can effectively evangelize and share the gospel.
Get your copy of Daniel King’s book on “How to Raise Money for Your Ministry”
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
Have you ever wondered how to raise money for your ministry? In this episode, we’ll be talking about practical tips and steps that you can take to raise support for your ministry so that you can effectively evangelize and share the gospel.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:24):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now, here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:48):
Amen. Alright, well, we’re going to talk about how to raise money for your ministry. How many of you want to learn how to raise money for your ministry? And so, just like yesterday, this is going to be very practical teaching. And, and so one time I asked a minister you know, how are, do you do everything? He says, well, God just does it. But then I noticed that behind the scenes, he, they, his ministry was doing lots of things in order to make their ministry successful. And so I wanted to learn how do you make a ministry successful? How do you raise money for ministry? And TL Osborne, who we’ve talked about this morning, he said that if you don’t have money, then you don’t have a ministry. And so, in order to have a ministry, we need to have money, because in order to get on an airplane, you have to be able to buy the plane ticket.
(01:47):
In order to rent a sound system, you gotta give them money in order to rent generators and do publicity and do television. And, and to feed the hungry, everything that you’re called to do, you need to have money in ministry. And so I wrote a book, it’s called How to Raise Money for Your Ministry. And this book, it’s a small book, but I’m selling it for only a thousand dollars because with this book, you can raise millions for the gospel <laugh>. I, I actually, I brought a few copies with me, but they were all sold out on Monday. Yeah. And so I know many of you didn’t get a chance to get it. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to send Ms. Eden the, the books, and she will put it up. So all of you can have a copy of this book and you can download it and, and because I want to give this book to you as, as my gift to you. Thank you.
(02:48):
All right. So we’re gonna just go through some of the concepts in this book. And in this book, I’ve identified 10 words that will help you to be an effective fundraiser. So the first word is the word boldness. Everyone say boldness. Boldness. Now, I think sometimes when it comes to raising money for your ministry, there is like this yuck feeling that people feel, they, they, they feel kind of like asking for money makes me feel yuck on the inside. Like, like I they, they kind of feel embarrassed to, to ask for money because we’re taught to be self-sufficient and we’re taught to, to be able to take care of ourselves. And so asking for money sometimes might feel a little bit difficult. But DL Moody, he said that blessed are the fundraisers for in heaven. They shall sit next to the martyrs.
(03:44):
Sometimes fundraising can be just as difficult as being martyred, but I want you to know that if God has given you a vision, God also has provision for your vision. And so there’s a, a great missionary evangelist. His name is David Shiley has a ministry in, in Dallas, Texas, a Rockwall, Texas area. And when I was younger, he, he mentored me a lot. And one thing he said to me really helped me out a lot. He says, sometimes people feel that they wear two different hats when they’re leading an organization. One hat is the ministry hat. So they put on their ministry hat, and they go out and preach the gospel. They, they get lots of results, and, and God moves. And they said they love wearing that hat. And then they also have to wear this fundraising hat. And so they put on the fundraising hat, and it, it feels difficult.
(04:40):
And, and they’re, they’re going and trying to raise money and it’s like, like pulling teeth and, and, and they don’t like the fundraising hat. And so he said what really helped him is that he realized that he actually was not wearing two hats. He said, what I was actually doing is I’m only wearing one hat because it is the fundraising that makes the ministry possible. And so, without having the fundraising aspect of what you’re doing, you’re not going to be able to have the, the ministry aspect. And, and so you’re not wearing two hats. You’re actually wearing one hat. And so when you’re asking for money, you’re not actually asking for money for yourself. This will help you get over the fear of feeling uncomfortable asking for money. You’re not asking for money for yourself. You’re asking for money for the people that you’re called to minister to.
(05:34):
Amen. And so, my goal is to lead millions of people to Jesus. And so when I go to a businessman and I ask him, say, could you please give me some money to help me? I’m not actually asking for myself. I’m asking on behalf of the massive crowds of people that have never heard about Jesus. And so I’m asking for eternity’s sake. I’m asking for what God wants to do in their lives. And, and so if you get uncomfortable with asking just remember who you’re asking for. You’re asking for the people that God has called you to minister to. And so sometimes there’s negative pushback. When you go out and fundraise, I wanna read you an email that I received. I, I sent out emails. Everyone I, I meet, I try to collect their emails. And so somehow this guy got on my email list and I sent him an email asking for money for one of the Crusades.
(06:32):
And this was his response to me. He says, hello, I received your email about your ministry. I’ve never heard of your ministry, and I’ve never asked to be contacted by your ministry. Don’t send me any more emails asking for money. Remember what Jesus did to the money changers in the temple? I’m sure you have an understanding. The faith God asked us to have in him to provide for our needs. You should try having faith in God for your finances instead of sending out unsolicited emails to people asking for money. Thank you for taking me off your email list. And please represent the kingdom of God with more discretion and respect for our heavenly Father. Wow. Isn’t that a lovely religious email to re, to receive? But the man’s angry words didn’t bother me. Why? Because in response to that same email, another person gave me a donation of $5,000.
