Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Improving church retention rates

Craig Rench, pastor of a California church, studied local church cell leader multiplication and made some alarming observations. "Retention rates among American evangelical churches range from 2 percent to 16 percent. Retention rate is the percentage of new believers who are still in the church one year after conversion. Congregations that embrace cell leader multiplication often see retention rates jump to over 50 percent." The church Rench pastors has an excellent retention rate of 40 percent!


Articles on increasing a churches retention rate and potential things to incorporate into a website:

Please close the backdoor

5 incredible steps to close the back door of your church

3 Ways to Keep Your Church Visitors Coming Back

Church visitors: 10 steps to increase visitor retention 

Church websites promoting groups/involvement:

Church On The Rock   - Gets people involved in groups, baptisms, growth track, give,  etc.

Scottsdale Bible Church - "I'm new here" ,  groups
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Monday, February 10, 2020

Partnering and fundraising

In order for non-profits  to reach their goals, collaboration with other organizations and fundraising is crucial.

I have compiled some very practical information below related to this matter with some additional resources for further study such as recommended websites and books.

Partnering and potential partners

According to the Christian organization visionSynergy, which is a ministry which fosters collaborative evangelism efforts among Christians:
We are convinced that Christians are called to work together, and after 30 years experience with more than a hundred major ministry partnerships around the world, we can confidently say that collaboration is the single best strategy for addressing the most pressing needs in the world today. 
Collaboration is the key that reduces the duplication of our efforts, maximizes the impact of our ministries, and strengthens the credibility of our witness for Christ.

Another reason I suggest partnering with others as that makes fundraising easier. Grants often are often obtained due to collaboration.

(More info on visionSynergy: For Christian nonprofits, there is a Christian nonprofit which is a matchmaker in terms of helping Christian organizations find ministry partners for collaboration called visionSynergy and they focus on helping Christian organizations reach people in critical areas where they are still many people who are not Christians.)


Average fundraising cost per dollar raised - statistics 

Fundaising costs per dollar raised 

Christian fundraising and general fundraising training


General fundraising training:



Association of Fundraising Professionals

Fundraising videos

Fundraising videos - general

Fundraising videos series - Kirsten Bullock 

Fundraising series - Martha Stewart

Institute of Fundraising series

Donor prospect research

Donor relations and communications

Fundraising communications

Psychology of giving and donors

Foundation Grant Prospect Research

Major donors series

Fundraising events - playlist

Fundraiser events - series put out by a fundraising company


Key fundraiser skill sets and knowledge

Key Fundraiser Skill Sets and knowledge

The 3 skills of an effective fundraiser

10 Qualities of a Successful Fundraiser

New Study Questions Level of Fundraising Skills, Organizational Support for Philanthropy


Christian fundraising for individuals trying to raise support (missionary fundraising, etc.)

 Missionary fundraising


 Peer to peer fundraising/crowdfunding

Peer-to-peer fundraising is any fundraising effort that relies on peers reaching out to each other on behalf of a cause. 

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Primer For Nonprofits

Donor psychology in North America

Cygnus Donor Survey

Fundraising websites


Online Crowdfunding: 

 Indiegogo and online non-profit fundraising via crowdfunding
6 Crowdfunding Myths for Christians to consider


Web resources on grants

Grantwriting myths

Grantwriting general guidelines

Why grant wrtiing is not all about the writing

Grantwriting myths

Grant writing courses and how to break into the lucrative field of grantwriting

How to Break into the Lucrative World of Grant Writing

Christian Grant writing organizations 


- Raised over $100,000,0000 via grant writing

-  Return on investment is 10 to 1.  For every dollar spent, $10 raised. 

 - Dr. Rodman has written hundreds of proposals, secured millions of dollars as a consultant, has had over 80% of his proposals funded, and has secured over 90% of the dollars for which he has applied.

- Usually takes 3 months to get grant and then 6 more months for the money to dispurse.  So 9 months total. 

