January 01, 1993 by Ralph D. Winter

1. We have no choice. (It is a legal obligation--as well as a matter of integrity.)
2. It has marvelous direct and indirect blessings for the whole cause
3. Let's rather call it the resumption of our "Million Person Campaign."
4. But, most of all, let's keep our promises!

Perhaps these are some of your questions:

What was your founding purpose?

From the very beginning we have had no other purpose than to promote missions to the ends of the earth, especially where Christ is not named, and to do so by promoting the existing mission agencies, helping them in every way possible and mobilizing American churches behind them.

How did you plan to do that?

We set out to buy a former college campus in Pasadena, California as a base, where missionary staff, on loan from many agencies, could work together and do many things in common, without duplicating efforts, serving the mission industry.

Why did you need so much property?

We felt this center would need to be financially self-sufficient (except for personnel on loan from other agencies) so that we would not be financially competitive with the very agencies we sought to serve.

We noted that our intended "base of operations" could be self- supporting if it included a number of private houses already owned by the college. Their rental income, we figured, would be sufficient to maintain the lights, the heat, and the maintenance on the campus portion of the property.

Why did you then pursue such a bizarre method of raising money?

You refer to our plan to ask no one for more than a one-time $15 gift.

Yes, precisely!

Shortly after we first started out to pay off the campus we realized that even during the period of fund-raising for the campus itself we ought to try to avoid interfering with the income sources of the sending agencies we sought to serve.

We wracked our brains for a way to raise the necessary millions of dollars and not boil the waters of the financial base of the existing mission agencies. To make a long story short (we considered many hair- brained schemes) we decided to ask a million people to give $15 each, that's all. We knew this would be very difficult.

But some people thought we were crazy--because they assumed we would obviously choose to go about things the easiest way not the hardest way! They could not understand our motive for avoiding any impression of competition with the existing agencies, nor how serious we were in being faithful to that conviction.

But you didn't stick with it?

We stuck with it for eight long, harrowing years. Many people were attracted by our good intentions. We soon discovered an important by- product of the one-small-gift plan: we would need to disturb at least a million people with a minimal new vision in order to get the million $15 gifts.

Why did you give it up?

We did not really give it up. We finally realized that the timetable of reaching a million people with the new vision and the timetable of the real estate people could not jive. We had to drop everything and go out for "advances" of $1,000 to cover future $15 gifts, pay off the campus and then continue with the million person plan.

But what do you plan to do with the additional $15 gifts you will ask for? Isn't the campus now paid for?
Yes, the campus is paid for--by "advances" against future $15 gifts. Roughly 8,000 people came to our rescue and advanced, or pledged $1,000 each (contingent on our raising the total amount in gifts or pledges). Over 98% of those pledges are now in!

While all larger gifts have been receipted as legal gifts, we urged people to tell us where they would like these advances eventually to be sent--to what other mission agency.

Do you have to stay with this unusual idea?

All along, we consistently promised that we would treat gifts larger than $15 as advances, and would pursue the remainder of the needed million $15 gifts in order to pay back these larger amounts or to reassign them to other mission agencies whatever the donor says. We don't feel it is a legal option not to fulfill our promises

No way to break this legally?

We have not pursued that possibility for a simple and weighty reason.

What's that?

We believe that this obligation to fulfill our promises is a marvelous, God-given opportunity to "drive us out into contact with another 750,000 people" with a low-key challenge to give a one time $15 gift toward this center, and to capture a new vision for the Unreached Peoples. We don't feel we have any other alternative, but that this obligation is filled with great promise.

What is your immediate plan?

We have an absolutely tremendous plan: to do this entirely by word-of- mouth, which worked so well for us before. The "ripple plan" consists of providing people who pass on the vision the reward of knowing month by month how many others are touched by their initiative. Wouldn't you keep passing things on if you had any idea of the ripples of distant influence your efforts produced?

How will it work?

Next time we'll report on the unique and amazing details. But it involves the development of a computer application which will enable us efficiently to keep people posted about response to their efforts. Anyone who likes to do programing and would like to help us develop this scheme is welcome to write me at the address below or fax me at 213-682-2047.