PROMISING CONVERSATIONS Conversation Ten: Delivering high quality, sustainable funding

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PROMISING CONVERSATION TEN Delivering high quality sustainable funding

This captures some of the comments from the video by Andrew Morley.

Hello. My name is Andrew Morley and as you may know, I am President and CEO of World Vision International.

I want to welcome you to Promising Conversation number ten and talk to you about money.

Many people do not feel comfortable talking about money. At work or at home.

But we have to talk about money because in World Vision is not just about funding, it is also about ministry and impact in the lives of children

Our revenue has been flat or declining for a number of years. People ask if we are happy to see a decline in our resources. I respond by saying, “not on our watch!”.

Let me explain what I mean using three Ps – promises, people and prayers.

First, money as promises.

Every dollar given, received and spent by World Vision is a promise.

A promise to a supporter, an institutional donor, a child, family, and community that we will be faithful to the purpose for which those resources are given.

Managing them in a manner that brings maximum benefit to vulnerable children.

Through our stewardship and demonstrating evidence of impact become worthy of the trust and confidence of those that give us their money.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Child Sponsorship, where the supporter makes a promise to a child, and we help them to keep it.

Like the Chiu family you see on your flier.

For us this means making sure that child sponsorship activities are part of our programming, not separate; capturing evidence of impact digitally using Horizon; having one, clear global promise when we talk about Child Sponsorship; and putting the world of the child in their hands through mobile communications.

Delivering just over 40% of our total revenue, and a direct impact on the lives of over 3.5 million registered children and 2.7 million sponsors, our first priority is to revitalise and grow Child Sponsorship.

Making and keeping more promises.

08 Fall

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If you saw every dollar as keeping a promise to a supporter and child, what difference would it make to you?

The second P that describes money in World Vision is people.

People like Zahara’s three daughters, that you can see on your flier.

They live in Afghanistan. One of our prioritised fragile contexts where some of the most vulnerable children in the world live.

Zahara did not know what to do. Her children were underweight and malnourished.

But things changed when World Vision's PD Hearth programme was introduced to the community.

Zahara, and many other women like her, were taught how to prepare nutritious meals for their children, with the result that her children are getting better and have rediscovered their appetite for food.

PD Hearth is our community-based approach to address malnutrition. One of our core global project models.

The grants that fund this kind of programming are critical for fragile contexts like Afghanistan.

As part of our strategy we will accelerate growth in grants to fund fragile contexts and deepen impact in Area Programmes alongside sponsorship funding.

However, grant funding is often for specific purposes and does not cover the total cost of delivering our ministry.

This makes private cash funding from individual supporters, other than child sponsorship, essential for maintaining core operations, matching grants, and deepening our commitment where often the most vulnerable children are concentrated.

This is our second highest priority after revitalizing child sponsorship. Developing new sources of private recurring revenue to help us extend our reach to vulnerable children, especially those in the toughest places.

When I think of money, I think of people like Zahara and her children.

If you saw every dollar as representing a person experiencing fullness of life, what difference would it make to you?

The third P that describes money in World Vision is prayer.

Sustainable funding is not just about money.

It is also about the thousands of supporters who faithfully partner with vulnerable children, and with us in prayer, to see a transformation and be transformed themselves.

The Matthew 25 Challenge is great example of this.

Matthew 25 Challenge is an exciting new programme which disciples churches through a week-long experience – centred on Jesus' love for "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine".

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Following a launch event congregants who opt in will receive text messages with:

• A daily challenge

• Powerful stories and photos of children in need

• Specific prayer points and family discussion questions for the day

After the church has completed the challenge, they celebrate together and a call is made to continue living out Matthew 25 by sponsoring a child or making a pledge to fund fragile contexts.

More churches saying yes to transformational experiences that result in more money, promises, people and prayers.

If you saw fundraising as a ministry that raised the prayers of many to support our work, what difference would it make to you?

As you have this Promising Conversation think about how keeping Our Promise requires us to raise the right funds, with the right donors, for the right programmes, in the right places.

So as more money is given, more promises are kept to more people supported by their prayers.

Sincerely,

Andrew Morley

President, World Vision International

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LEADING YOUR OWN PROMISING CONVERSATION Delivering high quality, sustainable funding.

Raising the right funds, with the right donors, for the right programmes, in the right places.

This document contains all of the resources and information you need to lead this Promising Conversation with your team. If you have any questions, please contact the Strategy Realisation Office at: Conversations@OurPromise2030.org or visit www.OurPromise2030.org

GETTING READY FOR CONVERSATION TEN

� Schedule a time to have Promising Conversation Ten with your team. It is your decision how long you want the conversation to be, but we recommend no less than 45 minutes. It can be part of a regular team meeting or a specially arranged time.

