This is the Second in a series of posts on Raising Support in ministry. Read the First for an intro.Â
I spent 10 weeks this spring raising support. I learned a lot along the way and wanted to share the wealth.Â
From observing thousands of missionaries raise support, Steve Shadrach has observed the following trends:
- For a Small Group ask or just sending a letter/email — 10% will respond (support you)
- Letters/Emails followed up with phone calls — 25% will support you
- Face to Face appointments — 50% will support you
I thought it would be interesting/helpful to share statistics from my personal experience.
I’ll highlight a few insights and then share the raw data below:
- 75% of Face to Face Appointments resulted in support (61% monthly supporters; 13% with One Time Gifts)
- It took 8 calls/messages (email/text/Facebook) to get one appointment
- It took 12 calls/messages to get 1 monthly supporter
- The average monthly gift was $102/month (a HUGE change from raising support 15 years ago when I mostly asked for/received $25 and $50/mo)
- For those that were long distance (too far to drive to have an appointment with) I emailed or Facebook messaged to try to set up a phone appt (click to download a Word doc of what I say in the email).
- 27% of those emails resulted in phone appointment (so the vast majority never made it to phone appointments)
- But with those that I was able to get a hold of on the phone (i.e. they answered my persistent phone calls), 77% supported us
- My theory on the reason for that high percentage is that if they took the time to talk on the phone they had likely already made up their mind to support us.
- Exactly matching up with Steve Shadrach’s stats, 25% of people I emailed/called supported us
- Of those “conversations” that were just conducted via email/Facebook, 89% resulted in a “no”.
- 3 people joined our monthly support team with just conversation over email/Facebook.
- But with those that I was able to get a hold of on the phone (i.e. they answered my persistent phone calls), 77% supported us
- 27% of those emails resulted in phone appointment (so the vast majority never made it to phone appointments)
- So meeting Face to Face is the quickest (though slow!) way to raise support.
Statistics from My 10 Weeks of Support Raising:
Would love to hear from you: any insights jump out at you? What surprised you? Does this match up pretty closely with your experience?