Table of Contents
Program Overview
The Partners in Ministry Work Grant (PIMWG) is a program designed to incentivize and train an area and its staff in developing adult ownership through consistent, intentional meetings and follow up by staff and their partner team.
This program was originally developed by John and Lori Stuckey as a way to give money to an area or staff person in a healthy way.
For years, the Stuckeys were frustrated by the times that giving money to an area did not help an area director or staff person grow or become healthy, and sadly, sometimes enabled them to stay unhealthy in their area development and adult ownership.
John asked the question, “How do I give money to an area, in such a way that encourages them to become less dependent on my money and more connected to other adults within their local area?”
Out of this question the PIMWG program was formed.
Program Details
- 21 month commitment
- When maximized, the grant equals $40,000 for the area of 21 months
- $2600 x 15 paid months
- $1,000 bonus if 8 meetings accomplished during all 15 paid months
- Half of this money will come from the PIWMG grant, and the other half from within the region or division and will need to be secured to start.
- An area is expected to complete 8 meetings per month, in each of these months for a total of 168 meetings with adults from your area
- The grant pays $250 for meeting 1-4, and $400 for meeting 5-8
- Minimum of 4 meetings, maximum of 8 per month
- Total of $2600 per paid month
- Meetings are done by staff and the partner team
- Each meeting the team member or staff must present the case statement for the area to outline vision/needs and to call adults to consider getting involved
- Months 1-9, 16-21 are paid months, while month 10-15 are not. These months exist to help truly develop the discipline so that when the grant is over, the culture remains.
- The grant allows up to one follow up per adult to be counted. This means that though it is 168 meetings over 21 months, it could account for 84 total adults.
This grant can help you get better at fundraising, but it isn't a fundraising program. It is an adult contact work program, training and developing the skills necessary to help staff build healthy rhythms and disciplines around adult relationships that lead to better ministry.
Core Values
It is a privilege to be in the PIMWG program.
It is important that the supervisor, staff, and team understand that this is grant program is a privilege. This program incentivizes staff to do what is already their job: meet with adults in your local area and share the story of Young Life. The ability to get paid an incentive to do this is sort of crazy when you think about it, but we know it can have a profound impact and we want to make sure that the areas that get selected to be in this program realize that it is a privilege and to treat it as such.
It is meant to teach discipline, expect it to be hard.
This program exists to develop the disciplines that are needed within an area and their staff to develop adult ownership. This requires meeting with adults on a consistent basis, not just when funding is low. It is about making it a part of every day. 8 meetings doesn’t sound hard, but it is harder than you think when you are trying to wrangle schedules, and manage club and the other responsibilities of an area. It will be a hard 21 months, but it will be worth it. This is not a fad diet, this is a lifestyle change.
This should be growing the numbers of adults owners in your area.
If done well, these 8 meetings should be adding more adult owners to your area. An adult owner is an adult who loves Jesus, and has caught the vision for Young Life in their local area. They are excited to be a part of what God is doing through Young Life and feel responsible for its success. These relationships should mean you are adding donors, leaders, board/committee members, and other advocates for Young Life to your team. If these relationships aren’t developing from these monthly meetings, we aren’t being successful in the program.
You are expected to maximize the grant.
We understand that every month of the year on Young Life staff comes with different responsibilities and rhythms, but that doesn’t change the expectations of this program. The grant is expected to be maximized. Each month it is expected that all 8 meetings are accomplished, even though to maintain your status in the program you must complete at least 4 meetings per month. We want to get 8 meetings no matter what, and to be intentional and disciplined to prepare months when that might be harder. We all want to see more kids reached for Jesus, and if we don’t maximize the grant, we are simply leaving money on the table. If a staff person is consistently hitting the lower bounds of the meetings each month, they will be paused and potentially be asked to leave the program.