� Send an email inviting your team to Promising Conversation Ten. Include the one page conversation flier and an invitation to complete the ‘High Quality, Sustainable Funding’ module on WV eCampus (a suggested draft is below to copy and paste).

� Print off and read the conversation guide Appendix I and ask someone to take notes during the conversation.

� Make sure you can watch the video. Andrew Morley introduces the conversation with a video (you will find the link on page five). Make sure that you can access and use it. The video is deliberately long as it forms the first third of the conversation.

------------------------------------------ staff invitation copy from here ----------------------------------

Dear colleagues,

I invite you to our next Promising Conversation – Delivering High Quality, Sustainable Funding. It will take place on [insert date] at [insert time] in [insert location].

There are two things for you to do to help us have a great conversation. First, click on this link: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/ to download the flier for this conversation. We will be using it to guide our conversation. Second, click on this link: https://wvlink.it/PC_e_campus to find module four of a new online learning programme on World Vision’s eCampus (if this is your first visit you will have to register to start). It contains a 30 minute learning module designed to help you explore the why, what and how of this imperative (in English only at this time).

Let us continue to pray for each other and our colleagues in other offices around the world as our teams continue Promising Conversations. I am thankful for your commitment to World Vision and the Our Promise strategy. I am looking forward to our conversation.

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LEADING CONVERSATION TEN WITH YOUR TEAM

� Use the flier. Ensure each member of your team has a copy of the one page flier before the conversation starts. Appendix 3 (download link: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/)

� Use the conversation guide. It helps you to run the conversation by giving you a plan, with timings, and a suggested script with questions.

� Make sure someone is taking notes. We need to hear back from you and your team. Please make sure someone is taking notes in the form shown in Appendix 2. Within a day after your conversation, please transcribe the notes into this simple online form: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/

ACTIONS TO KEEP CONVERSATION TEN CASCADING

� Email the line managers on your team requesting them to have the same conversation with their teams. This is the link they will need to access the materials to run their conversation: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/ For these conversations to reach all staff, this is a critical step. A sample email for you to copy and paste is below (please revise to suit your own needs).

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Dear colleague,

Thank you for taking part in our Promising Conversations about delivering high quality, sustainable funding.

Now it is your turn to host the same conversation with your team. Please click on this link to download all the materials that you will need: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/

Please arrange to have this conversation with your team as soon as possible so that we can move this important conversation on to all staff.

Let us continue to pray for each other as we take our teams through Promising Conversations. I am thankful for your leadership and commitment to World Vision and Our Promise. If you have any questions regarding Promising Conversations, please connect with me or the Strategy Realisation Office at: conversations@OurPromise2030.org

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I. GUIDE TO CONVERSATION TEN Keeping Our Promise by delivering high quality, sustainable funding. WELCOME AND VIDEO (APPROXIMATELY 20 MINUTES) SUGGESTED INTRODUCTION – Welcome to the tenth in our series of Promising Conversations. Thank you for joining thousands of colleagues who use these conversations to explore what keeping Our Promise might mean for us.

Today we are going to spend the next 45 minutes or so having a conversation about the fourth imperative in our strategy – delivering high quality, sustainable funding.

To start our conversation let us watch this video. It features World Vision International President and CEO Andrew Morley. It is about 9 minutes long and talks about the three P’s of fundraising on your flier – Promises; People, and Prayers.

To download use this link: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/

To view online, use this link: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/

If you cannot use the video read the introduction starting on page two, which is a transcript of the video.

QUESTION: From what you heard in the video, what stood out to you as most important?

In the video Andrew Morley mentioned a phrase from our strategy - building a funding mix that helps us to keep Our Promise; raising the right funds, with the right donors, for the right programmes, in the right places.

QUESTION: From what you know about the Our Promise strategy - what are the right funds, who are the right donors, which are the right programmes and places?

REVITALISING SPONSORSHIP IS OUR FIRST PRIORITY (APPROXIMATELY 15 MINUTES)

In the video Andrew Morley said that revitalising Child Sponsorship is our first priority.

Child sponsorship is our confident declaration that a better world for children is possible.

Its impact locally and globally is huge.

As part of Our Promise, we are working to grow the number of sponsors who join and stay with us.

Wherever you stand in World Vision you probably have a view of Child Sponsorship. Whatever you see, or don’t see, here are five myths about its value that need to be broken.

Choose two from the following list and read out what is written about them in Appendix A.

