Once you’ve determined how much money you need to raise and by when, it’s time to move on to figuring how where this money is going to come from (in other words, who is going to support this thing?).

For us, I tried to think in three basic categories of support: Strategic Partners, Individuals and Organizations, and finally the Launch Team.

Strategic Partners
Going into planting, my hope for anyone reading this is that you’ve got one or two strategic partners.  What I mean by a strategic partner is a church or an organization or a denomination that will come behind you early-on with some significant, committed, financial support.  What I’m talking about specifically is a church that will say to you, “we will give you $20k in December” or a denomination that will say “we will give you $1000/mo starting in January.”  In other words, they stick their neck out there early-on with definitive, committed support when you’re at $0.

I found this to be essential in getting some momentum behind us moving forward.  For us, coming from a background of no denominational support, we were blessed with early relationships with two churches in the Acts 29 Network: Coram Deo and Summit Community Church.  What sets these two churches apart from others that will be supporting us is a) their early commitments to financial support and b) their commitment to coaching, mentoring, and pastoring me through this process.

Locking these guys down and getting numbers and dates out of them will help you get over that first hump of “who is going to support this thing.”  It will also give you something to sit on other than $0 when you start meeting with individuals and other organizations.

Individuals and Organizations
This category is the “everyone you know” category.  If you’re going to raise support for your plant, you’re going to have to dig in and get to work.  When I was soliciting advice in this regard, Bob Thune (planter and pastor of Coram Deo) laid it out like this for me:

It’s always a numbers game. You have to contact 10 people to get 3 appointments to get one solid supporter. This is true whether you’re talking ministry fundraising or whether you’re in sales. Don’t overspiritualize it by assuming that because God is sovereign and you’re raising funds for ministry, it will be way easier than that. Sometimes you can beat the averages, but as a general rule, you need 10 times as many contacts as you need supporters. So if you need to raise $5000 a month and you figure $50 a month is about what an average supporter might give, you need 100 supporters, and 1000 contacts.

I’ll admit that I didn’t believe him when he first expounded this to me.  I’ll also admit that I now believe him.

To get started in this category, just start making a list.  I started mine in Microsoft Excel and as I added names, I tried also to add as much contact information (phone, email, address, etc) as possible.  Add everyone you know.  This will feel odd at first and it will take some time.  Pray over the list.  Pray for God to continually draw up names to add to the list.  When you’re driving in your car and a name pops in your head, jot it down (keeping your eyes on the road of course) and add it to your system later.  When you’re walking the hall at work and you bump into an old colleague that you haven’t seen for a year, jot it down.

If you don’t know all of their contact information, or if you know you cannot contact them right now (say, because they’re your co-workers and they’re not really privy yet to the fact that you’ll be quitting your job in 6 months), add them anyway.  You can always prioritize and add contact info later.  The point right now is to get as long of a list as you can.

Here are some categories to start thinking in:

• Friends
• Family
• Co-workers
• College classmates
• Old college professors
• Everyone from your current church
• People who used to go to your current church but no longer do
• Everyone from your previous church(es)
• Nearby churches (big and small)
• Christian businessmen in your area
• Neighbors (current and past)
• Christian schools and colleges and seminaries in your area

In addition to the above, ask others for additional contacts.  At some point you’ll realize that you don’t know enough people.  The way to keep moving forward is to start asking your contacts (especially the ones who support you) for their contacts.  Ask other church planters who supported them.  Ask them if there is anyone that supported them that no longer is.  Ask them if there is anyone who might be interested in supporting you as an extension for how they supported them.  Ask people in your church for names of strong Christian businessmen.  As them for names of generous friends they have that aren’t a part of your current church.  Ask Christians that you work with that don’t go to your church how you can get in contact with their church.

The point here again is simply to amass as big of a list as you can.  Even if you don’t think that person will support you, put them down.  To date, we have received more support from unlikely sources than likely sources.  God works in mysterious ways.

Launch Team
The final category for support is the launch team.  This is the group of charter members who will dedicate their time, energy, and resources to helping get your church off the ground.  Take a swag at what you think that will look like size-wise and drop an estimated amount based on that.  For example, if you foresee a launch team of 40 givers giving $200/month, tally that across two years and you’re at $192k.  If you got committed folks who aren’t all broke college kids, that’s probably not a bad estimate.  Realize, of course, that some will give more than that and others will give less.  At some point in the launch team formation process, you’ll then need to make clear that part of being a part of a new church plant is to commit to it.  Both with time and resources.

Pulling it Together
Breaking up the “who” into three parts helps you to focus more clearly on where you’re at and where you’re going.  It is key to get the Strategic Partner relationships established as early-on as possible.  It is also important to get down on paper a solid estimate for the launch team.  Add those two together and subtract that number from the total you need to raise to find out how much work you’ve got ahead of you in the Individual/Organizational category.

Next Up:
You know how much you need to raise, you know when you need it by, and you’ve got a massive list of contacts…now what?