It Doesn’t Matter Where You Start
Support Raising: 11 Principles to Get Funded
Principle #1 “It Doesn’t Matter Where You Start”
My name is Tony Dentman, and this is Principle One of an 11-part series about my journey of raising support as a minority male in the United States. I started at the bottom, but would now consider myself a fundraising coach as I’ve been raising support for the last 15 years. On this journey, I have learned a few things that I would like to share with minorities and those struggling to raise support across the world.
The first principle is crucial: It Doesn’t Matter Where You Start.
Let’s unpack it a little more.
Recently, I watched a Netflix movie called “Greater” — it was so good it almost brought me to tears! It is the story of Brandon Burlsworth, a football player from the University of Arkansas. He started from the bottom. On the first day of training camp, people laughed at him. He had no family history of football players, no real D1 athletic abilities, and he was fat and overweight. To put it simply, he was what we call a true scrub. He even lacked the demeanor and confidence of what it took to be a football player that deserved to be on the University of Arkansas team, but there was something greater inside of him:
He had a deep relationship with the Lord. He believed he had access to him through prayer and meditating on His Word.
He felt “called”. He knew the Lord was leading him to be a football player, and he was willing to be faithful to do whatever it took to live up to that calling.
Brandon became one of the best football players in Arkansas’ history. He became an All-Conference, All-American–the Indianapolis Colts even drafted him. He proved to the world that hard work, dedication, and true faith are all that matter.
I share Brandon’s story because that’s exactly how I felt when I started my support-raising journey.
I started at the bottom. As an inner-city kid from St. Louis, MO, I did not have a quality network of people or resources. I came to know the Lord in college, which meant I did not have much of church background. In reality, as a first-generation college graduate, I may have been the wealthiest person in my family at that point. It was then, with the odds stacked against me, that I decided to raise financial support... fortunately, there was something greater inside of me:
I had a deep relationship with the Lord. I believed I had access to him through prayer and meditating on His Word.
I knew that the Lord had called me to the mission field and to the college campus - that was the one thing of which I was convinced. I believed that if I was truly faithful with the things I had, then I was going to be exactly where He wanted me to be.
I remember my first day of support-raising training with Campus Outreach. I was in a room with my co-workers, all of whom were white, and the challenge was to brainstorm a list of 100 potential donors. To say that I struggled is an understatement. Eventually, I came up with about 25 names; everyone else completed the task in no time. I looked at my list and it comprised drug dealers, people who hadn’t had a job in 10 years, people who were retired, people that had been living on social security, and some who had even filed for bankruptcy multiple times. I thought to myself, “there’s no way that I will complete this task!” But at that moment, I had to remind myself it was not about where I was starting.
Fast forward 4 months, I was done with my support-raising process. The Lord provided and raised all of my support. From that initial list of 25 names, there were only two who actually joined my support team. The Lord raised up 60 new people from all across the United States, who were willing to support me. People I had met one time and joined my team. God made it clear that it was not about me. It was not about anything special in my presentation. It was about the fact that the Lord had called me to this mission field.
The Lord provided everything necessary to get me to the place where He wanted me to be, and He can do the same for you. I want to encourage you: it doesn’t matter where you start. The only thing that matters is where you are going to finish. Be faithful and look forward to the day the Lord will say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”
What I have learned from this process is this: if you are faithful with what you have, you will get to experience some amazing things. The Lord will provide what you need to accomplish the mission. I felt called to go to the college campus to raise up leaders to impact the world. Not only did He provide during my first year of raising support, but He’s also been providing for over a decade since then. Besides providing for me, God is now also using me to raise funds for people around me.
While you might feel like the odds are against you as a woman or a minority raising support, I want to let you know, if you are doing this for God, then He will do everything for you to get to where He has called you to be. Now, ask yourself, are you going to be faithful? Because it doesn’t matter where you start. Brandon Burlsworth finished the race well, and I pray this will also be true for you.
Also, don’t forget to check out the documentary on Netflix called “Greater”!