1. Sponsorship is only a marketing approach, it doesn’t enable good development

2. Sponsorship as a way of raising funds is in decline

3. Sponsorship is out of date, behind the expectations of supporters

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4. Sponsorship costs too much to run, it is a burden on field operations

5. Sponsorship does not reach the most vulnerable children

Child sponsorship is vital to our vision for a better world for children. As part of Our Promise, we are working to grow the number of sponsors who join us and those who stay with us, so that more children, families, communities and sponsors can experience the mutual transformation child sponsorship brings.

QUESTION: What do you see when you look at Child Sponsorship from where you sit in the organisation?

What is your level of belief that we can revitalise it (high, medium or low) and what would make it higher?

GRANT FUNDING AND PRIVATE CASH EXTENDS OUR REACH (APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES)

For ministry in more fragile contexts, conditions do not always allow child sponsorship requirements to be met, so the bulk of funding is likely to be grants, private cash and food aid.

In fiscal year 2018, we found many reasons to celebrate. Thanks to 21 institutions, governments, multilaterals, foundations, and corporations, we secured US$857 million in new grant cash donations and $430 million in food assistance cash and vouchers programming.

In many cases, grant funding allows us to be innovative, and to approach long-standing problems in new ways and with new partners.

For example, to improve the literacy of school-age children and increase the use of health and dietary practices, USDA funds were used to expand our ministry in two districts of Nampula Province, Mozambique. This project is running from January 2016 to December 2021 and has helped already 59,411 primary school children.

However, grant funding is often for specific purposes and does not cover the total cost of delivering our ministry.

This makes private cash funding from individual supporters, other than child sponsorship, essential for maintaining core operations, matching grants, extending our reach and equipping staff.

To grow this funding we must be able to tell the story of what happens to the most vulnerable children really well.

This year, in a unique collaboration, Support Offices worked together to design a global fundraising product to tell that story for our work in fragile contexts.

This product digital rather than paper based, made for using on mobile phones first, and aimed at the millennial generation.

This new product was tested in WV Germany, Spain and Italy between October 2017 and March 2018, and acquired 6,740 supporters through face to face contact. 63% where millennials and 91% were not current WV sponsors.

Nineteen Support Offices are launching this product during FY19, with a focus on World Refugee Day in June.

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QUESTION: What do you think these supporters will find compelling about our work in fragile contexts? What will we have to do to tell this story really well?

CLOSING AND PRAYER (APPROXIMATELY 5 MINUTES) In this conversation we have talked about how keeping Our Promise calls us to change our funding mix.

Also that funding is not just about money, it is also about ministry and impact in the lives of children and supporters.

QUESTION: What is the one thing you are going to take away from this conversation?

NOTE TO LEADER: Please take this time to pray in a way appropriate to your context. Here is a prayer that you might use:

1. Among the poor, Among the proud, Among the persecuted, Among the privileged, Christ is coming to make all things new.

3. That the kingdom might come, That the world might believe, That the powerful might stumble, That the hidden might be seen, Christ is coming to make all things new.

2. With a gentle touch, With an angry word, With a clear conscience, With burning love, Christ is coming to make all things new.

4. Within us, without us, Behind us, before us, In this place, in every place, For this time, for all time, Christ is coming to make all things new AMEN

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A. CHILD SPONSORSHIP MYTHBUSTERS

1. Sponsorship is only a marketing approach, it doesn’t enable good development – not true. A rigorous four-year, 9-country, 13 Area Programme study including leading non-profit researchers from three international universities explored the impact on children through World Vision's Child Sponsorship Programme. They concluded that Child Sponsorship measurably impacts the lives of vulnerable children, including registered children, in powerful ways. For example they affirmed that:

• For children who participated in World Vision activities, there were positive linkages with being happier, healthier and more hopeful; they were better educated and equipped for the future.

• We serve the most vulnerable children, welcoming all children regardless of background. • Children are active partners in positive change, equipped by World Vision to voice their

concerns, to speak up for children's rights and protection, and to participate in decision-making.

You can watch this two minute video https://vimeo.com/272549671 Child Sponsorship: The Research

2. Sponsorship as a way of raising funds is in decline – It is true that since FY09 our rate of acquiring new sponsors has been in decline and since FY14 the total number of child sponsorships (our file size) has declined by 15%. Today, 550,000 fewer sponsored children are participating and benefiting from our programs than they were in FY14. However Compassion, Save the Children and ChildFund are all seeing growth in their child sponsorship files.

And thanks to revitalisation efforts, for the first time in eight years, both our Partnership-wide acquisition and cancellation rate trends have significantly improved.

