Welcome to Funded & Sent: Introduction and How to Use This Podcast

Welcome to the very first episode of the Funded & Sent Podcast. Hosts Jenn Fortner and Josh Sears introduce the heart behind the podcast and their passion for helping global workers be funded & sent to the field.

With decades of combined experience in missions and support coaching, Jenn and Josh share their own journeys in support raising and explain why they created this podcast. Each episode will provide practical, evergreen tools to help missionaries, ministry leaders, and coaches navigate the support raising process with confidence.

In this episode, you’ll hear the story behind the podcast, who it’s for, and what you can expect in the episodes ahead.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey guys, welcome to the Fully Funded Podcast. I am Josh Sears and I'm here with my good friend.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hey, I am Jen Fortner. Excited to be with you today.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Yeah, absolutely. We're excited to be able to bring this to you and kind of just sharing some content to the goal of this is really to try and get our workers uh around the world into the field, right? To get them fully funded, to get them to the field, excited to complete the call that God's raised upon their put upon their life and um begin their work in the ministry, right? So that's the goal.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah, and uh we're excited to be here for the first ever fully funded podcast. I'm excited, Josh. Are you excited?

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I am excited. I'm a little bit nervous if I'm being honest. I this is uh Oh this is my first podcast ever. It is, it is.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

This is your okay, yeah. So uh yeah, we're our hope with all of this is to keep it conversational. Um, and why we are here is we are here to deliver some, you know, I've I've said it this way. I think what I hope out of this podcast is to look to deliver some really evergreen content for our um listeners in the space of how to raise support and do it in a way that a lot of things with support raising just don't change over time. It's pretty like tried into principles, and a lot of things do. Like, so it's sort of a moving target in a lot of spaces and a lot of ways, then a lot of things that have stayed the same over the years. Right. So we really want to develop something that kind of um intersects both, but develop something that's evergreen content to for a uh returning missionary um or worker, a uh new global worker, anybody that is in the States as well, trying to raise support for the first time and going, I don't know what I'm doing and how to do this. Which is pretty much everybody the first time we're gonna why that is what we are doing and why we are here and why we've um decided to develop a podcast, is for a wide audience of people that are sort of going, Wait, I have to raise personal support and I don't know how to do it. So I think that's why we're sitting here to together today, and that's what we hope to journey through and the material um and going through this podcast together.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

So absolutely. I mean, I was one of those like green, wet behind the ears, like just getting started. They handed me this budget, and I'm like, oh, I have to do what now? And had no clue what to do with raising my very first budget. So that's really the goal is to help that, but also, like you said, people anywhere along the spectrum who are working through that. Um, so just to get some context here, right? So I've been serving in uh as a global worker for 15 years, started on my very first fundraising expedition there back in 2007, and uh have been in and out of missions over the last um over the last 17, 18 years, uh, but 15 years of working in the field. And then the last 10 years, I've been working as uh a coach for Latin America and Caribbean as as part of our organization, kind of helping coach and train and mentor all of our new workers in this area of partnership development. The whole reason we're doing this is because you and I have been in this space for a good long while, right? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah. Yeah. Uh my and uh I'll I'll go back up to 21-year-old Jen who started working for a ministry here in the States. And I think I was starting to raise my own support to be a part of that ministry and going, man, I don't have anybody telling me how to do this or what's the best way forward. So I think my journey with support raising and where we're sitting today in 2026 really happened 20 years ago or 22 years ago for me, where I was sort of like green at the gills, going, rookie season here, have no idea, and didn't have a whole lot of voices. Um and then uh my journey um with the organization that Josh and I both work for, just so everybody can listen to the podcast understands, we work for Assemblies of God. Um, and that's our organization. And uh we help raise, we help our global workers go to the field fully funded. So that is both of our backgrounds and kind of what we have been endure um working and laboring towards um for me for 12 years. Josh, how long have you been working as a coach and a trainer in the space of support raising?