(07:21):
And that kind of, that, that softened my heart. I was like, that’s okay. It was good that I sent out that email. So James four verse two says, you do not have, because you do not ask. Matthew seven, seven through eight says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock in the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks recedes, he who seeks finds and into him who knocks the door will be open. And so there’s a book that I recommend that you get. The name of the book is People Raising. It’s by William Dylan. And he explains that there are three approaches in Christianity to raising money. And the first approach was used by George Mu Mueller, who had orphanages in great Britain. And he never asked for money. He had a policy that he never shared the needs of the orphanages.
(08:15):
He never asked for money. And so one day they didn’t have any food to feed the orphans. And so he told all the orphans, gather around the table and let’s pray. And so they all gather around the table, they take hands together, they bound their heads. And as they began to pray and say, Lord, bless this food, which we are about to eat, amen. When they said, amen, someone knocked on the door and said, I just felt like God told me to bring this basket full of food to you. All right. So that’s a great miracle. So that’s the, the, the Mueller way of raising money. And then another way of raising money was Hudson Taylor. He didn’t directly solicit for money, but he did believe in sharing the need with people. So he was a, a missionary over to China, and he would write home and he would say, we have these needs.
(09:04):
And then he would see that the churches would help meet the needs. But then there was another evangelist. His name was DL Moody, and he was up in Chicago and DL Moody before he became an evangelist. He was a businessman. And so DL Moody was very bold in asking businessmen for money. And so he’d go and knock on their door and he would say, I am feeding the children of Chicago. Can you give me money? And they would give him money and, and say, how much do you need? And they’d write him out a check for $10,000. And back in those days, $10,000 was a lot of money. And, and so he was very aggressive in his fundraising in the Billy Graham Museum Wheaton College up in Illinois, there is a fundraising letter that was written by DL Moody. And he had 200 secretaries who worked to type out letters asking people for money.
(09:59):
And this, this fundraising letter, it was actually a thank you letter that he, he sent to a Sunday school of, of girls that were from the age of seven to 12. And he says, thank you so much for collecting your pennies to help me preach the gospel. You have collected 53 cents, and I want to send you this letter to say, thank you for helping me to preach the gospel. And so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any one of these three methods, but as for me, the, the the way that that I operate is closer to how DL Moody operated than the the Mueller method. If you have the faith to do it, go for it. But I think that if you share the need with people, people will respond. And so I’d encourage you to be bold in sharing your needs. The second word that I want to talk about is the word source.
(11:00):
And it’s important to understand that God is your source. And so you have to keep your eyes focused on God, because if you take your eyes off of God and focus on people, you’re going to be disappointed. The people that you think will give big, the people that you say, surely this person I’ve known for a long time, they, they’re wealthy, they can do something significant to help me. Usually it’s not those people that will give. And and you’ll be disappointed if you start to think that a person or a particular church or a group will be the ones that will meet your need. And so you have to keep your eyes focused on God. God is your source. And so I remember when I took my first mission trip, my, my parents were missionaries in Mexico, and then when I was about 13 or 14, I, I heard about a mission trip that was going down to Venezuela.
(12:04):
And the cost to go on this missions trip was about $700. And I went to my mom and dad, I said, you know, I would really like to go on this missions trip. And, and so they said, well, if you’re gonna go on this missions trip you need to raise money. And so I went and I, I wrote out letters to my aunts and my uncles and, and my friends, and like anyone I could think of that, that would gimme money. And, and so I sent it off and, and it was a miracle. God brought in the money that I needed for that first missions trip. And then the next year I wanted to go on another missions trip. And the second year, the, the cost was about $1,200. And so I had to stretch my faith. And, and then every year I started doing different missions trips to, to different places.
(12:49):
I, I got to go to St. Petersburg, Russia when pastor Billy Joe Doherty was doing great evangelistic crusades in the Olympic stadium there in, in St. Petersburg, Russia. That was when I was about 14. And so I went and, and, and I was raising my, and, and so God increased my faith. I started small, but God increased my faith. And then I started doing crusades. And so I went from needing a thousand or $2,000 to instead eating $10,000. And, and so that was a big step of faith. And then we started do bigger crusades, and then we needed $20,000 and $30,000. And, and so as you continue to see God be faithful, you’ll realize that he is the God of abundance. And you have to keep your eyes focused on God. Don’t get distracted looking here or looking there. God’s will is God’s bill.
(13:46):
Hudson Taylor said, God’s work then God’s way will never lack God’s supply. The third word is the word relationships. So relationships are, are very important. Everything in the kingdom of God rises and falls on relationships. And I remember when I was in Bible school at at Victory Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma TL Osborne had given his building to victory to use as their Bible store, as their Bible school. And he still had his offices there. And so I knew I wanted to be an evangelist, and so I really wanted to meet Tia Osborne. And so I went into his office and talked to his secretary. He says, I am young, but I am called by God to be an evangelist. Can I meet Dr. Osborne? And, and she says, oh, Dr. Osborne is very busy. He is traveling. I’m sorry, but it’s not possible for you to set up a meeting with him.