-  Has two packages. Small and large. $12,000 for the larger package. The larger package gets the grant plus teaches the organization how to do it on their own. 

- Also, sells a $89 Christian grant directory.
Books on fundraising


In order to accomplish your goals, I think fundraising will have to be done.

"We may take it then that an army...without provisions it is lost; without bases of supply it is lost." - Sun Tzu

Below is a recommended reading list I compiled:

1. Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits: Real-World Strategies That Work

2. The Everything Grant Writing Book: Create the perfect grant proposal to raise the funds you need

3. Grant writing secrets revealed - 25 Experts Share Their Art, Science, & Secrets (free copy application:  Free copy application - Grant writing secrets revealed - 25 Experts Share Their Art, Science, & Secrets ).

4. Relationship Fundraising: A Donor Based Approach to the Business of Raising Money

5. Fundraising on the Internet: The ePhilanthropyFoundation.org's Guide to Success Online

6. People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities

7. The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising Thousands(If Not Tens of Thousands) of Dollars With Email

8. Fundraising When Money Is Tight: A Strategic and Practical Guide to Surviving Tough Times and Thriving in the Future

9. Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Success

10.  Grant Writing Demystified

11.  Grants for Christian Ministries and More (Christian Foundation Grants Library)

Fundraising training and certification of training 

Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) Program 

 CRFRE International

CRFE Recommended Reading list

Quotes on the importance of obtaining and managing the resources to carry out a mission

 “Allocate your resources wisely for all men have been endowed with abilities that are more than sufficient to accomplish even the greatest of their dreams.” ― Stella Payton

"The history of war proves that nine out of ten times an army has been destroyed
because its supply lines have been cut off...” -- General Douglas MacArthur
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Church web marketing

In 2016, Pew Research indicated:
Using the internet to find information about potential congregations, although still far from a universal tactic, seems to be getting more common. Nearly half (47%) of those who have looked for a new congregation within the last five years say they relied on the internet as part of their search, compared with 26% of those whose last search was more than five years ago... 
More than eight-in-ten adults who have ever looked for a new house of worship say they attended a service during their search (85%). And roughly seven-in-ten talked to members of the congregation (69%) or to friends or colleagues (68%) about the house of worship they were considering. Upward of half of those searching for a new house of worship talked to a minister or clergyperson (55%). Fewer say they looked for information online (37%) or made a phone call (19%) to a house of worship they were considering – although among adults under 30 who have looked for a congregation, about six-in-ten (59%) say they searched for information online.
As far as information about a church that some churches may neglect having on their website Pew Research indicated:
Among U.S. adults who have ever looked for a new house of worship, about eight-in-ten say the quality of sermons (83%) or feeling welcomed by clergy and lay leaders (79%) played an important role in their choice. Most also cite the style of services (74%) and the location (70%) as important factors to consider when choosing a new congregation. And, overall, 56% say the quality of religious education for children played an important role in their decision. Among those who currently have children under 18, however, two-thirds (65%) say the quality of educational programs for children was an important factor.

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Saturday, February 8, 2020

Christendom on the internet. A vision for increasing its reach and effectiveness

Classic scene from the 2004 movie Miracle on a team's need to push themselves harder



Project Miraculous is a name I am giving an internet based project to advance the kingdom of God via the internet.  Because the project is designed to achieve extremely big results, the project will require me to grow in my web marketing skills to the very highest level possible and grow as a person as well.  The Apostle Paul wrote: "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win". (1 Corinthians 9:24).  In addition, I would like to get others involved and ideally it would be great to see these individuals improve their web marketing skills too.

Right now, there are some exciting Christian projects in terms of web evangelism and Christians are achieving great things via the internet as can be seen in this article on internet evangelism and other internet outreach: Internet evangelism.

The Christian internet evangelism organization Global Media Outreach indicates that as of September 2019 over 1,900,000,000 "gospel visits" have occurred via their websites.