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So this is in uh a year number 11. So we started back in it started in 2015, kind of stepping into this space and been doing it for the last decade.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

So yeah. So and I started uh almost 13 years ago. Uh and you know, at the time for our organization with Assemblies of God, there was really like um not a whole lot of developed training in support raising. So I started by sort of writing a book from my journeys uh with other ministries prior to that time and kind of helping our organization think through like what how can we better train and best train our um global workers in the area of uh getting fully funded and raising their support. So did that. And now I've been working again in the space for 13 years and just have seen um I think I'm around like I I think it's around 800 missionaries, at least, if not more, that have gotten fully funded, that I have been, you know, some way engaged, and most of that has been some on like ongoing coaching and training. So that's incredible. My lens is yeah, thanks. It's it's been um a fun journey and I count it as such a privilege. And those that I coach and train, you know, really are my heroes. So anyway, my heart is to see more people get fully funded and really to walk through the basics of how to support Raze through this podcast. So, but yeah, I started off, you know, 21-year-old not knowing what to do, and here we are today and excited to bring this to the table.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

So Well, and when you when you when you brought all this kind of together, right, you you mentioned writing the book and kind of putting the workwork together. I think we came into this process because we've had a break in our missions journey. Uh, we served for a few years, and uh, like you said, there wasn't a whole lot of well-developed training. And so when we first kicked it off in 2007, it was basically here's your budget. And it was a low budget, like$3,000 a monthly support. And I'm like, I don't know how to do this. So I did the only thing I knew what to do, and that was like call every single church and mass male people. And it was horrible. I'm not gonna lie. It was 18 months of a plodding slog through knee-deep mud, is what it felt like. And I hated every second of it. I think, and then this is I say this with with all the shame in the world, but I legit stood behind a pulpit on one Sunday and I said, friends, I've got to raise a budget. This is a necessary evil, this is something I have to do so I can go and do ministry. Like I actually said those words, and I I look back at myself and like, oh, you were so stupid.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

It's like everything we tell people not to do now.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Right, exactly. Like, that was legit my story. And then so we took a break, we pastored for a few years, and we came back into working with Latin America, and we found out about your process and the workbook and the training that you were doing, and we went through that back in 2015 with you, with the goal of taking that and adapting it and applying it to our region in Latin America. And just to kind of get perspective of that, like we went from an 18-month slog for$3,000 a monthly support to a budget twice as large that we ever we did it in eight to nine months. And so these tools, these tools really do work. I'm I mean it's a personal story there. These actually do work in helping get you fully funded into the field and in a much better headspace, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah. Yay. Amen. Well, good. Well, that's kind of yeah, and uh that that's the heart behind it, Lane. Again, the I want to briefly tell our audience too, like what this pod who this podcast is for. So, you know, Josh, I think it's for newly approved uh missionaries. So those that are global workers going overseas um for the first time, it's for people that are returning as well and maybe want to brush up on their knowledge of how to raise support and best practices and tools. Um I think it's for coaches as well, kind of to help them see like the basic process and get like some uh, okay, so we're gonna take it into bite-sized chunks is kind of what we want to do. And if you're a coach or a trainer for your minute, like for uh your missions organization or your sending organization or whoever it is, um, I think as a coach and a trainer, this could be valuable too because you can basically look at the content and say, oh, here's some, here's some ideas of how to treat teach this or to coach or whatever, what have you there. I think it's for uh regional staff. It can be for pastors, it can basically be for anybody involved in the support raising process. So that's the hope and the goal. Yeah. And inside of our organization, um, and outside as well, I think is kind of what we're going for. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

And it's, I mean, if even if you've come across this podcast here and you're like, listen, I'm not going for two years, I'm just going on a month-long internship. These same tools apply. I mean, it's not a matter of the length of the term that you're serving, these same tools apply in are effective no matter what the budget, no matter what it looks like or how long the assignment is. And so I think that's the beautiful thing about this content is that it applies across the board.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Yeah. Yeah. Good. And so, kind of what we hope to cover, I want to go through the list um for now and just kind of give a as we we do this introduction and sort of some of the outline that Josh and I have kind of come up with for this uh the podcast is we want to go through the individual process. So how to raise support with individuals. And what I mean by individuals is those that you already know, love, and trust in your life. So, how do we ask individuals for support? And we want to outline the basic process with that and talk through uh communication strategies and invitation letters and newsletters and how to make a phone call and how to do an appointment and really outline all of that process with individuals. Um, we also want to talk through how to raise support with churches and with pastors and how to have those conversations, like conversations like when you actually call a pastor on the phone and you get the administrator and you're like, what do I say?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Like so it can be intimidating, not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah, and I think that's a place where a lot of uh global workers that I coach actually uh struggle with. And you know, if you find yourself being 24 years old and or you know, 22 and fresh out of college or whatever university situation and kind of going, uh, never called a pastor before, you know, particularly now too, because a lot of people like the well, I just text message calling is foreign. So going through that, um, going through communication pieces, we always, Josh and I get a lot of questions about newsletters and content and how to do social media well and what should be in a case document, what is a case document, who, what are you talking about, Jen? Uh, a prayer card, all those kind of things we want to go through. Um, and I I really hope to bring some content too on the ministry of partnership development, um, and really talk about the heart behind it and why we believe um that it's biblical and why we believe that it is an integral and vital part of ministry. Um and it's not just a necessary evil, as you said before, Josh.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