(14:50):
And so I went the next day and bugged her again. And then I went the next day. And like I was in Bible school for like, you know, six months, and like every day I would go bug her. We became very good friends. And I would, I would always, and she’d say, Nope, he still cannot meet with you. And so like, well, I want you to know. And so finally I had a friend, his name was Dominic Russo. He was on my floor at oral Roberts University. And he told me, oh, he says, my dad went to Rama when he was at Rama. He became friends with Kevin and Leslie McNulty, and they are helping to set up crusades for TL Osborne. He says, maybe my dad could introduce you to that. And, and so Dominic Russo’s father, who’s also named Dominic Russo, introduced me to Kevin McNulty and he said TL Osborne is doing a crusade down in Costa Rica.
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And I said, can I come? And so they invited me to come. And, and so even though I lived in Tulsa and TL Osborne lived in Tulsa, I had to fly to Costa Rica to meet him. And he was, when I finally did get to meet him, he was so gracious and, and so kind and, and spent so much time with me explaining how he did crusades over the years. And I learned so much from it. And, and from that was able to build a relationship with Dr. Osborne. And, and then towards the end of his life I had another evangelist friend who wanted to meet Dr. Osborne. And he said, can you arrange the meeting? I said, yes, I think I could call him. He said, but instead of just introducing you to Dr. Osborne let’s invite 30 evangelists to come. And so we, we had 30 evangelists come, and Dr. Osborne came and sat in our living room and spent time with us. And, and all the evangelists had lots of questions to ask him. And so we asked the first question, and Dr. Osborne, he says, he says, oh, he says, I, I’m old. I don’t know anything about that. You are young. You, you, God has given you all the answers. You know, he says, but I do have one thought. And, and so then he talked for three and a half hours, <laugh>.
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And but everything in the kingdom of God comes from relationships. And, and so it’s so important to build relationships and, and to have friends realize that every relationship is I important. It’s also important to paddle your canoe in many different rivers because one church or one group of churches, one denomination, is not going to be big enough to support the size of the vision that God has given you. And so if you just focus on one church, and they’re your only source of support, that’s great, until the time comes where they say, I’m sorry, we’ve had a meeting with our board and we cannot support you any longer. And so you, you’ve gotta paddle your canoe in many different waters. And so I joined different organizations and different groups, go to different conferences, build relationships in many different circles, because God is going to call you to do something that’s so big.
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If you just focus in on one source and thing, everything is gonna come from one source. You’re limiting what God is going to be able to do in your ministry. And so don’t burn bridges and take time to work to develop important relationships. On Sunday, I came a day early and I preached to the church in, in Plant City, Florida, which is like about 45 minutes from here. And the, the, the pastor there, he’s been a friend for, for many years. And so when I told him I was coming to bootcamp, he says, oh, I want you to come to my church. And so we looked at the calendar this Sunday is going to be Easter. He says, I can’t have you preach on Easter that we’re doing a special outreach. He says, but why don’t you come the week before?
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So I came the week before, well, I preached Plant City, and then I have a, a partner who has been very faithful supporting me for a hundred dollars a month. They’ve been very faithful for, for quite a few years. And I haven’t had much interaction with them, and I knew that they lived down in Sarasota. And so I just said, you know, that’s like an hour from Plant City. Let me just drive down there and, and, and I want to come and see your family and spend some time with you. So I went down, I didn’t say anything about fundraising or anything. I was just saying, you know, hi, how are you? How’s your family? How’s your son? How’s your, you know, what are you up to? And just spending time with him. And so when I left, he, he pulled out his checkbook and wrote out a check for $2,500 to send with me.
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I said, thank you very much. I’ll come visit more often, <laugh>, you know but it’s that relationship that’s important to, to be able to, to maintain relationships with people that, that give to you. So everyone say relationship, relationship, the next word I want to talk about is the word vision. Vision is what drives fundraising. Not need, people do not want to give to your needs, but they will give to your vision. If you, if you write someone and say, oh, I’ve got a credit card Bill come and due, and I really need $50,000 right away, you know, in order to pay, like no one, no one’s going to give to that. But if you write them and say, I’m going to be going to Tanzania, we’re gonna be preaching to, to thousands of people, we’re going to be going from school to school, and we’re going to be leading the children to Jesus, and, and the cost of doing this is going to be $5,000, would you invest and help us to raise the money to do this?
(20:27):
That is something that people can get on board with. And so my vision has been winning souls. When I was 15 years old, I was reading the success book, if you wanna Be Successful, you write down your goals. And I wrote down the goal, I Daniel King wanna lead a million people to Jesus before I turned 30 years of age. And, and so that became the driving force of my life. And so everywhere I, I share that vision, my goal was to lead a million people to Jesus. And, and, and if you help me, I can lead another million people to Jesus. And, and so people give to me because they know the, the, the, the vision. And if people remember one thing about me, I want them to remember Daniel King. He’s an evangelist who’s going after a million souls. Like, and so people will introduce me, you know, maybe I, I met them years before, and, and, and, and they don’t remember anything, but they remember the vision.
