Funding A Media Ministry

This is the part where we try to talk you out of a media outreach, especially television.

Funding a media ministry is tough. Really tough.

In days of yore all you needed was a program and a mailing address. Then a call center. Now a website. It used to be easier to generate funds through a media ministry. That has changed.

Television airtime costs keep rising while market share is declining. Generating enough response from the viewing audience to pay for the cost of airing the program is difficult. Really difficult.

After all, there are usually just two sources of funding for your television ministry. The viewing audience and your congregation (if you happen to be a church). Many churches decide to make the program a missions outreach of the church, or even a marketing tool in the local market to increase church attendance. There are, depending on the size of your church, practical limits on the reach your program will have depending on the budget you can devote to airtime.

The other source of funding is the viewing audience, and they won’t support much unless you ask them. And, many ministries don’t want to ask.

But the reality is that if you want to grow into a national or international media ministry, you will have to develop a donor base from the viewers of your program. Part art and part science, donor acquisition and development requires a key skill set and the use of direct marketing principles that maximize viewer response.

We can’t give a funding seminar here on this web page.

Just a bit of a reality check.