In addition,  Project 100 Million is the evangelism and personal discipleship ministry of Network211 whose mission is to reach 100,000,000 people worldwide with the Gospel. In April of 2020, the project achieved nearly 40 million gospel presentations.  I would like to get involved in Project 100 million and also launch a nonprofit that does internet evangelism.  

The Christian Post wrote an article entitled Study Reveals Internet Evangelism Is Effective which indicates that internet evangelism is effective.

The Christian Post states:
Online evangelism is producing real disciples for Christ, according to a recent study. 
Over half of those who made a decision for Jesus over the Internet have subsequently shared their faith with others, Global Media Outreach's study reveals. 
Additionally, 34 percent read their Bibles daily and nearly half pray for at least 10 minutes a day... 
The study, called the Christian Growth Index, measured the responses of more than 100,000 people from around the world... 
Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they shared their faith three times or more and 37 percent said they shared their faith at least once or twice.
Global Media Outreach is a global ministry that presents the Gospel online through websites such as WhoisJesus-Really.com and GrowinginChrist.com. There are more than 5,500 trained online missionaries worldwide who respond to questions asked by seekers through emails.

I know that seeking and relying on God is how miracles are accomplished and it is how we change as a person. I also know that God can open big doors in order to make a project successful because a person working alone can only do so much.

In the classic 2004 hockey movie Miracle, coach Herb Brooks said about the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team beating the Soviet Union Olympic hockey team:
The only way we can compete with the Eastern Bloc teams is if we're willing to change. Change the way we train, the way we prepare, even change our schedule. I think we need to make it longer.  You know, tougher.  Much more competitive.
We also need to change the way we play the game. My plan is to adopt a new style. A hybrid of the Soviet school and the Canadian school. A combination that requires the highest level of conditioning, speed, creativity, and most of all, team chemistry.
Web marketing is a constantly changing field with various disciplines.  So having a team stay at the absolute cutting edge of web marketing and fundraising tactics - even as the web marketing algorithms change every 6–18 months. That dramatically lowers the “skill decay” problem that kills most long-term digital efforts. Therefore, it makes sense that people who can learn faster and retain more have a competitive advantage. Imagine what an elite web marketing and fundrasing teams could do! 

Strong web marketing combined with top-notch fundrasing would create a much bigger audience and also incorporate professional-level grant writing, major-donor cultivation, online crowdfunding, etc. (See: Partnering and fundraising). 

Research shows that people who know memory techniques and accelerated learning techniques learn substantially faster and retain significantly more (Please read: The keys to very effective learning. Learning how top medical students learn and other top learners and Learning faster and retaining more ).

For example, even people who learn basic memory techniques and practice a short while with them, remember a lot more.

According to the book Your Memory. How It works & How To Improve It by Kenneth Higbee , PH.D.:
Several research studies up to the mid-1970s found that the Link and Story systems can be effective in learning and remembering word lists. People using the Link system typically remembered 2 to 3 times as many words from a 20-word list as did people who were not taught the system. Similarly, people using the Story system to learn a dozen or more lists of 10 words remembered 2 to 7 times as many words as did people not using the system. The research also found that the Story system could be used effectively on abstract words (although not quite as effectively as on concrete words), and even that sentences strung together as stories were remembered better than when they were presented as unrelated sentences. 
In my memory course I give my students several memory tests during the first couple of class periods, and then give them the same tests later in the course. One of the tests is the same one I described for my lecture audiences—to remember a list of 20 words after hearing them once at a rate of one word every 10 seconds. The following summarizes the performance of about 100 students in several recent classes: Before learning the Link and Story systems, 18 percent of the students recalled all 20 words. (Most of the 18 percent used the Link or Story system or a similar mnemonic that they had learned before the class.) Several weeks later, using the systems, the percentage of students recalling all 20 words increased threefold to 54 percent. At the other end of the performance scale, the percentage of students recalling fewer than 14 words was 40 percent before learning the systems and 15 percent after learning the systems.  
These results from my memory classes are more striking than those found in some research studies because of several procedural differences. For example, I give my students about 10 seconds per word; this presentation rate is slower than that used in most research studies. Also, the same people learn both lists of words (one list before learning the systems and one using the systems), rather than comparing some people who used the system with others who did not use it, as is done in most research studies. (pages 136 and 138,  1996 edition)
The basketball player Jerry Lucas who learned memory techniques and practiced with them studied 25% of the time that his fellow students studied and still graduated with honors and was a member of the Phi Betta Kappa the honors society which requires juniors to have a GPA of 3.85.   (source: forward to the book The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory at Work, at School, and at Play by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucus). 

