Credit Crunch & Mission

[OSCAR]

How is the credit crunch affecting your individual or mission's financial support? Are you finding a large decrease in the amount people are giving? Have many of your supporters pulled out? Are you having to find new ones in this difficult financial climate? OSCARactive is interested to hear your stories ...

[Bill Dillon]

March 6, 2009

There is no question today's economy crunch has affected the missions community. 2 things that stand out

1. Those that have built and continue to build a relationship with their donors have a far greater chance to retain their giving because those people are giving out of a relationship. They will do all in their power to make sure when cuts have to be made you are protected.

2. You have to be engaged in getting new people on board. I have a saying "visibility = opportunity" Get out and make new contacts and then turn to your donors as advocates.

Our People Raising web site gives advice and our 6-hour DVD walks people through the process of expanding ones contacts www.PeopleRaising.com

[Nigel Spencer]

We are attempting to re-raise several thousand pounds per year in support lost while I was employed for over 2 years. We have found the response of folk we've been approaching to be disappointing. Many seem to be focused on their fears about the future, not seeing God there with them, so hesitate to either increase their giving or take on any new commitments. The exceptions are rare, but have been mainly lower-income people with no investments to worry about.

[Fiona L Cooper]

I haven't been affected by supporters pulling out. Praise the Lord! I wonder whether it is because of what Bill Dillon says about the importance of relationship because all my supporters are personal friends of mine. However, I have been substantially affected by the fall in the value of the pound, combined with inflation of about 20% here in Paraguay... so the money I receive doesn't go nearly as far as it did a year ago.

As a result I am economising and wondering whether I will need to seek further support in the coming months... a daunting prospect!

[Tony Waghorn]

It's the pound/dollar exchange rate that is really putting the squeeze on in our organisation.

[Mike Frith]

Any organisation or project (or individual) which relies in part on trust funding is, no doubt, feeling the squeeze. Here it's the low interest rate which is causing the problems as most grant making trusts give out of the interest made on their assets. So, as the interest rate is one tenth of what it was just over a year ago, you can see the problem.

OSCAR's experience is that some trusts are continuing to give their regular grants (presumably by eating into their capital investments) hoping that things will pick up soon. It's great to see such trusts staying 'at the coal face' as things get tough ... however, other trusts have just stopped most of their giving, which can be crippling for those who were relying on such funding.

For those hoping for funds from grant making trusts, it's not a good time ... and I suspect things will get worse before they get better (where have you heard that before?). However, don't panic ... God will find a way :-)