Bringing in the sheaves

July 1st marked the end of our fiscal year and it was time to evaluate. Besides events and individual donor work this past year, one of my main areas of focus was on Faith Based organizations of all kinds--churches, synagogues, small groups, religious civic organizations (think Knight of Columbus), etc. Granted, many of these institutions have given faithfully over the years but we are always looking to add more to help keep the lights on and the doors open. I made a list of goals and projections and came up with a number of revenue I thought was a stretch but showed the potential if all went well. I decided to do as much as I could but trust that God had the final say.

Over the last year I reached out to well over 500+ churches across the state but mostly in the south and mid-state. I got meetings with some of them. I presented on a Sunday to a few of them. Several came to our site for a tour but we never heard back. We gained one new pastor for our Sleep Out. A couple of gifts here and there. Many were trying to keep their own lights on and doors open and had little to spare for us.

When I began to pull the numbers together last week for an annual report I wasn't too hard on myself. After all, I'd been keeping up all year so I knew we were no where close to what I had originally projected in spite all avenues tried. My supervisor encouraged me to add in the numbers from my counterparts that had also been involved with faith based groups outside of my work and religious civic organizations...I was fine with this--after all--it certainly wasn't just about what I had done all year but what we as a team did together. I was happy to add them all in.

And the number grew...a lot. At our 2 day Development retreat last week I reported on the progress we had made connecting faith based group to our mission and our work. While the financial support is a definite by-product, I enjoy knowing that folks of faith are in fact connecting to the very basics of what Jesus taught in Matthew 25 and that has been what has made this year so great--being able to share my own passion about it and connect others to it. I shared our numbers and our financial total and heads nodded. No big fanfare, no astonished gasps, but a recognition that it's an area of support we could stand to look at a bit closer for a variety of reasons.

I sent the final annual to my supervisor on Friday.  As I was checking email this morning, another co-worker of mine had answered my "I need church #s" request a few days late. She gave me the totals of what 2 church groups raised at 2 of our Sleep Out events over the last year...and I added them in.

Wait, what? WHAT!? Did adding in those last 2 numbers actually bring the total revue up to the EXACT NUMBER plus a few hundred of what I had projected last summer??? Why, YES! IT DID!

I was beside myself...and it wasn't even a clean number ("$10,000" or "$65,000") but rather an obscure amount of many figures...but there it was. I was humbled, amazed, and kept shaking my head. I emailed my supervisor about "Providence" and gave her the new, weird total, feeling good, but feeling brought down a bit that I had had a slight "eh" about not reaching the total last week.

So a new fiscal year has begun and, as always, we begin at $0. We have $10.3 million to raise this year (I think--something gigantic like that) and I will do my part to do so in order for the thousands of kids we serve each year to have a place to sleep at night and food to eat. That's about $880K per month or $29,000 per day (please don't check my math!) Now that Faith Based initiatives has taken off, I'm looking forward to connecting more churches with our mission and work, if only to help ensure that no kid has to sleep under the boardwalk or in a bus station. And I am really looking forward to see God work (again!) in "oh Me of little faith!"