[00:00:00] Kay: Well, hello there, friends. This is Kay Helm, and this is the Life and Mission podcast. It's been a while since I posted a new episode. I wanted to be sure that when I came back, I could be consistent for you and that in each episode, we'd be more focused and get you something where you can actually take action. When I started the podcast, the idea was to inspire you, to think about calling and mission and how we can move towards these kind of big picture dreams in the midst of our day-to-day lives. And that's good, but those two do not have to be at odds with each other. For example, ministry and business are not exclusive of one another.
[00:00:39] You are never, ever just a mom or just a, whatever you are, right. Anytime you say “just a” you de-valuing that. You never have just a small audience. You never have just a little bit to give. And at the same time, I’m coming to a place in my own calling where missions looks a lot different than it did three or four years back along the way.
[00:01:02] One of the things I've noticed is this thread of writing. Writing has been a part of nearly every job I've had. And even in this latest role, as a facilitator on a mental health training team, a big part of my role in this organization was to help prepare the training materials and of course all the fundraising stories and all the different things that we need to do on that end.
[00:01:28] For the past few years, I've been a part of a community led by Mary Valloni and Mike Kim, called Fully Funded Academy. And this is to help missionaries raise funds. I eventually became a Fully Funded certified coach, meaning that I can walk people through the seven-step process to get fully funded. But my real passion is in helping people with the writing and the storytelling.
[00:01:53] It breaks my heart to see people stepping out in faith but having little to no direction for raising the funds that need to go out on the field. To see people with passion to solve a problem in the world, and they go through all the work and the stress of starting a new 501c3 and not having a clue then of really how to share that mission with people outside of their inner circle. The people that already understand you, the people that already get you. But how are you going to get more people to support your mission? So, last fall fundraising consultant David Oaks asked me to join him in an experiment. He signed up a handful of small nonprofits, small ministries, most of them, and walked them through a creating and executing a year-end fundraising campaign.
[00:02:45] Even though year-end is the most lucrative time of year for fundraising–this is when most of the funds for nonprofits are are raised–none of these organizations had ever done an end of year campaign. So, I jumped into this group with David and we helped these ministries. Most of them were ministries and we helped them.
[00:03:07] We helped them write the emails and tell the stories. And you just, you need to know, you need to tell stories to raise funds. You have to, and I'll have more about that. We'll talk about that as we go along. But the short story is that they all did better than they'd ever done. Two of them raised everything they needed for the year, or close to it, and one was able, for the very first time, to go off and do a conference. They always do these like women's conference and pastors conferences and stuff, but those conferences had never been fully funded. And for the first time they had a conference that was fully funded. So, they were all very, very happy.
[00:03:45] We were happy, but we also noticed something. This has been a huge thing now in my life, it's really shifted some things around: the difference we saw between those who just exploded out of the box and raised a lot of money, and that the ones who continued to struggle was writing and stories–being able to clearly share what they do and why they did it. Being able to put together clear, compelling stories from the field, being able to write an appeal that inspires action. They struggled because that just wasn't a skill they had. They had other valuable skills, but writing was not their thing.
[00:04:27] The thing is that it really hurt them. And what came out of this was something that I call Mission Writers. I launched it in February of this year, 2022. The Mission Writers community is where we tackle the ins and outs of developing stories for fundraising. Some of it is geared towards what kinds of stories to tell and when to tell them some it's more about how to write compelling stories. Some is about I'm teaching about persuasive writing and all kinds of things like that. You can check the show notes for more on Mission Writers, and you'll hear me talk about this more in the future.
But for the life and mission podcast, as we now start season three, you'll notice this shift. I will be focused more on storytelling for missionaries, ministries, and nonprofits, but a lot of what I'm bringing is also good for business. So, if you're in the business world, stick around, see if you can use it.
[00:05:24] I hope you can. I love when we can bring those two together business and ministry, and I just love when we can learn from each other and help each other out. I really want to give you something in each episode of this podcast that you can put into practice to improve your storytelling so that you can fund your mission.
[00:05:43] Most of the new episodes will be solo. That will be short. And my goal is to keep them under 20 minutes. Now there will be interviews, like I said, here and there, and they'll run probably 30 to 40 minutes.
[00:05:54] So there'll be a little shorter too. And I'll drop a new episode at least twice a month consistently. So that's what we're doing. For season three of the Life and Mission podcast, I do hope that you will find it useful and inspiring. Now let's go, you know what we say: find your voice, tell your story, change the world.
