The Monthly Budget Strategy

True Story: On Wednesday April 10, 2002, I wrote a personal letter on behalf of my key student at the College of the Siskiyous in California. The letter was written to pastor Bill from the local evangelical church that students from the ministry were attending. I decided to call the pastor first and tell him I'd be sending him a letter to request monthly funding for the college ministry. He told me to fax it right away since the board was meeting the next night. Here's the email he sent me on April 15th:

"Hi Ben, Our Board reviewed the request last Thursday evening and decided to fund the effort at College of the Siskiyous at $100.00 per month from March-May. When Stephen comes back in the fall (hopefully there are no changes) we will evaluate the status and fund it again Sept.-May if all continues to go well.
Thanks for your encouragement to Steve and your prayers for C.O.S.
Pastor Bill."

The first step in this monthly budget strategy is to target your local church, or business owned by solid believers in the community and submit a letter of request which includes your monthly/yearly budget. Call them and ask them for a reply a week later. In my mind, this would be your number one strategy for raising long-term consistent funds for your campus.