Why should I get my friends and supporters to join Hopeline Christian Society?

Many missionaries wonder: Why should I join Hopeline Christian Society and have my friends and supporters join Hopeline Christian Society when I can keep the $10/month support for myself and where does the extra money come from that you will eventually give to me?

I would agree that if we were only doing things the way it may look like by taking a portion coming off the top and pocketing the rest and this would not be a good deal for you. However, in some ways this is actually how most if not all missions’ organizations do it with self-supported ministers and missionaries. For example YWAM takes off 2%-5% off of support checks while most others take off upwards of 10% for administrative purposes which is important for all organizations to cover. However, I am trying to change that process by covering those expenses in a different way.

Additionally, we do receive direct support donations for Hopeline Christian Society self-supported member ministers and missionaries that do not have any way of receiving it themselves and we eat the normal 2%-10% processing costs for checks, PayPal, credit cards and Western Union, etc. if they are $1000/month or lower as a way to help them even more. Most of these however are independent ministers and missionaries from 3rd world countries that do not even have a bank account. Beyond that we will only take out the actual fees that it costs us because we do not want to eat up too much of what we want to give to other ministers and missionaries support.

This is how God is using Hopeline Christian Society to fund the support of self-supported ministers, missionaries and those living in poverty in 3rd world countries.

First, we do it by having “Members” that give a suggested amount of $10/month per adult with any amount of children being members as well at no suggested donation (children get individual memberships like adults so that one day if they want to be missionaries they will get time credit for their parents support of others and will not have to wait as long or at all depending when their parents joined). Our goal is that most of these “members” will be mostly regular working Christians giving to help missions and the poor. We also keep the amount low so that we are not interfering with their normal giving to their church or other ministries and missionaries. We want our members to give to other ministers and missionaries beyond Hopeline Christian Society.

Our goal is that Hopeline Christian Society will go out and get most of these members ourselves via talking at churches, home school groups, mission’s conventions and other places regular Christians hang out, etc. so that we are putting way more money into the pot than missionary members.

The other strategy is starting businesses in 3rd world countries that will have profits that will help us to accomplish the goal of giving you way more than you would get on raising your support on your own.

When we get members giving monthly we will take 50% of the money and give it directly to supporting Christian Self-Supported MINISTERS AND MISSIONARIES around the world. Then we will take the other 50% and use it for starting international businesses in 3rd world countries to do 2 things: first it will train and equip nationals in 3rd world countries and then give them jobs that will pay them 1st world wages so that we can get them out of poverty and as well help them to better their health and lifestyle. It will also allow them to help their families and friends as well as others dying and suffering in their countries (we will also help them with how to budget and use this new found wealth from working); secondly there will be profits that will come in from these businesses and that will go into the fund of supporting the ministers and missionaries. More is on our “Missional Villages” page on the website. Our administration costs come out of the second 50% which averaged around 7% last year and will be less than 5% this year. At the present time we are using 90% of all we take in for missionary support and have slowly started the Missional Village process but will not be able to do more on that end until we have at least 1000 support members ($10 monthly average).

You ask: Can members give more than $10/month?

We do also allow members to give more or less than $10/month per adult as it is only a suggestion. However, again we do not want to interfere with their normal giving. As well we also especially want to include those who cannot normally afford to give to missionaries normally by allowing them to give for example $5/month as a single parent or someone on social security but they still have the feeling that they can contribute to helping ministers, missionaries and those living in poverty in 3rd world countries. We do have some that give more and appreciate it but we do not or will not as an organization ask for more than $10/month per adult as a philosophy of Hopeline Christian Society. If God leads them that way, Great! However we will never ask for more. We treat those with little the same as those with much, the rest is up to God.
 
Now to get to missionaries and their part in this process.

 

First, we do not expect Christian self-supported ministers and missionaries to raise their support through Hopeline Christian Society. They can just take the time and wait on the waiting list if they want and/or continue to raise support on their own. However, if they desire to do it quicker through Hopeline Christian Society and help others in the process we are happy to work with them on it and provide ways to make it better and more efficient for them.

As well since I work fulltime to support my family and Hopeline and because we are a new organization (one year old and mostly built infrastructure during this time) we have not been adding as many members for now as we would like to have and we are still helping more ministers and missionaries than we would have without Hopeline.

From the beginning we knew this would be the circumstances. As well we knew that as we grew we would always have more ministers and missionaries applying for support than we would have members and would have a very large waiting list. This is why we put in place the “Fast Track” program (more on website on Ministers and Missionaries Page).

Briefly on the Fast Track program. It is so that ministers and missionaries who do not want to wait 10-12 months (estimated) can get their support quicker by helping Hopeline Christian Society grow. The members they refer are only referrals not actual supporters of them.

This is the difference.

If you had a supporter like normal when one quits or misses giving you support you would loose that support (we know from experience). Our goal is consistency for missionaries. Therefore as you refer members you only get credit for them but they are not supporting you. They are member of Hopeline Christian Society and are supporting the whole organization meaning they are supporting all ministers and missionaries (which you are included in) as well as those living in poverty that we are helping with jobs (in the near future). This way if they stop giving or miss a month we will still give you your regular support, hence the consistency you can depend on. However, if a minister or missionary refers a lot of support members that quit within a short time trying to beat the system we will have to drop them back to the waiting list so as not to affect those that do things properly. We trust this will never happen.

Normally on the Fast Track program a ministers and missionaries has to refer 25 support members to help other ministers and missionaries that do not have the connections and/or are from impoverished areas as well as those living in poverty (more details on the website). This summer’s fundraiser is to help speed up the process of helping more ministers and missionaries get support while we are in the initial growing stages.  At this time the key is that we are only having 1/6 of what ministers and missionaries refer to help others rather than the normal ½ since we are using almost everything for the self-supported ministers and missionaries anyway for now. As we grow this will eventually even out again but in the meantime ministers and missionaries will get a better deal with more getting started on the support process. Also once they start getting support it starts the process of increasing support sooner with an estimated time of 7-10 years to reach the maximum support of $2,000/month. The increase comes as we grow not an exact time frame but this is what we are working towards and are trusting God for (this also can go quicker if a minister or missionary wants to work at it while ministering, again more on the website).

As for your question about can some give more monthly during this fundraiser to have less supporter and then get the support? Yes, we calculate a support member not based on how many actual givers but based on the average $10 monthly gifts. So 1 monthly donor is 1 Support Member, 2 $5 monthly donors equals 1 Support member and 1 $50 monthly donor equals 5 Support Members. However, we would hope that the larger donors would continue at that same amount for at least 1 year to be fair to everyone else and not do what we talked about earlier which I do not expect to happen in 99% of donors. Also at this point it is important to know that members can give their memberships monthly, every 2 months, quarterly or yearly with auto deposit or manually with check, bank deposit, credit card or PayPal or just a one-time gift.

On our Ministers and Missionary page on the website and the “Exhorter” (www.hopeline.org , www.hopeline.org/Exhorter ) we explain why we expect ministers and missionaries to be members and to give monthly until they receive support so I will skip that for now as you can check that out on your own if you want.

I hope this answered your questions adequately. If not please let me know as well as if you have any others and major blessing to you for all you are doing for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.

Curtis Blanchet
Hopeline Chritian Society

 

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