Lots of people talk about “having a plan” for fundraising but what they seem to skip over or simply assume you know how to do is to create that plan.  I call that preparation.  Before you have a plan, you have to do some a lot of preparatory work.  For me, the preparation started about 14 months before landing (we haven’t landed yet) and took a good 2-3 months to flesh out (context note: I was/am still working full-time, going to seminary, fulfilling a church planting internship, loving my wife and raising my two girls.  I only say that to apply caveats to the 2-3 month  time frame).

The first two things you need to determine as you prepare to fundraise are:

1. How much do you need?
2. When do you need it?

Defining the Finish Line
If you can answer these two questions well, you’re on your way to having a plan that will a) help you to know how you’re doing when you’re in the throws of executing that plan and b) help you to know when you’re done.  If you don’t define when you’ll be done, you’ll never be done.  My vision is to be self-sustaining two years post-launch.  By that I mean that by the end of year two, I want to have year three’s budget in the bank and thus live year-to-year rather than month-to-month.  In this scheme, general tithes and offerings collected in year three pay for year four, those from year four pay for year five, and on and on.  This creates a stable financial picture, allows for clear and concise planning, and allows the most protection against emergencies and unexpected expenses.

Now the hard part: answering the two questions from above.  In order to know how much you need, you’re going to have to do some research.  This is also where the gifting of having some vision comes into play.  If you cannot look out over the next two to three years – seeing where you’re at and where you want things to be – you’re going to have a hard time answering these two questions.  This takes prayer, time, reflection, and research.  It’s hard work to do it right and you’ll never get it perfect.  What you have to do at this point is take your best stab at it and know that things will change as time progresses.  The worst mistake you can make at this point is deciding not to systematically think through how much you’re going to need because you know it is going to change.  Instead, remember that it’s a lot easier to tweak things once you have something down on paper than to try to start from scratch when you’re half way in and up to your ears in meetings, phone calls, and follow-ups.

Time-Phased Budget
So you need a time-phased budget.  What this means is you need to sit down and systematically think about expenses.  Do this in a spreadsheet (like Microsoft Excel).  Across the spreadsheet, make a column for each month of the year.  Your first column should be the current month (even if you don’t have any incoming monies or out-going expenses this month – start now, because it’s more difficult to add months back in once you start than to have extra months in from the get-go).  Your last column should the month by which you plan to be self-sustaining, plus one year.  For me, we’re aiming to be self-sustaining by the end of May 2012 so the last month in my spreadsheet is May of 2013.  This will allow you to lay-in estimated costs for that first self-sustaining year and create a realistic budget for that year as well.

Once you’ve got your columns across the width of your spreadsheet for each month, add a row for each expense category.  These will become the categories of your budget so it is important to think through all of the different kinds of expenses you’re going to have over these first few years.  It’s also important to include rows for items that might be an expense in the first year, but not in three years from now (fundraising costs would fall into this category).  Likewise, it’s important to add rows for expenses that you won’t incur in the first couple of years, but may in the third year (salary for a part-time assistant, perhaps).

Expense Categories
Spend some good time here brainstorming.  Ask other church planters for a copy of their budget so you can see what categories they include (noting, of course, that their budget for those categories will likely be different from yours).  As you make your categories, try to group them in ways that make sense so that you don’t end up with two hundred categories.  A good number to shoot for is twenty or less.

As an example, here are the categories I’m using:

• Pastor Net Salary
• Pastor’s Family Insurance (Health, life, etc)
• Pastor Taxes
• Rent (the church’s meeting space)
• Start-up costs (sound equipment, building renovations, chairs, projector, nursery stuff, etc)
• Utilities
• Office/Printing
• Education (remaining seminary tuition)
• Church Taxes and Insurance
• Miscellaneous Expenses
• Hospitality
• Events
• Resources
• Website
• Program Development
• Administrative Assistant
• #2 Pastor Net Salary
• #2 Pastor’s Family Insurance (Health, life, etc)
• #2 Pastor Taxes

There might be items on your list that aren’t on my list and there are probably items on my list that won’t be on yours.  The point is to have a list.

As soon as you do have a list, you’ll quickly realize that you have no idea how to estimate the monthly expense for each category on your list.  Again, this is where the hard work of research comes in.  Talk with other church planters and other guys leading established churches.  Pay special attention to your salary.  At this point, it’s likely that you’re setting it yourself so make sure it is adequate yet not elaborate.  Research your city to find out the average and median salaries for pastors in the area.  For the other categories, call a Realtor, research on the web, etc.  Get other’s opinions and be sure to have others that you trust review your numbers (other church planters, businessmen, etc).  Finally, remember that you’re not going to have it perfect but getting it all down will help you to easily tweak it as needed as time progresses.

Count the Cost
Once you’ve got your categories all fleshed out with estimated monthly expenses for each you can tally your monthly expenses by summing each column.  Go ahead and add a row at the bottom of your categories for these monthly sums.  Then create another cell in your spreadsheet where you total up all of the monthly sums up through the month you intend to be self-sustaining (May 2012 for my case).  This sum is the grand total of what you need to raise.

After you stop hyperventilating from the size of that number, save your spreadsheet and go to bed.  Chances are if you’re a church planter, you’re reading this late at night and need to crash for five hours before tomorrow starts.