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The vision is to lead a million souls to heaven, him, and it’s vision that people can really get behind. The next word is the word communication. It’s important to communicate, to be diligent in your communication. Remember that it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease out of sight is usually out of mind. Most people are not thinking about you on a regular basis. I, I hate to break it to you, but most people are not thinking about you. And it’s not because you’re not important to them, but it’s because their lives are just so busy. And so you have to do something to remind them that you exist. And so always be talking about your vision. If you don’t talk about your vision, no one else will talk about it. You have the greatest thing in the world. You might have the greatest thing in the world going on, but if no one knows what you’re doing, how can you sustain it?
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And so, some of the ways that I keep communicating with people is through newsletters, through e emails on social media. One of the great keys to raising money is taking lots of pictures. One time I had written a book on healing, and I, I took it to TL Osborne to show him, and he looked through it, and he, he gave it back to me, almost threw it back at me. And he says, where are the pictures? He says, when you take a picture of a miracle, the miracle happens twice, once in the life of the person who received the miracle. And again, when you show the miracle, which God has done, so if you look at Teal Osborne’s picture books, in every book, there are many pictures of all of the crusades, the people that were healed, the pastor’s conferences, the sound systems that he would give away.
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And so you need to take lots of pictures. And so today I have a volunteer, Ladner, come up here, give him a great big hand. And yesterday he took a couple of pictures with his cell phone and sent it to me. And today he says, would you like me to use your big camera? So he’s using the big camera, and he’s taking pictures to help me fundraise to say, I am training evangelists today. And so let’s get a good picture. Come, come up here. And I want everybody to, to put your hands up in the air. Actually, let’s stand up. Can you stand up? Everybody stand up. Let’s just get a good picture here.
(24:00):
Awesome, wonderful. So every time you go preach, I always tell people, I wanna show your beautiful faces to my mother. Everybody stand up and, and I’ll even pull up my phone and say, you know, everybody just smile and take their picture. Get a selfie there with the crowd, because it’s important to show people what God is doing. Take lots of pictures. The next word I want to talk about is the word persistence. Everyone say persistence. Persistence. One of my friends wrote a fundraising letter and he sent it out to a hundred people. And he was really disappointed because only one or two people responded to the fundraising letter, and he got really discouraged, and he gave up. And I told him, I said, listen, you gave up too soon. If you would write back to those same people again, send them a report of what God has done, give them a call, send them a text, give them an email.
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He said, if you are persistent, you will be able to raise money. But if you just do one thing one time and there’s no response, you haven’t been persistent enough, you need to keep going, keep going. Winston Churchill was once asked to give a speech at a boy’s school, and the headmaster gave him this long introduction. Winston Churchill, he’s the one who saved Great Britain during World War ii, and he gave all of his credentials in the books that he wrote, and he was the prime minister of England. And after this long in introduction, Churchill stood up and told the boys in eight word speech. He said, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.
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And then he went and sat back down again. But what a tremendous thing to remember that if you don’t give up, eventually you’re going to win. Calvin Coolidge, who was the president of the United States, he said, nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and will always solve the problems of the human. And so don’t expect any easy solution or magic key for raising money. If I had a magic key for, for raising money, I can just give it to you all right now, and, and we could be finished. But you just, you have to be persistent. You gotta keep going and determine, this is what God has called me to do, and come hell or high water, I’m going to do it, and I’m not going to give up.
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No matter what happens, I’m gonna keep on keeping on and I’m not going to stop. Amen. Amen. Amen. So there’s a, a really great business book. I like reading business books. I, I, I do a lot of theological reading, and then I also do a lot of reading from, from business books. And so one of the best business books is a book by Jim Collins that’s called Good to Great. And in it, he explains a principle that I like to call the, the Merry-Go-Round principle. And he, he calls it the Flywheel principle, but I call it the Merry-Go-Round principle, because more people know what that is. And so if you can imagine a merry-go-round on a children’s playground, okay? And so I’ve got two kids and they like being on merry-go-round. So I’ll, I’ll put them on the merry-go-round and I’ll start to push the merry-go-round.
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And like, at first it’s very difficult to push, and so I have to strain and push, you know, it hasn’t been greased enough. And so you gotta, you gotta work really hard to push it. And so you, you work hard and you, you start pushing and, and then you push again, and then you, you push again, and then you push again. And after a little bit, you know, it’s starting to go around pretty good. And, and, and then you can keep it going, and it’s much easier to keep it going, and then it goes faster. And, and so when it’s going fast, you can just go like this and it really doesn’t take much effort. You can keep that thing going fast without much effort, but it’s in the early stages that you really have to work at it, and you have to work really hard at, at getting it going.
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And so it’s the early stages of your ministry that are going to be the most difficult because to, to get the merry go round to start turning, it takes a lot of work, a lot of persistence. You gotta keep going. And then after you have your ministry going, you develop some relationships, you’ve developed some credibility. People have heard of you, they know your name. It’s much easier to keep the ministry going, you know, you can do it with relatively little effort, but you just keep doing. And so in the beginning stages, man, you gotta send out a newsletter, you gotta send out a email, you gotta give people calls, you gotta send out text messages, you gotta take pictures, you gotta share, and you gotta send out a thank you card. I mean, someone sent you $3, you gotta send them a, a thank you postcard.
