COVID-19 On Your Ministry
In this here blog post, Christian Surfers Operations Manager, Casey Cruciano delivers a robustly practical guide on how to keep your organisation afloat during these turbulent times. If you currently lead a charity organisation or NPO - it’s certainly a read worthy of your time.
COVID-19 has hit the global economy hard, and Christian Surfers is not immune to the shock waves that will continue for the foreseeable future. There are a wide range of estimates, but many economists are predicting a GDP decline of 5-15% in 2020. This will directly impact the incoming donations you receive, and income overall especially if you rely on event registration or other in-person gatherings. While now might feel like a good time to “hunker down” and circle the wagons, it is not! Here are some steps you can take to ensure your ministry is financially healthy during these difficult times.
COVID-19 Review Your Budget
Firstly, if you don’t have a budget, take a step back and create one. Your budget isn’t just what the balance in your ministry bank account happens to be today. Use THIS template as a guide to get started, customise as necessary. Grab your available data (bank & credit card statements, receipts, etc.), and build this. If you are reading this as a local chapter or mission thinking, “we’re too small to create a budget,” you’re not. Even if your income and spending is low, isn’t it better to know what it is than just keep guessing?
Once you have a budget, there are two sides you can fiddle with, the revenue and expenses. While most businesses have lots of available spending they can adjust, my experience has been that Christian Surfers ministry run on shoestring budgets worldwide. While it’s still a good idea to go line by line, and you may find you’ve been paying for something unnecessary, I doubt that trimming expenses will get you over the expected COVID economic crisis. That leaves the other side of the equation, the revenue. Most national missions and local chapters will derive the majority of their revenue from donations, with smaller amounts from events, merchandise sales, and other miscellaneous sources. We’re focusing on the donations for the rest of this article...
Find New Partners
While many people are feeling the effects of the tightening economy, potential donors are still out there looking for places to give. Just like the stock market, they want to invest in ministries that have excellent ROI - Return on Investment. Start with a simple 1-pager that shows what your ministry does and the ways it impacts people. Donors want to give to things that change lives, so center your presentation around how that is accomplished. Then, you actually have to ASK! Don’t rely on mass emails here, the more personalization you can do the better response you’ll have. 1 on 1, in-person meetings are best, but where this is not appropriate in the age of social distancing, set up Skype or Zoom calls. To set up the call, be very clear you’re asking them to partner financially. Do not be coy about the reason for the call (it’s not just to “catch up” or “say hello”).
Treat Your Partners Well
While the paragraph above may be daunting, sometimes even more difficult is treating your existing partners well. Why is this? Simply put, we take them for granted. But partners have flexibility with where they give, and if you aren’t communicating well with them - changed life stories and personal messages - they will find another ministry they will connect with. Review your current supporters, and diagnose a few things:
How often are they receiving communication and updates?
Do they have to seek this information out (like social media) or is it sent directly to them (email, phone, snail mail)?
Are they receiving any personal communication?
What is the quality of the information they are receiving?
If you are failing on one or several of these points, set aside some planning time for how you can do this better. Make your new goals achievable and with some easy accomplishments built in. Rather than rebuilding your database and partner communications strategy tomorrow, maybe just call or text your supporters personally in the next 2 weeks to see how they are doing and ask if they have any prayer requests.
Carry On In Ministry
While ministry is certainly different now than what it was, you need to find ways to adapt. The Gospel message has flourished in much worse conditions that “shelter in place” orders, there’s no reason that sharing it should halt now. Talk to other ministry leaders near you that are finding ways to continue, and spur your leaders on to investigate this same thing in their local communities. Come up with a plan, and work that plan. Because if you’re not doing ministry, why are you going to all this trouble to sort out your budget and get new partners?