Sanctity of Life Month

January 21st marks 43 years since the Roe vs Wade decision that legalized abortion. Since then over 58 million babies have been put to death, making what should be the safest place in the world, the most dangerous. January is Sanctity of Life Month.

The Pregnancy Care Center of Tiftarea continues to work in the trenches to save these unborn children from the terrible choice that is offered to their mothers. This year when all the numbers are in, we will have seen over 70 mothers that were considering abortion choose life for their children. We do this through trained counselors, ultrasounds, medical personnel, medical testing, referral services, and others.

The way that we are able to do these things is with the generous donations of churches, individuals, businesses, as well as fundraisers. By the way, there are still a couple of days left for year-end donations to help us finish out our year-end campaign; we still need about $4000. In January many of our supporting churches join us in the Baby Bottle Boomerang. Thousands of dollars are raised for our center by simply collecting change. We take this fundraiser very seriously because it is super important to our budget. Over the upcoming days your church may receive a call from our center asking about the number of bottles you want to have for this year. Please aim for a higher goal than last year. Send them out with your children as they go home after church. Put one in each of the Sunday School classes. Leave them on foyer tables for people to take with them. However you do it, make sure and put your two cents in :-)

Another thing that Sanctity of Life month brings is opportunity for churches to take advantage of our staff and the season, and have a speaker come in to share. Our expert staff can help raise awareness, explain our ministry, equip your people, and offer Jesus Christ as the true solution for abortion and the cause for life. I hope you will consider an outreach in this way. If there is any way that we can help, please don't hesitate to call, email, or stop by. Click the link above to learn all about us.

Looking forward to more new lives coming into the world in 2016 that otherwise would not,

Mechanics of Pregnancy Centers

As most of you know, I work for a Pregnancy Care Center in addition to my work as a director of missions for the Mell Baptist Association. At the PCC, we are preparing for one of our annual fundraisers; a 5K color run. I write on the sanctity of life a couple of times a year, but usually directly about abortion and the Christian call to protect life. This time I wanted to give you some insight into how we operate.

This year we have implemented an additional strategy for advertising, and I feel like I am always pushing and pushing this event on social media. Event creation, then sharing, tweeting, retweeting, promoting, boosting, inviting, and telling others to invite, share, tweet, etc, are constantly coming from me (this doesn't count the direct fundraising I do to underwrite the cost of the event). So why do I (the PCC) and other non-profits spend so much time fundraising? Well, simple right, they can't make or sell anything to make a profit, and very few are self-supporting.

So we have about three fundraisers a year: a banquet, a baby bottle campaign, and for the last two years we have had a 5K/1M color run. These fundraisers make up a little less than half of the financial needs that we have to support an executive director and four part-time staff, including a nurse manager, patient manager, advancement manager (me), and an office manager. We definitely don't do it for the money, it's a service to the kingdom, women, and children. Then there are the volunteers who don't get any remuneration, and do everything from being patient advocates, nursing, newsletters, preparing food, counting coins, serving on the board of directors, and aiding with events. This ministry could not continue without them.

The other funding for our center comes from regular individual givers, churches and a few businesses. These are crucial to the continuation of our ministry as well. All these help us minister to women with unplanned pregnancies in at least eight counties. They help us share the gospel to over 100 women, and preserve the lives of 50-60 babies each year in the most recent years.

All that to conclude that these fundraisers (and their seemingly endless promotion) allow children to take their first breaths, and mothers to be rescued from the lingering scars of abortion. Thank you for all that you do, especially those who labor in prayer for us. If you are a runner, or know of someone who is, tell them to join us for our Color Me Baby color run on Oct 24th. You can get all the info on the colormebabyrun.com site. If you want to donate, you can do that as well through the site or through our Facebook page. Pray that it goes well, and that the Lord with use it to provide for us! Hope to see you there!

Non-Profit Funding

Working for two non-profits, the Mell Baptist Association and the Pregnancy Care Center of Tiftarea, I understand the importance of relying on funds of donors. They are both ministries, so we walk by faith, not by sight. However in the world we live in, it is hard for boards or teams to look at a previous year's income and not become overly cautious (this is coming from the one that is happy to spend and spend, just ask those I work with).

This diagram fits the situation of the PCC more so than the Mell. It shows all the places that we anticipate that funding might come from each year. It's a diagram I copied off the web, so it is not completely the way we operate, but close. One of the components is "special events." Many non-profits have them, and we are no different. We are doing the preparations right now for our third of three that we usually do each year. We raise a good deal of our budget through special events. We are grateful to every giver who comes and gives. However, if we rely on events to carry us through the year, it is hard to plan long-term. Good ministries should plan long-term. It is so we will not have to live simply year to year.

One of the BIG components missing from the diagram is our monthly supporters. Churches and individuals who are monthly or quarterly sponsors for us keep us going in between events. Long-term planning needs long-term funding. The best way to have long-term funding is to find people with a passion for your organization or you cause, and give them an outlet for their passion. Sometimes it will be financial, but sometimes it will take on other forms. The former model is event based, but sooner or later people get tired of it, or just come back each year without bringing new people. So at the PCC, we are trying to move toward our operating budget being generated by monthly giving, and our larger needs being done with event money. That's the goal, but after several years, we are not doing so well with our paradigm shift.