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Say, wow, thank you so much for sending me that $3. And, and you just gotta, and, and it’s hard work, it’s hard labor. But I want to encourage you, if you’ll keep going, the day will come where your ministry will be spinning rapidly, like that merry-go-round, and you’ll be going faster and faster and faster, and then it looks much easier. And so when you look at Christ for All Nations, you have to realize that everything that’s going on here, I mean, everything is spinning here, and everything is just going, everybody things are are, are going all the time. But it didn’t begin that way. You know, Reinhardt, bonky had many years of faithfulness in the ministry, building the ministry, putting the work in, putting the effort in, doing crusades, suffering huge setbacks. Like he, he built the biggest tent in the world, and the second time they put it up, the, the wind came and, and tore the top off the tent and, and destroyed it.
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I mean, that could destroy a ministry, you know? But he kept pushing and kept pushing. And Peter Vandenberg, he kept pushing, kept pushing. And, and so what you see happening here is the result of 40 years of faithfulness to the vision of God to go after souls. So you can’t be disappointed if at first things aren’t spinning very rapidly. You gotta keep going. I don’t wanna say keep going, keep going, and don’t stop, don’t stop. All right? Another word that I like is the word education. Learn about fundraising. Read books about how to raise money. I’d encourage you to, one of the best things you can do to educate yourself about fundraising is pick five ministries that you admire and start to support those five ministries, even if you can only afford to do a little bit. Become a $25 a month supporter of five different ministries, and look at what they do to keep in touch with you and then imitate what they’re doing.
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Are they sending you newsletters? Does someone call you, you know, what are, how are you, how are they keeping up the relationship with you? And so that could be the best seed that you could sow is looking at how different ministries are being successful at fundraising and do what they do. If they have a mailing list, you start a mailing list. If they do an email, you, you, you do emails. So one time, you know, I was praying, I was asking God, I said, God you know, I need more monthly supporters. Can you please gimme more monthly supporters? And God spoke to me. He says, Daniel, he says, who are you supporting monthly? And at that time, I hadn’t been supporting anybody every single month, you know, I’d given to different ministries, but I wasn’t. So I said, man, if I want monthly supporters, I better be supporting somebody monthly.
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I better be sowing in the area that I want to receive. And, and so one of the first ministries that my wife and I started supporting was c a n. We wanted to become a monthly supporter with c a n. So we’ve continued that over the years. And so, you know, I get all of their beautiful pictures, and that Daniel Kalinda, he signs his letters personally, I think to me. And, you know, it’s, it’s really says Daniel Kalinda and Reinhardt Bonky together, you know, and they sent, well, I, I’ve learned so much by reading the newsletters that they sent out, and then the next month, you know, whatever they said, then I can just say, you know, look at, look at how God is moving and, and imitate. Sometimes imitation is the greatest form of flattering. All right? The next key is the word wisdom.
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And so, use financial wisdom. Be faithful with the money that God puts into your hand. Keep track of every dollar in every donor. Put aside a percentage of your money for a rainy day when you’re doing a crusade. Don’t just spend the money on the, the first bid that you receive. You gotta negotiate everything. Raise your money in phases. Be truthful in your fundraising. If you say, tell people you’re gonna do something, you need to do it. Keep your word and, and show proof of what you’ve been doing, and know the purpose of money in ministry. Money is a means. It’s not an in money is simply a tool that we use. If I was going to build a platform, I would use a hammer. And I don’t get enamored with a hammer. I just, you use the hammer for when you need to build the platform, and then later you lay it down.
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And, and so for me, money is a tool, a tool that I use to build the platform of for ministry that I can use it to, to reach people. And so people who start focusing only on money and only on fundraising very quickly, their ministries can become unbalanced. And, and there can be problems in their, their ministries, because they’re so focused on money. And so we use money, but you have to keep your focus, the ministry that God has called you to. And so you have to remember what the purpose of that money is. The next word is the word variety. So, you know, they say that variety is the spice of life. And so in fundraising, it’s good to just try a bunch of different things. And in our ministry, we have tried every single idea that we can, can come up with for, for raising money.
(35:14):
And I would say that some of those ideas have worked well, some of them have, have, have worked poorly. Like some of the I ideas you know, have worked slowly. But there’s no one idea that’s the, the secret to fundraising. You just gotta try a lot of different things. And so one of the things that is probably most important is sending out regular newsletters. And so what I’d recommend that you do is make a list of the top a hundred people that you think might support you. Maybe it’s family members, maybe it’s friends, maybe it’s people from the church that you came from. You know, make a list of the top a hundred people that you think would support you and give them a call, get their addresses, and start to send them a regular monthly newsletter. And I don’t think you should wait until you graduate from bootcamp.
