Yesterday, I had an online fundraiser $11 on 11/11 largely through Facebook. I started with a goal to have 228 people give $11 to reach my goal amount. By the end of the day, I had 44 give. You might look at this and say, that’s less than 20% !!! but success is a matter of perspective. I count this as success. Allow me share with you some of the lessons I learned in doing this.
-
God is still faithful. I may not have hit my goal, but God shows me in many ways that He will provide. This exercise has not left me discouraged, but rather enlightened.
-
Fundraising is more than a math problem. I thought through all my formulating, percentages and averages, this would be easy. But it’s not easy. And that’s ok. God never promised fundraising would be easy.
-
I don’t have a million friends, but I have the best friends ever baked. Some from short yet enduring encounters, and others from age old. It always warms my heart to be reaffirmed of the quality, not quantity of friends I have.
I know that there are other teammates or squad-mates of mine who may not have met their fundraising goals for 11/11 either. I’d advise avoiding the following traps:
Don’t judge your success or failure by comparing to other people. Rejoice in what you did raise. Even if only 1 person gave, think about how moved that one person was to give to you. Don’t think that God has blessed someone else’s fundraising and ignored yours.
-
Don’t judge people you expected to give, who in fact didn’t. You may think $11 is a small amount, but it’s still someone else’s decision on how to spend. We don’t know who God has led to give, it’s only our job to ask and create space for people to do so. Further, cyberspace is a very noisy town. If you were solely depending on FB for your campaign, there are many reasons people may not have seen or responded to your request. If you contacted those same people individually, you might be surprised to see their responses.
-
Don’t think you need more people to like you, or that you need more friends. God’s ability to provide for your race is not dependent on the number of likes you can gain, or friends you make. God loves you, and that’s enough. Isn’t that a powerful truth? Just continue to love people, irrespective of their giving to your race, and trust that God will provide through whomever at whatever time he appoints.
God provided full funding for my trip; certainly providing for the gear I need is not an impossible task. I only need to trust Him and keep asking!
I won’t be giving up on fundraising anytime soon, afterall, I still need 184 supporters and I know He won’t leave me hanging 🙂 –
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. (Phil 1:6)
And finally – Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone who has supported me to date!! Your generosity has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. <3
Anyone still looking to give can do so – here (PayPal)
