| Five Ways to Multiply Your Donations We face many challenges in regard to the support-raising side of our work, which is why it seems that missionaries are always needing to raise more support. For example, each year a few supporters have to stop giving for various reasons, last year our city raised taxes, there's always inflation, school bills increase, medical benefits up, and to top it off, the dollar has gotten very weak against the yen. Don't let this happen to your missionary! If you are already a financial supporter, please read and take note!!! Here are FIVE ideas for multiplying your generous gifts to our ministry. ONE Pray! "Uh...isn't that obvious?" Well, hold on. This may seem like a classic "no-brainer" but we ourselves are often guilty of not asking. Ask God to lead us to meet people--like you--who will join our team . Ask God to provide all that we need. TWO Increase We don't like to ask for increases very often, but if you are like us, there are times we want to increase our support to someone, but because of the busyness of life, we simply forget to do the paperwork. So if you too have thought to commit to an increase, then may this be your reminder . To increase, just write your increase on your next check. If you are giving electronically, use this link to make the changes for your increase. THREE Company Matching Gifts A good friend recently told us that he submitted a request for company matching gifts and the company complied! I asked Jeff if he wouldn't mind expressing how he did it, which became a new page in our web site. Perhaps you can DOUBLE your gifts like Jeff's family did through your company's matching gift program. Please take a look. FOUR Give by Automatic Bank Transfer I found some interesting statistics in our 2007 donation account. Of 112 who gave to us in 2007... 7 gave 13 times 57 gave 12 times 8 gave 11 times 4 gave 10 times 1 gave 9 times 2 gave 8 times 3 gave 7 times 0 gave 6 times 2 gave 5 times 3 gave 4 times 1 gave 3 times 7 gave 2 times 17 gave 1 time If you find yourself in the red group, don't feel guilty. This simply confirms that, yes, we are all busy and forgetful. Of course we are very thankful for the 57 solid givers, and big Kubo kudos for the 7 who gave 13 times! But if you look at the numbers (not counting the one-time gifts), we can see that many supporter friends forgot to send in their check at least once. Total all the missed monthly support, and that's a LOT of lost support. Or looking at it more positively, if all were on auto transfer, that would be a Super Solid 95 supporters who give every single month! If that were the case, perhaps we wouldn't even need to raise additional support. We realize that not all can do this, and some have philosophical reasons why they don't want to, but if it's mainly forgetfulness, then please consider signing up for the auto-transfer option. It's quite easy. Please sign up today! FIVE Change from Credit Card Giving Credit cards may be convenient, but someone still has to pay for that convenience. What you may not have known is, that "someone" is us. Yup, each credit card gift has a 3% service charge attached to it which comes out of our account. So if you want your giving to have maximum value, then switch from plastic money! * Switch to checks * Switch to auto bank transfer ONE MORE This last way is actually the most effective of all ways to help multiply your giving and it is the least technical. Simply introduce us to your friends or to groups within your Christian circles of influence. - Study groups - Prayer groups - Church groups - Missions groups Share vision and stories about what God is doing in Nagoya. Share about your personal involvement. Share our web site in order to give more information Tell them about NagoyaPrayer (email group for prayer requests). Join by mailing to: [email protected] Introduce us to your friends, and simply ask, "Would you consider joining the Kubo's support team?" Thank you! The Kubos Home The Significance of the Yen Rate Company Matching Gifts Kubo Donation Page CCC Donations Information EFCA Member (April 2008) |
 |