Roles & Requirements
Staff Supervisor
- Secure half of the funding ($11,700 to begin – remainder invoiced at month 10)
- Oversee and play active role in developing staff person in managing their team and having successful meetings
- Work with program director to see staff and area be successful
Staff
- Gather and lead partner team to understand and execute standards of program
- Oversee and adhere to deadlines of program
- Submit meeting reports correctly and on time
- Oversee dashboard and dates for program
- Nurture and rebuild partner team as needed
- Network and have meetings with adults in their area
- Submit grant invoices in a timely manner (Within 3 days of end of month)
Partner Team
It is important that the team understands the commitment and how they can best serve. Not each team member will be doing meetings, and that is okay, but everyone on the team should understand the role the play best.
Each team must have a dedicated chair person to help protect team culture & grant success.
Teams must consist of 5-10 people plus the staff person.
- Pray for potential names for meetings
- Pray for meetings before, during, and after
- Help with potential names and networking opportunities
- Meet with adults in local area to share the story of Young Life using the case statement
- Help staff person secure meetings through their network
Rules & Standards
This program has strict rules and standards that must be understood and followed to be successful in the program. The following is a list of key rules & standards but may not be exhaustive:
- After each meeting, meeting reports must be submitted within 24 hours for the meeting to count. These reports can be filled out by either the staff person, chair person, or the partner team member who did the meeting.
- Grant invoices must be filled out and submitted by the staff person by midnight on the 3rd day of the following month. For example, the invoice for meetings from January must be submitted by February 3 at midnight.
- An area must complete a minimum or 4 meetings per month, with a maximum of 8. An area is expected to complete all 8 meetings.
- If an area does not complete 4 or more meetings within a month, they must complete 8 meetings the next month and will receive no payment for the month with less than 4, and no payment for the month with 8.
- Two consecutive months under 4 meetings will terminate an area’s place in the program.
- If an area completes the minimum of 4 meetings for two consecutive months, this will trigger a meeting with the Program Director, Staff Person, and Supervisor to discuss the areas future within the program.
- If an area falls below the minimum of 5 for their partner team, they will need to schedule a call with the program director & with their chair person to put together a plan for growing their team to correct standards.
- Staff must update their case statement every 7 months and submit to the program director
- Staff is required to have a documented plan for leading their team on a monthly basis towards success in the program. This must be approved by the supervisor.
Grant Timeline
- Application filled out by SVPs/VPs, Regional Directors, and other supervisors when candidate is identified
- Schedule meeting between Program Director and Supervisor to discuss candidate. You can schedule that here.
- Schedule follow up meeting with Program Director, Supervisor and candidate for interview. You can schedule that here.
- If candidate is preliminarily approved, they will start building their team, finding a chair person, and creating case statement.
- During this time, program director will work with supervisor to secure half of funding
- When staff is ready with chair person, we will schedule a meeting with chair person, staff, supervisor and program director.
- When all items are satisfactory, an onboarding meeting will be scheduled with entire team, staff, chair person and supervisor if they are available.
- After this interview, program director will decide if team is ready to launch
- If ready, team will be instructed to put together list of 100 potential adults to meet with
- Program director and staff will decide on first month to launch
- Program is launched!
Measuring Success
It is important that participants in the program realize that success is not simply measured by completing 8 meetings per month for 21 months. The goal for this program is to see a staff person, their area, and partner team to begin to see meetings with adults and fostering ongoing relationships in your area as a key part of the ministry. It is as valuable as direct ministry with kids. It is like adult contact work.
We need to stop think of adults as fundraising only or only thinking about adults when we need money. We want to invite adults into this mission of Young Life and seeing kids reached for Jesus because they have a role to play, and it is in consistent, intentional nurturing of these relationships that areas can flourish.
So yes, having 8 meetings per month for 21 months can be and should be a part of what success is, but only one part. These meetings need to be intentional, and not transactional. They must actually help nurture real relationships and develop adult connections. Staff and partner teams should be intentional to meet adults where they are at. Not every meeting allows for a financial ask, but some do and the team needs to be able to make those asks when they present themselves.
