Fundraising & Philanthropy
I help nonprofits build sustainable revenue — and help generous donors make their giving count for decades.
Fundraising is one of the hardest jobs there is.
I remember moving to San Francisco in 2012 to help plant a church and trying to raise $80,000/year. I didn’t make it. I worked retail downtown, drove for Lyft, and picked up furniture on the side of the road and flipped it. Then I planted a church in 2014 and needed to raise closer to $200,000-$500,000/year. And then each year I needed to raise it again, and again. 10 years I did that. It was exhausting, and endless.
Most nonprofits live giving cycle to giving cycle, unable to plan beyond the next fiscal year. Donors write checks that help operating budgets, but their generosity never moves the needle. And the people doing the non-profit work — missionaries, pastors, executive directors — spend half their time chasing dollars instead of doing the work they were called to do. This isn’t bad, it is part of the work. Fundraising creates relationships between giver and receiver. It cultivates dependency. The annual fundraising model as we know it will likely continue. But…
We have another idea.
People of high-net-worth strategically diversify their investment portfolio. Stocks, bonds, etc… and many of them, whole life insurance policies. Sage & Main helps high-net-worth donors diversify their philanthropy the same way they diversify their investments.
Here's how it works: a donor sets aside a portion of their annual giving to purchase a whole life insurance policy — naming their favorite nonprofit as the beneficiary (perhaps yours). During the donor's lifetime, the policy generates annual dividends that flow directly to the organization, just like they do now. But, when the donor passes, the nonprofit receives the full death benefit — a gift that can fund years of their mission.
We are simply using a proven financial instrument, used by many in their investment portfolio, applied to generosity.
This is my childhood best friend JT Hardcastle, co-founder of Sage & Main. He has spent the last 20 years doing real estate in the Dallas/Fort Worth area where he built into his work a model for giving to non-profits in his area. He has given hundreds of thousands of dollars away. He worked in the non-profit sector for a season and has a huge heart for non-profits. As he grew his own investment portfolio, he discovered whole life insurance as a mechanism for growth in his personal assets. That is when he came up with the idea of leveraging this same type of investment to give more, and to help others do the same. He asked me if I wanted to partner with him to help connect non-profits and their donors to this particular mechanism, and I was all in.
I hope I can help resource you in some way as you either begin or continue to raise funds to support your ministry. I have lots of resources and experience that I am happy to share. Sign up for my newsletter, visit my blog for more insights, or my claude skills page. Blessings on you as you continue to serve the communities and people you do while also connecting with those called to give to those endeavors.