My company and my church are both startups. During the week you’ll find me at Canopy, a tech company building a porn-blocking app for families, and on Sundays at Family Life Austin, a church plant in downtown Austin.
I’ve been involved in fundraising for both, and I regularly advise other startups raising money. While there are differences between raising money for a business and a ministry, the two endeavors have some important similarities. Here are lessons I’ve learned from tech startups that could be useful to pastors and ministry leaders in their fundraising efforts.
1. Tell your story.
When you’re raising money, you need to tell a compelling story. Whether for a business or ministry, there are many details you could share. But complex ideas are often boring, and people are more likely to connect with your vision through a story.
Our brains are wired for stories, not facts. Find your story and practice telling it.
Our brains are wired for stories, not facts. Find your story and practice telling it.
Here’s the story of my company, Canopy:
A Rabbi in Israel saw that the Internet could be a wonderful tool, but also that it could destroy lives. Many people in his community suffered from pornography addiction. He wanted to give his people the good of the internet without the bad, so he went looking for an internet filter that really worked. He couldn’t find one. Every filter he found could be hacked. But instead of giving up, Rabbi Moshe helped start a new technology company to keep families safe online. At first, it just blocked a long list of bad websites. But now, it uses advanced artificial intelligence to block pornography that other filters miss. More than 100,000 families depend on Canopy’s technology in Israel, and now for the first time we’re bringing it to America.
The story works because it’s personal. I don’t describe how our code works. I talk about Rabbi Moshe. The story follows a narrative arc: discovery of a problem, a long fight to fix it, then a happy resolution. And it includes a hint of momentum (100,000 families) and what’s next (“for the first time we’re bringing it to America”).
In reality, Canopy is actually a lot more complicated than that. But it’s too complicated to explain quickly, so I boiled it down to the key idea—Canopy blocks porn other filters miss—and embedded it in an interesting story about a rabbi’s journey to protect his people. I left out important (but not absolutely vital) information to tell a story worth hearing.
2. If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice.
People generally dislike being asked for money, even when it’s for a great cause. When you ask potential donors for advice and really listen, however, something amazing happens; you hear great input, and you’re a lot more likely to raise money.
Listening is more persuasive than pitching. And a project actually becomes worthier of investment when entrepreneurs listen, because they learn new things that improve the idea. Listening changes both perception and reality.
Listening is more persuasive than pitching.
3. Find strategic partners.
In business fundraising, we don’t just look for people with money to invest; we look for people who can strategically help our project succeed. I recently advised a space startup that was able to win the backing of a legendary space entrepreneur. That one investment brought much more than cash; it brought credibility and invaluable future advice.
Does your church need a building? Seek commercial real estate brokers, builders, or developers. Their advice could be worth more than their money. Do you want to have a missionary presence in France? Find believers who travel there for work and ask them for help. Find the members of the church body with the skills and wisdom your ministry needs to succeed. It will make a world of difference.
4. Expect failure.
In most areas of life, we’re playing basketball. We make most of our shots. Most of your sermons go well, and most of the time when you ask your friends for something, they give it. But raising money is a different ball game. In fundraising, you’re playing baseball.
You should expect to strike out a lot. In baseball, you’re a hall of famer if you get on base half the time. If you get a yes half the time you ask for support, you are a fundraising legend. Beginning with the right expectations (for frequent failure) will make you a better fundraiser.
5. Run experiments to show you’re onto something.
Faith and business entrepreneurs often face a chicken-and-egg problem. As a faith entrepreneur launching a new ministry or new initiative, you need to show that your project will be successful to raise money. But you usually need money to fund the ministry work.
As a startup, we face the same problem. Our solution? We think about how to run quick and easy experiments to show that we’re onto something. We want to prove to our investors that people really want what we’re building even before we’ve built it. You could call this the opposite of the “build it and they will come” method.
This approach is based on humility. If you try—and fail—to show that you’re onto something, then you’re probably not onto something. By running quick experiments you stress-test your idea and put yourself in a better position to raise money. It’s easier to raise money when your ministry is already bearing fruit.
6. Don’t forget ‘why.’
Raising money is hard. When you’re getting rejected over and over again, it’s crucial to believe your mission matters. At my company, Canopy, our mission is to protect kids from pornography. I think that mission matters, and having a mission I care about really helps when we’re being rejected by potential investors.
I was recently talking to a friend in ministry when the conversation suddenly became awkward. I could tell he was winding up to something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Either he was about to confess a particularly embarrassing sin or ask for money for his ministry. Thankfully, it was the money.
My friend should not have been embarrassed. He’s clearly been called to the work he’s doing and his ministry is bearing fruit. By asking for money, my friend was giving me the opportunity to partner with God. That’s a great deal. He’s doing me and his other donors a favor by letting us join him in his good work.
Don’t be ashamed to ask for money! Remember why you’re asking for money—to do the work of God—and let that embolden you.
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