The meeting reports are an intentional part of tracking these meetings. After each meeting, these reports are to be submitted in a thoughtful way. Meeting reports are not a checkbox that we fill out so we can get our grant money. They are a way for us to recap meetings, learn from mistakes, figure out ways to follow up, and grow.
Areas that view this grant as a way to raise easy money for their area are missing the heart of the grant and what is hoping to accomplish in the area, the staff person, and the team.
How To Apply
Candidates for this program will be identified by Regional Directors, SVPs/VPs, and other Supervisors. Regional directors will decide on candidates that they would like to pursue for this program with other supervisors such as ARDs and Metro Directors.
Once identifying a candidate, the Regional Director or Supervisor will fill out this application to start the process.
Area directors and staff are not allowed to apply for this program. If they are interested in the program, they can have conversations with their superiors but the candidate process needs to start at the Regional level.
Case Statements
A core part of this grant program is the case statement. The case statement is a one page, front and back document that shares a snapshot of the area, its goals, budget, and how to give. This document will help adults see what you are asking them to be a part of and it cannot only be financial. We are asking adults to to partner with us in the way that God has called them to best connect. This document becomes an ice breaker, a way to share the vision that they can hold and take home with them.
Case statements are to be created by the staff person and must be approved by the program director. They must have the following requirements:
- Current ministry data such as clubs, leaders, etc.
- Future goals of area development and vision
- Area’s budget
- Current money pledged for fiscal year in thermometer like image
- Date stamp
- Clear call to action for giving that makes giving easy
At each meeting the team must present the case statement and walk the meeting guest through it for the meeting to count toward the grant. It needs to be the backbone of the meeting. The case statement must be updated and approved at the start, month 7, and month 14. These updates should reflect any new giving or other changes.
For examples of case statements, click here.
Partner Teams
The work grant is meant to incentivize an area to develop adult owners within their area. These are adults that have caught a glimpse of the work of Jesus in their local area who want to own and be involved in continuing it. They feel responsible for the work and want to come alongside the area staff person.
For this to happen well, it must start with a core group of people who get this, who are adult owners already. This is your partner team. It usually consists of board members, but not exclusively. This partner team is a group of adults that are willing to partner with the area staff to help them find more adults just like them who can give of their time as leaders or board members, give of their money, and who can care for this ministry and the staff person.
They might not have the ability to sit across from someone and share the vision of Young Life and to make a financial ask. That is OK, not everyone who is an awesome board member should be a part of your partner team.
A partner team must consist of 5-10 adults who own the goal of 8 meetings per month for 21 months with one of them leading the charge as chair person. If at any point, an area falls below this number of adults they need to reach out to the program director and work on a plan for growing this team.
Gathering a partner team is not something that usually happens quickly. It requires time and the right people. A lot of board members are excited by the work grant, but may not be fit to be on this team and that is OK.
Meetings
This program creates incentives around staff and team meeting with other adults within their local area to share the story of what God is doing through Young Life in their local area. This task sometimes feel daunting. Meeting with adults and asking for money can be something that staff do when they have to, but this program aims to change that.
Sadly, having meetings like this are sometimes looked at as less valuable, or that annoying, frustrating part of the job of a Young Life area. “I’d rather be hanging with kids!” some might say. But we need to begin to see meeting with adults and nurturing those relationships as a valuable, vital part of the ministry.
These meetings are as important as club, and as important as hanging with your Young Life friends.
Meeting with adults and sharing the vision of what God is doing and inviting them to be a part of it is as valuable as direct ministry and this program hopes to show that to the local area, the staff person, and the partners of adults.
As a part of this grant, two types of meeting are considered eligible for grant money: the initial meeting and one follow up per person being met with. This means that it is possible that we do 168 meetings (21×8) with 84 people.
These meetings do not have to be brand new people that have never interacted with Young Life, though we should be doing meetings like that. They can be current donors, past donors who have stopped giving, or people connected to Young Life who have never given.
We want a healthy mixture of both new people who have never heard of Young Life and current people who we want to nurture relationships with. Most important, we want the area to be intentional to meet with people with a purpose, and to understand where this adult is at and how to best tell them the story of what is going on, and how to invite them in.