(36:13):
I think you should start now. In fact, I think you should go and, and send them something this week and, and say, Hey, I’m in evangelism Bootcamp right now. In just three weeks, we’re going to Tanzania. And I want to ask you to be praying for me as I go to Tanzania because we’re going to be ministering to thousands of people while we’re there. And we also need money in order to make it happen. Would you be willing to send a, a gift to help me with the cost of going on this mission trip to Tanzania? And, and so start now with a, a newsletter. Send out the newsletter and maybe the first newsletter that you send out, not very many people respond, but when you go to Tanzania, what you do is you, you take pictures for one another and share your pictures with one another, and then take those pictures and hand and, and, and then when you get back, send out another newsletter and include the pictures and say, look, this is what God did.
(37:08):
This is the miracles that God did. And, and, and now that we’ve completed the Tanzania, now God is calling us to do a crusade in Thailand. And you say, and, and, and share the vision of that. And even if you think it’s gonna be like six months until you go to Thailand, you know, begin to share the vision and, and, and, and, and tell people what it is that you’re, you, you’re going to do. And I think that you should send out a newsletter at least every month. If you want people to give to you monthly, you should communicate with them monthly. I think one of the mistakes that a lot of missionaries make is they’ll, they’ll do like one or two letters a year, and then they’ll wonder why people aren’t sending the money. But it’s because they’re not communicating enough. And so if you want people to give to you a monthly, you send them something monthly.
(38:03):
And when you send a newsletter, put a return envelope in there, make it easy for people to send money back to. You even buy stamps and put a stamp on the corner of the envelope and, and pre-addressed it and say, if you want to help me with a trip to Tanzania, I’m including an envelope in this letter for you to quickly send that back to me because I’m leaving in just three weeks. I need to hear from you right away. And if you’ll do that, people will respond. All right? So another thing you can do is, is write thank you letters. After someone sends you something, even if it’s just a little bit, write them a letter and say, thank you. Thank you so much for your generous gift. Thank you for helping me go to Tanzania and, and thank you for helping us lead people to Jesus.
(38:47):
And, and tie your thank you back in results and into the vision and, and tell a story. So when I was in Sierra Leone in February we had lots of Muslims in our services. It’s 70% Muslim, but it’s not really militant Muslims. So, so the Muslims just came to the services. And even in our pastor’s conference, we had two Imams who came to the pastor’s conference. We didn’t find out about it until the third day. And, and so we never gave an altar call in the pastor’s conference because we just assumed all the pastors were saved. And then we found out that these two Muslim imams were there in the pastor’s conference and we’re like, oh, man, that’s why you should give a altar call every single time you go anywhere, no matter what. Give an altar call. Well, anyways, there was this Muslim cameraman who we had hired from a television station in Freetown, and he went with us, and, and he went to all the services, and he’s a Muslim.
(39:44):
He was from the Mandingo tribe. The Mandingo tribe is 99% Muslim to be Mandingo is to be Muslim. And so he was in all the services, he was taking pictures, and, and he, he took thousands of pictures. Probably none of them were any good, but he was taking pictures of, of everything that was going on. And we were doing like five to seven services every single day, going from village to village, preaching in the villages. And, and so he heard the gospel all week long, like seven times a day. He kept hearing the gospel. And on the last day, we did a baptism service for the villagers who had gotten saved. And, and the night before this Muslim caravan came to us and he says, I want to be baptized. And we said, wait, wait a second. Do, do you know what it means to be baptized?
(40:30):
And he says, yes, it means I want to become a Christian. Wow. And so we said, we would be honored to baptize you. And so we baptized him, and he has a family with eight people. And so the next day we sent a pastor to his house, and, and the pastor led his entire family. All eight of them came to Jesus. And, and so that was a great testimony. And then I was in one service, and there was this boy who was deaf in one year. He’d been deaf for three years. And I told everyone, I said, take your hand and place it on the part of your body where there’s pain. And so the boy’s mother, he, she put her hand on the boy’s ear and began to pray for him. And as we were praying, a black rock or a, like a, a substance came out of his ear and fell into her hand.
(41:17):
And she said it was really gross. So she shook it off her hand onto the ground, and then she tested her son’s hearing, and he was able to hear. And so he came up and testified, and everyone was super excited about what God had done there. And so that little boy is the story that I told in this month’s newsletter. And then the Muslim cameraman who was saved is the story I’m gonna tell in next month’s newsletter. And because I’m gonna show people the power of what happened when someone heard about Jesus and what they were giving towards. Amen. then send out emails. I try to do at least two emails a month. You could do more than that. By the way I’d love for all of you to, to sign up for my email list. And so if you’ll pull out your phone right now, <laugh> and, and text the word souls, s o u l s to the number 22 8 28, and then just put in your email.
(42:20):
And that way I can tell you about what God is doing in different parts of the world. So just pull out your phone and type in the word souls, s o u l s to the number 2 28 28. And if you’re a foreigner, and sometimes our phones aren’t working here in the United States, just come up afterwards and give me your, your email address and, and I will add you to the email list. And, and so if you’ll do that, I will send you three of my eBooks for free as a gift to you for everyone who signs up for my email list. And so I try to collect email addresses, and every time I send out email, there’s people who unsubscribe for my email. Please don’t unsubscribe for my email. It hurts my heart. Like I look at it, it’s like, look at these people who hate me.
