MinistryAmbassadors: the new face of online ministry fundraising?
There’s no telling how severely, or for how long, the current economic downtown will affect giving to churches and ministries. While some experts suggest that church giving may remain stable for the near future, others are suggesting strategies for churches and ministries to adopt in anticipation of a crunch in giving.
It’s interesting to see some novel approaches to ministry fundraising in this climate. While reading through a list of online ministry tips for ministries at UrbanMinistry.org, I noticed an interesting new site that aims to help ministries raise funds by letting its supporters do the talking: MinistryAmbassadors.org.
MinistryAmbassadors lets your ministry set up a fundraising page where people can donate online to your cause, as you might expect—an idea spearheaded by sites like Fundable. But MinistryAmbassadors adds a new twist to the idea of online fundraising: anybody can put together their own fundraising page where they can sing the praises of, and raise money for, the nonprofits they love. It shifts the focus of fundraising to the people who already support your ministry, on the theory that people who are excited by your ministry will make better ambassadors for your cause than yet more fundraising letters or email appeals from the organization itself. (Note that MinistryAmbassadors retains a small portion of donations it processes, to cover the cost of the service.)
It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the concept takes off. Are your ministry’s supporters excited enough about your ministry that they’d become online ambassadors for the cause? Time will tell if the idea is sound, but regardless, it’s an intriguing effort to combine the vast reach of social networking with the age-old challenge of ministry fundraising.