We also believe that these meetings are valuable when more than one person attend. Whenever a team member is able to share the story of Young Life with a friend or contact of theirs and to have the staff person with them at the table, it can help put faces to names and make deeper connections for the staff person.
After each meeting the staff or team member is required to share the case statement, and to thoughtfully document the meeting with a meeting report. These reports must be submitted within 24 hours for them to count toward the grant.
Staff and team members should be mindful that this grant program is a privilege and should not take advantage of the grant by meeting with people simply to get the grant money. If people are being met with that do not fit the overall heart of the mission, simply to check a box, it is possible that these meetings will not be counted. Areas must be wise in their choosing of meetings and have a reason and a purpose for why this meeting should count towards the grant.
For a meeting to count here is what it needs to happen:
- The backbone of the meeting needs to be the case statement, and the case statement needs to be physically present and given to the person we are meeting with.
- The staff person OR a partner team member needs to meet with an adult in person or on zoom. Phone calls do not count. We also must look to be in person as often as possible.
- The meeting needs to be intentional, purposeful. It cannot simply be done to “check off the box”
- Meeting report needs to be filled out within 24 hours. There is never a situation where we will allow a meeting to be counted if this isn’t done within 24 hours.
Invoices & Monthly Reporting
At the end of each month, it is the job of the staff person to submit an invoice for the grant (not the admin) to the PIMWG program director. This invoice will recap the giving that was received that month and any notes from the month.
These invoices are due by midnight on the 3rd day of the following month.
Frequently Asked Questions
At the end of each month, it is the job of the staff person to submit an invoice for the grant (not the admin) to the PIMWG program director. This invoice will recap the giving that was received that month and any notes from the month.
These invoices are due by midnight on the 3rd day of the following month.
A meeting is when an adult or staff person on the team meets with another adult to go over the case statement & talk to them about the ministry that is happening within that area/mission unit.
This meeting should be intentional and purposeful and the case statement should be the backbone of the meeting.
No! The meeting should only be an ask if the meeting warrants it. We don’t want this to be a fundraising program. This is an adult engagement program, meant to train the area and the staff on engaging adults well (sort of like contact work for adults!).
It isn’t transactional. It isn’t about asking every adult for money, even if the meeting doesn’t warrant it.
No, you can only use meetings that happen within the month, fit the description of a meeting, and where the meeting report is filled out within 24 hours.
Group meetings do not count as more than 1 meeting.
In some rare instances, a group meeting could turn into more than one meeting and be considered a follow up meeting, but those situations must be approved by the program director prior to submission.
This is a 40,000 grant, but half of the money must come from some other place besides this grant. This is usually the region or division, or another donor that wants to invest in this area.
If a supervisor does not have the resources to fund it, they can still apply for their staff person and we can discuss options for funding the other half.
But for a grantee to be accepted, their supervisor must drive the application process and pick them to be a part of this grant, regardless of where the money comes from.
This was originally built for Area Directors, but we have found all types of roles to be successful.
We will accept applications for any and all role types.
We believe that every role within Young Life needs adults who care about the work that they are doing, therefore we should always have a healthy culture of meeting with adults consistently.
The meeting report can be submitted by anyone on the grant team.
They and their team are still responsible for all 8 meetings.
No, we do not prescribe who you meet with. We simply want 8 meetings a month for 21 months.
Our hope is that your supervisor is driving the strategy around who you are meeting with.
The chair person is met to be an advocate for the staff person, keeping up the expectations of the grant with the team.
It can be easy to lose momentum, but our hope is that this chair person can keep the team on track.
This role does not require some special skill or huge time commitment. It is very similar to the role of any team member, except that this person would feel responsible for the team not turning into cheerleaders from the sideline, but continue to be active participants in connecting staff with potential meetings and doing meetings on behalf of the team.
That is awesome, but you cannot bank those meetings and they cannot rollover to the next month.
