Introducing the Global Impact Fund

We are teachers and healers, students and evangelists, publishers and peacemakers, innovators and faithful sustainers. Together, the Global Ministers of Friends United Meeting are preaching and living the Gospel, bringing wholeness and hope into places of despair and inviting new Friends into our beloved fellowship.

We have run into a wonderful problem, as a community: we have more good things happening than we have capacity for storytelling.

Here’s what that means, in practical budgetary terms: each of our specific ministries, like the Turkana Friends Mission or the Belize Friends School, are on their own line in our restricted budget. All of those 94 ministries have a set fundraising goal per year.

We don’t have the ability to run 94 separate fundraising initiatives every year, though, which means that some of these needs are going unmet—not because Friends are not generous enough to meet the needs, but because our own fundraising model is getting in our way. The sheer breadth of our work prevents us from being able to fundraise individually for each initiative.

Hence, the Global Impact Fund. This is our way to tell the whole story of what we’re doing through Global Ministries, rather than asking you to focus on several ministries in turn. Funds raised for the Global Impact Fund will be spent on the most pressing projects available, whether that’s paying staff in Belize or buying medicine in Lugulu. Together, we’ll be funding work like this:

• salaries for the teachers at the Lindi School, a Friends school in one of the largest slums in the world, where families can only afford a few dollars a month in tuition fees.
• support for the Adopt-a-Bed program at Lugulu Hospital, which covers the cost of care for the poorest of the poor, thereby allowing them to access life-saving health care without fear of the cost.
• the Belize Alternatives to Violence Program, which has a group of Belizeans who are eager to be trained to the level of lead facilitators, to run a self-sustaining AVP program, but who can't get that training until we can afford to bring a leader in from outside the country.
• building a network of African Quaker churches in North America, where there are a growing number of resettled refugee African Friends, either alone or in small groups, seeking connection to the Quakers in their new home.
• training support for church planters who are at the forefront of the explosive growth of Quakerism in northern Kenya, southern Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and now Mozambique.

Because this represents a change in our culture to support our whole mission, rather than just another fundraising initiative among many, we anticipate that there will be questions. We’ve addressed many of them here in the FAQ below; if you have others, please contact Eden Grace.

The work of funding our global mission—energizing and equipping Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord—is broader than all the restricted funds. We’re moving toward a model that reflects that broad calling, and we invite you to join us.

We are Friends United Meeting. When you partner with us, your impact is global.

Question: What is your fundraising target?

Answer: Since the Global Impact Fund will be our ongoing way of ensuring our mission projects are funded, the ultimate answer to this question would be enough to cover everything our Global Ministries Department is being called to do. In the short term, however, our current Global Impact Fund Drive began in July and will wrap up in January. During that time, we hope to raise $13,000. So far, we’ve made a great start: $2150 has already been donated!

Question: What, specifically, will the funds be used for?

Answer: The funds will be used for any underfunded projects within the purview of Global Ministries. We will still accept designated funds for particular projects, of course, but will reserve the Global Impact funds for the projects that need the most immediate assistance.

Question: I already support several of the field staff with monthly donations. How is this different?

Answer: Field Staff funding is completely separate from the rest of the Global Ministries budget, and dependent on monthly pledge system. This means that at the Belize Friends School, for instance, Director Nikki Holland and Pastor Oscar Mmbali are funded by pledges of support, but Principal Frank Tench and Teacher Patricia Welch are paid out of Global Ministries restricted funds.

Question: How is the Global Impact Fund different from the Energize Equip Connect campaign, which I donated to a few years ago?

Answer: The Energize Equip Connect Campaign was a time-limited campaign to raise three million dollars for new ministries. It was successfully completed in 2017. Those funds built up FUM’s endowment and support two staff positions: the Director of Development for Ramallah Friends School and the North American Ministries Coordinator.

The Global Impact Fund, in comparison, is not time-limited; it's our new ongoing way of raising funds to support the work of our beloved community around the world.

Question: How is the Global Impact Fund different from the General Fund?

Answer: Good question! We regularly ask Friends to donate to the General Fund, which supports the core administration of Friends United Meeting as an organization, including our Communication Ministries. The Global Impact Fund is targeted more specifically toward the work of Global Ministries. It supports church planting in East Africa, anti-human trafficking work in Belize, education in Ramallah, and so much more. Both funds are flexible, but the General Fund supports the whole work of Friends United Meeting, including administrative costs, while the Global Impact Fund supports our project partners and programs.

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