Below is some fascinating information about how memory training actually changes the structure of the brain quoted from the science journal Neuron (it involves the common memory improvement technique called mnemonics):
Memory skills strongly differ across the general population; however, little is known about the brain characteristics supporting superior memory performance. Here we assess functional brain network organization of 23 of the world’s most successful memory athletes and matched controls with fMRI during both task-free resting state baseline and active memory encoding. We demonstrate that, in a group of naive controls, functional connectivity changes induced by 6 weeks of mnemonic training were correlated with the network organization that distinguishes athletes from controls (source: Mnemonic Training Reshapes Brain Networks to Support Superior Memoryscience journal Neuron, 2017) 
When being interviewed for the 1980 Olympic coach position, one of the men on the board of the Olympic Hockey Team board said about the Soviet team: "We put our best on the ice with them last year. Professional all-stars. They still beat us".

In response, Coach Herb Brooks said about the importance of teamwork:
Was it because you weren't good enough? All-star teams fail because they rely solely on the individual's talent. The Soviets win because they take that talent and use it inside a system that's designed for the betterment of the team. My goal is to beat them at their own game.
Coach Herb Brooks also said to raise one's game it helps to have the highest level of creativity as well. Please see: Creativity resources

The famous Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu similarly said: "Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances."

A famous Civil War general said a key to victory is having the "Firstest with the mostest". General Douglas MacArthur said, "The history of war proves that nine out of ten times an army has been destroyed because its supply lines have been cut off...”.  Web marketing often requires financial resources and forming alliances (or at least getting cooperation from other webmasters/others such as getting link requests granted), therefore I created the resource: Partnering and fundraising

For many projects, it helps to have a large organization, strong leadership and strong funding for any effort to be successful. Recruiting, leadership and fundraising are skills and advanced learning skills could enable these areas to be far more effective. 

 In order for Christendom to make further progress in the short term in terms of advancing Christianity is if Christians work harder, learn new skills and adopt new tactics/strategies.  I have some ideas concerning this matter that I will start implementing and refine to a greater degree.

In the meantime, since the quote from the 2004 movie Miracle mentions preparation, I offer a few quotes below:

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”- Abraham Lincoln

“Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.”- Thomas A. Edison

“Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.” - Alan Armstrong

"Success is won by those who believe in winning and then prepare for that moment. Many want to win, but how many prepare? That is the big difference. A sound value system held water then, holds water today, and will hold water in the future." - Herb Brooks

"Let me start with issuing you a challenge: Be better than you are. Set a goal that seems unattainable, and when you reach that goal, set another one even higher." - Herb Brooks

"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." - Herb Brooks

“You can't be common, the common man goes nowhere; you have to be uncommon." - Herb Brooks

"Great moments are born from great opportunities." - Herb Brooks

Comprehensive plan for internet evangelism (including plans for web marketing, fundraising, personnel and publicity)





Al Michaels & Jim Craig Talk ‘Miracle on Ice’ Anniversary with Rich Eisen | Full Interview 
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Miracle (2004) movie scenes: Miracle (Movie scenes)































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