In the beginning, the concept was this: approach potential big donors, people whose pockets run very deep indeed, and convince them to give money to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) to support international mission work and church growth in the U.S. If there’s anything Presbyterians can rally around, the thinking went, it would be that.
But in the more than two years since the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands campaign began, some changes in approach have been made and some lessons learned. The goal is still to raise at least $40 million over five years, and so far about $9 million has been pledged, according to Bill Saul, a California businessman who’s co-chair of the Mission Initiative Steering Committee.
But some things are being done differently than first expected, Saul told the General Assembly Council, meeting in Louisville in early April.
For one, it’s not just potential big-givers who are being approached. Presbyteries indicated early in the game that they wanted in on the action too, and some have formed partnerships with the Mission Initiative campaign, setting targets for how much they want to raise and splitting the proceeds, sending some to the national campaign and keeping some locally.
The fundraisers also have discovered that some people or congregations are more willing to give if they have a voice in how the money will be spent. Perhaps that’s not surprising — designated giving has been a huge trend within the denomination for years.
So the Mission Initiative team has begun to tailor its pitch so it listens as well as asks, trying to tap in to the enthusiasm that congregations feel when they’ve found a kind of ministry to which they really feel God that is calling them.
In Minneapolis, for example, the fundraisers met a while back with a wealthy woman from Westminster Presbyterian Church — someone they’d been introduced to by Tim Hart-Andersen, Westminster’s pastor, who’s on the Mission Initiative Steering Committee. The woman said at that first meeting, “I’m not willing to make a gift until my congregation makes a gift,” according to Jan Opdyke, the Mission Initiative’s director. The woman wanted her church to see worldwide mission and church growth as important too.
So Westminster’s leadership began considering how to get the congregation fired up about this — and they came up with a focus. Westminster, a large church in downtown Minneapolis, has more than 100 members from Cameroon. Some church leaders made a mission trip to Cameroon, and came back talking about what they’d seen. People did research about what the greatest needs are in that African country. Hart-Andersen preached a sermon challenging his congregation to step up and meet some of those needs.
And the session voted to give $250,000 to the Mission Initiative, to fund a mission worker for five years to work in AIDS and health ministry in Cameroon.
This can be “the energy that starts the ripple,” Opdyke said.
Here’s what the numbers for the campaign look like so far.
According to figures provided by the Mission Initiative, as of the end of 2004, more than $8.4 million had been pledged to the campaign but not yet collected, and more than $883,000 in pledges and gifts has actually been received — bringing the total either pledged or in-hand to more than $9.3 million.
Of that, $51,938 already has been spent to support mission co-workers, including Marcia Towers, working with the Evangelical National Presbyterian Church of Guatemala; Dusty Ellington, a professor of New Testament and Church History at Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo; and Scott Smith, working with the Emmanuel Hospital Association in India. According to Opdyke, the campaign has money and pledges to support the work of these individuals for their full three-year terms.
More than $1.9 million was spent from 2002 to 2004 on expenses for the campaign (those funds have come from the General Assembly Council mission budget).