(43:05):
And, but then there’s always people that are signing up for my email. And so, praise the Lord. So there, there’s actually more people that have unsubscribed now than that ha are subscribed right now. So more people don’t like me than like me, but that’s okay. I don’t have to have everyone like me. I just have to be connected with the right people that God has connected me too. All right? You can host a banquet if you, if you do a banquet or, or a prayer breakfast, something, anything that you can get in front of people to, to invite people. So sometimes people say, you know, I try to get into churches and churches won’t have me. Well, if you have a banquet, you can invite people to the banquet. You don’t have to have a church invite. You, you can invite people to the banquet.
(43:48):
And so if you don’t have a platform, create a platform, look for a way to get in front of people, you know, even just invite, if you know somebody just say, Hey could we have a dessert night at your house? Could you invite three or four of your friends? And I could come over, we could give them all a dessert. And, and then I can share within the vision of what God is calling me to do. And, and if maybe it’s your aunt or something, she, she has three or four friends and she can invite them over, and you can just tell them the vision. Another way to raise money is, is meet with businessmen. Businessmen have more money than churches. If you just go to churches to raise money, sometimes it’s hard because churches have big vision and no resources, but businessmen, they’ve got lots of resources.
(44:32):
So sometimes it’s better to spend your time meeting with businessmen and, and, and calling them and, and, and asking them, can, can I come and share with you the the vision of what God has called me to do? And some will reject you, but some will give you checks. Praise the Lord. So speak everywhere that you’re invited to speak. It doesn’t matter where I’m invited, if it’s a, a small group. A couple weeks ago, I went and spoke, spoke at someone’s fellowship group. They had four people in the group. And so I went and spoke. It was like three hours and, and it was lots of ministry took place. They were a very needy group. But I go anywhere that people, I think they gave me an offering of like $7. It was awesome. And, and so but I’ll go anywhere to preach anytime I can preach, because I know that when you minister, good things are going to happen.
(45:30):
And sometimes I’ve gone to big churches and they’ve only given me a small offering, but then I’ll go to a little church with 12 people and they’ll gimme thousands of dollars. It’s amazing. And, and so again, you can’t look to people. You just gotta keep sharing the vision. All right. And then the last word I’d like to talk to you is about the word sowing. Several years ago, I had the chance to visit Ora Roberts at his condo out in California. And on the way over to, to meet him, I felt, you know, oral Roberts, he, he was the one who has taught the bo body of Christ about seed faith. You know, take your need and wrap your faith around your seed and sow it and expect God to meet your need. And I said I should sow something into, to Oral Roberts.
(46:20):
And so my brother and I, at that time, we, we, we did children’s ministry, and so we had like a thousand dollars in our bank account. And so we, we’d done this, we raised this money doing clown shows at churches. And so I turned to my brother and I said, you should, you think we should, so an offering into oral? And he said, yes. And I said, let’s, so the thousand dollars, everything that we got. And so we, we sowed that money into, to Oral Roberts. And before that, we had been receiving offerings of like $5 and 23 cents, you know, $18. We’d go travel for two days to go ministry to church, and they’d, they’d give us some coupons for Burger King on the way out the door. And but when we sowed that seed into Oral Roberts, what it did is it broke the back of poverty in our life.
(47:16):
And we started receiving, doing the same type of ministry. We started receiving thousand dollars checks and $5,000 checks. We go to a clown show and someone would give us a 5,000 check. I mean, that’s a really good offering for a clown, you know, <laugh>. And, and so, but it’s because of sowing seed, amen, into the life of Oral Roberts that God began to, to give us a tremendous harvest. And so I’d encourage you to be givers. There is a eternal principle of sowing and reaping that when you sow, God will give you a tremendous harvest. Yes. One more thing I wanted to talk to you about is this paper. This is my donor funnel. And so there’s four stages that I have for developing donors. So the first stage is to find people. And so the main idea in this first stage is to capture people’s information.
(48:17):
And the goal is to go from a stranger to an acquaintance. And so the way that I start to build relationships with people in the very beginning of the relationship, I start to sow into them. And so I give them a copy of my book or I’ll give them something you know, and, and so I try to at least get people to sign up for the, the email list. And then after I find people, then I try to win them as a donor. And so that would be the first donation or purchase from our ministry. And so I try to move people from being an acquaintance to being a friend. And so I have a variety of ways that I cultivate that. I send out text messages, I’ll send letters to people. If someone signs up for my, my newsletter, I will send them three letters.
(49:10):
And these are the three best letters that I can write. The first letter is a letter about our vision. The second letter is a letter about a, a specific project that we’re doing. And then the third letter is offering them a product. And it costs me a dollar for every newsletter that I send out every month. And we have like 5,000 something names on our mailing list, but I don’t mail out 5,000 letters. I’ll mail these first three letters, and if someone doesn’t respond to those first three letters, then I stop mailing to them because if they don’t respond to the best, I can write, you know, I could maybe keep writing to them a long time, but the chances of them responding later get smaller and smaller. And so, on a monthly basis, we actually probably send out about 200 to 300 actual newsletters a month.
