During the month of October I really want to focus on building monthly support. I believe that the majority of my finances will be raised through people donating a fixed amount that they see fit on a monthly basis to my cause. Not everyone can give a large lump sum of money all at once, and because of this, many people shy away from donating all together, and therefore, miss the opportunity to partner with me financially during this epic adventure. Here are a few reasons why monthly support is a great route to go, not just for me, but for you as well!
1. A small monthly sacrifice adds up very quickly to a significant total. Let’s say you can afford to part with $5 a month. Sure $5 doesn’t seem like much, however, if you started donating $5 a month today and kept donating until the completion of my fundraising stage (December 2015), you will have donated $75! I’ll do a little more math for you with other amounts as well:
Monthly Donation Total Donation
5 75
10 150
15 225
20 300
25 375
50 750
100 1500
2. It learning experience that can help you reevaluate your personal spending habits. We all mindless spend a lot of money a month on something. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes when we take a step back and look at our fiances we realize we would have a lot more money if we just cut back in one area. It could be going out to eat, clothing, entertainment, or anything really.
For example: Some people really love to buy coffee at a coffee shop on their way to work every morning. It seems like a small amount of money that you spend every day, but when you look at the total at the end of the month, it can be shocking. Let’s say you spend $5 on a cup of coffee every weekday on your way to work. That averages out to $108.33 a month ($1,300 a year), just on coffee! Yikes! What if just gave up one cup a coffee a week and opted instead to brew a cup at home and donate the money you saved? That would turn into an extra $21.67 a month and $325.05 for my trip, and all just for a small sacrifice!
3. Monthly support is a huge key to making $20,000 more obtainable. A lot of people have sticker shock when I tell them how expensive my trip will be. I completely understand! That’s around what I make an entire year working full-time (yes, I really am that “poor”). However, through monthly support, the number of people needed to financially support me dramatically drops. I’ll create another table (yes, I’m a nerd and I love numbers and math).
Monthly Amount Donated Number of People Needed to Reach Goal
5 267
10 134
15 89
20 67
25 54
50 27
100 14
4. You will be more inclined to keep updated on what I’m doing around the world and become more informed. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really care about something all that much until I start realizing that my money is going towards it. I pay a lot more attention to those things. Here is probably the most important point I will make during this blog: This journey is so much bigger than just me. This is an opportunity to inform everyone back home what is going on. My goal is to stir up your passion about something through out my experiences. Maybe it will be the underground church in China, the Muslim community in Malaysia, the human trafficking occurring in Southeast Asia, the poverty in Africa, or inequality in Eastern Europe. I don’t know what it will be for each and everyone of you, but my prayer is that it will give your direction on what justice issue really sets you off, which leads me to my last, and favorite point.
5. You will know what you want to support long after my trip ends. After giving to me financially for fifteen months, you might realize you don’t even miss that money and will want to donate it somewhere else afterwards. Perhaps it will be to one of the ministries that I work with on the trip, or you will find another organization you want to support. Maybe you’ll even decide that you want to set aside money to be able to visit one of these places yourself and learn more about them. This could be the very thing that pushes you from being stagnant in your faith to being active about the things you are passionate about! That’s really exciting when you think about it!
So those are my five reasons as to why I am pushing for monthly support. This is a partnership between me and you. I want to encourage and challenge you just as I know many of you would like to do the same for me.
If this resonates with you and you wish to sign up for monthly support follow the Support Me! tab on the left and you will be given the option between a one time donation or a re-occurring monthly one. All donations are tax deductible and payments will be taken from your account monthly on either the 3rd or the 18th. The organization that will appear on your statements is Adventures in Missions (not The World Race). You can also elect to have your monthly donation end sooner than December 2015 if you wish!
Thank you for considering participating in this cause with me!