It definitely is not. That was I I already said I was ashamed of that comment.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

No, I know, but yeah, but yeah, it's like uh but it there's a mind, but really I want to be sensitive here and realize too, like when it comes to support raising, people really have to struggle between the distance and the head and the heart there, because you can understand that it's not a necessary evil, but really be treating it as drudgery in your heart and mind. And I'm not just a cheerleader saying that. Like I totally understand that asking people for money is hard. And that's why we're here is to go through and outline that.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Well, and this process is 90% is perspective. 90% of this is perspective. I mean, that I think this whole ministry, when we get to that episode, that's foundational to what we're doing here.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

To the core of it.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yep. So yeah, and we want to talk through that and then um advocacy. I will we'd like to touch base on some next generation tools and some some mindset there. Um, and Josh, you brought this up too, like uh talking about district missions directors. Um, and then kind of maybe providing a little bit more of an insight for like uh first-term global workers kind of coming back to the states to raise more support or additional support. What do you do with that? And how do you treat that, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Right, Josh? Absolutely. Because that's a whole separate thing. Your first time around is one thing, but when you come back and you've been gone for three, four, or five years, the the playing field shifts. And so how do you adapt to a changed culture when you just can't come from a culture you had to adapt to? Now you're readapting to home culture and then trying to raise funds in a new church culture. It's a whole separate different game.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

So Yes, yes. And and there's you're I hear uh like veteran global workers kind of saying, like, Jen, I haven't been in the States for four years. I have not been developing relationships. So you're asking me to ask individuals for support, but what do I do? Because my goodness, things have changed since I've been gone. Communications changed. What's TikTok? You know, all of those kind of things. I've been in the field working hard for four years, and now I come back. And not only are there new and communication pieces, but there's also like, I have not been in back in the states nurturing my relationships as much. And you're asking me to get new support and I don't know where to go. So all of that too, we want to touch base on that. And by the way, um, we have thought through some of these things and have some actual practical things that you can try and do. So we do and then some miscellaneous miscellaneous topics I want to kind of touch base on with this. And then um, I think our heart is even like some funky support raising ideas, like some third-way thinking when it comes to raising additional support. I get those type of questions as a coach all the time. And just for context, too, I I said this earlier, but I'm on the phone with missionaries, um, global workers probably. I try to use the word, the, the global worker term, by the way, instead of missionaries just to keep everything sensitive, which we will try to be doing because some of our listeners are going to come from a context where they are trying to practice language that is going to be helpful for them to stay sensitive. So we want to have a dialogue that honors that. So some of the words and terminology that we might use might be a little bit different. But um, we'll explain that a little bit, I think, as as it gets we go through it too. So, but anyway, I think that that's kind of where we're going. That's where we want to be, is landing you with great content on the how-to's and practical pieces of how to raise support and really go through that in bite-sized chunks. Um, our hope is to keep them around 20 minutes, 25 minutes long each. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Absolutely. Yeah. So, and I think that that kind of wraps things up for this first little introductory episode here. I think so. Yeah. Our next episode, we're gonna dive right into the golden question, right? Simon Sinek says the golden question is why. And so that's what we're gonna hop into why the individual process. So we want to thank you so much for joining us. Uh, this is fully funded with Jen and Josh, building kingdom partners locally to expand God's kingdom globally.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Bye bye.