(50:05):
And, and what I do is I send to everyone who’s given to me in the ba past 12 months, and then every once in a while, the bigger list, I’ll send out a postcard to people and, and try to reactivate them and, and, and maybe offer them a new book that I’ve written or something and say, Hey, remember me, but my monthly cost is sending out my newsletter to, to 300 people is like $300. If I tried to mail out to everybody on my mail list, it’d be $5,000. And I get as much from the 300 as I would sending out the 5,000. So I send out the first three letters. If they don’t respond to that, then I, I keep them on the mail list, but, but I don’t mail to them on a monthly basis. So the goal then is to move from the first donation to, to keep them as a monthly donor.
(50:52):
And so if someone expresses interest, they buy something, then I’ll try to, to develop them into a monthly donor by sending them a video, by talking to them at a meeting by, by inviting them to a banquet, you know, sharing the vision. I’ll, I’ll call them, I’ll set up a meeting with them. If they’re in Tulsa, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll call and, and ask if we can meet for coffee. And at that meeting I’ll ask them, would you consider becoming a monthly partner with King Ministries? And so then with people who are monthly donors, then the last stage is lifting them. And so someone who has given to you consistently for $50 a month for several years, then it might be appropriate to go to them and ask them money for a special project and say, you know, would you consider giving a $10,000 gift towards this special project?
(51:39):
And someone who has started to support you and loved you? Then you can lift them up in their, their giving level, and then ultimately even looking for legacy gifts that people that could leave their estate to you or, or something. So here’s the process. Just this sheet of paper here is probably worth a thousand dollars consulting fee. And so just, just going through this. And so you’re building a funnel, you’re trying to pour as many people into the top of your funnel as you possibly can, and then they bring them down through the funnel. And I try to make a no-brainer offer that anybody can accept. And so what I tell people, I tell people over the years, it’s taken us an average of about $1 for every person that we’ve been able to reach for Jesus. And so when people give me a dollar, I’m able to reach at least one person for Jesus with a message of, of, of the gospel.
(52:37):
And so the Bible says that all of heaven rejoices when just one sinner gets saved. And so today, could you become at least a, a monthly partner for a dollar a month, for just a dollar a month? You can be responsible for starting a party in heaven every single month. And and so that’s, and, and so anyone can do a dollar a month, but I’m going for monthly partners. So the church I ministered at on Sunday is not a very big church. Maybe a hundred people in the congregation and 13 people signed up to become monthly partners, and none of them were dollars. Everyone was at least $10. There’s one guy who did $5. There were several $10, but several did 25 and several did 50. But my, my goal is if you can just do a dollar a month, if you could just become a partner for a dollar a month. And so if you want to partner with me and help me lead people to Jesus a dollar a month, you can help me lead people to Jesus. Would you be my partner today? And I developed a video that is right on the opening of my website. And could we, could we show that video really quick?
(53:46):
Hi, I’m Daniel King and I’m a missionary evangelist, and I’m excited about leading people to Jesus. I’m the founder of King Ministries International, and our focus is evangelism. Many churches and missionaries focus on feeding the sheep. Our goal is to find lost sheep and bring them back to the church so they can start the discipleship process. We are excited about bringing people to Jesus. When I was 10 years old, my parents became missionaries in the country of Mexico, and I became passionate about going and telling people about Jesus. When I was 15 years old. I set a goal to lead a million people to Jesus before I turned 30 years of age. And by the grace of God, we were able to accomplish that goal. Now, our goal is to lead a million people to Jesus every single year. That’s why we do large evangelistic festivals.
(54:48):
We do leadership training to help local pastors become better at leading people. We also do literature distribution to help follow up on new believers and disciple them, and we do humanitarian relief to help those who are hurting. And it’s all for one purpose to lead a million people to Jesus every single year. I met my wife Jessica, right on the border of Rwanda in Congo, in the middle of Africa. And now together we have visited 70 plus nations around the world, and we have led over 2 million people in a salvation prayer. Over our 20 years of ministry, it’s cost an average of about $1 for every person that we’ve been able to reach. For Jesus. That’s amazing. For only $1, we’re able to change someone’s eternal destiny. And so today I want to ask you to give your first dollar to help us lead someone to Jesus. You can give by going to our website, www.kingministries.com, and clicking on the donate button. Or call us toll free, +1 877-431-4276. Imagine when you get to heaven and someone that you help lead to Jesus comes over and gives you a hug. You know the Bible says that all of heaven rejoices when one sinner gets saved. And so $1 can start a party in. I want to ask you to give today, give a dollar to help us lead someone to Jesus. I’m Daniel King. I’m a missionary evangelist, and our goal is every soul.
Daniel King (56:42):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Podcast Host (57:43):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (59:04):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries com.