The cancellation rate is down to an all-time recorded low of 10.9% following nine financial quarters of improvement, and the acquisition rate has improved and stabilised for the past seven quarters with slight growth to 7.8% after an 8 year decline. The net outcome is that we've halted the rate of net loss of sponsored children over the last four years – and we're on an upward trajectory towards stabilising the child sponsorship base/file size (targeted for FY22). These results give us confidence and show that turnaround is possible.

Our market research also shows that Child Sponsorship is still appealing to the consumer – we just need to improve how we market it – both in the appeal of the offer and how we reach the target audience. We therefore sincerely believe that we can stabilise our own and return it to growth. As an example of reaching the target audience in a different way, nearly 50,000 people participated across nine markets in the Global 6K - now the largest family run/walk/push for clean water for children in the world - causing 2,673 children to be sponsored and $3.7m cash donations in 2018. 2019 is set to be even bigger.

You can watch this two minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otDawimPPaQ World Vision's Global 6K for Water 2019

3. Sponsorship is out of date, behind the expectations of supporters – It is true, supporter expectations have changed and the way in which they communicate is more digital, real time. But the opportunity to create a unique personal connection inspired by the desire to have impact upon and see a vulnerable child thrive still appeals to many – even millennials and younger audiences.

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It is not the concept of child sponsorship that is out of date, but how we market to the needs and motivations of modern consumers and how we engage them in an ongoing experience. As such we have researched the needs and trust drivers of our target audiences across seven of our largest markets as well as how to best communicate our child sponsorship approach so they find it appealing. High-level take-outs include clearly articulating 'our effectiveness', 'child and community empowerment', 'our double impact approach - child and community' and 'addressing root causes'. A new marketing offer that combines all of these learnings is soon to be tested.

Finally, we are engineering the effective use of progress/impact data we have available, and along with the rich media already captured, bringing to life a true digital experience, so that sponsors can see their impact over their mobile phone on an ongoing basis. We call this the sponsor experience Leapfrog.

By early FY20, Leapfrog will be ready to inspire and delight our sponsors, increasing retention through a more frequent, mobile-friendly experience. Leapfrog represents the first innovation jump that will not only give our sponsors an unprecedented level of connection and impact communication – it will also set a new experience benchmark for the Child Sponsorship category.

You can watch this one minute video https://vimeo.com/299573243 The Future Is Within Reach

4. Sponsorship costs too much to run, it is a burden on field operations – While the time that is being spent on sponsorship appears to be high, we need to recognize that by its very nature - being a relational model of personal engagement and transformation, it is labour intensive and needs to be managed really effectively. The transformative power of child sponsorship is in the personal child and family engagement, not only in the community development programming work, and so we need to measure and review both the costs and its success through a suitable lens, forever driving for efficiency improvement.

The requirements to help communicate and provide evidence of impact to sponsors has increased in the past 5 years. Their use and value is carefully reviewed. For example, the Annual Progress Review is the single most important feature to the sponsor because it demonstrates specific impact in the child’s life and general impact in other children’s lives through our community development approach. 83% of US sponsors say the APR is the most important communication they receive. The Child Greeting Video led to a 30% increase in acquisitions in WVUS (FY19), 20% increase in Germany (FY14) and a 77% increase in New Zealand (FY12).

Simplification of systems, and the integration of sponsorship business processes, technical programming and community engagement activities all lead to lower sponsorship costs and have helped improve efficiencies. Outcomes from our Transformed Field Environment (TFE) work are beginning to emerge in early adopters, showing a better quality of engagement with children, communities and local partners, rich and authentic ongoing communication of child sponsorship’s total value proposition, and an effective sponsorship approach integrated with programming. However, gains are yet to be fully realised in all Area Programmes.

During the last year, the Partnership also revised its Child Sponsorship Standards, which clearly define how we implement our field-based child sponsorship programmes and our sponsor engagement requirements. These revised standards enable simplified practices in the field, an improved sponsor experience, remove redundant processes and create efficiencies.

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You can watch this three minute video https://vimeo.com/319683730 Child Sponsorship Staff Engagement: We

Are Transforming Our Field Environment

5. Sponsorship does not reach the most vulnerable children - There is a rumour that child sponsorship does not or cannot reach the most vulnerable children. But this is not the whole story. As part of Our Promise field offices have been re-discovering and reaching out to the most vulnerable children in our existing Area Programmes. Child sponsorship currently operates in 11 countries prioritised as low developing in our country categorisation. Child sponsorship reaches more children, in a more diverse range of contexts than you may think. And it is a major part of keeping Our Promise to the world’s most vulnerable children alongside programmes funded by grants, disaster appeals and other forms of private funding.

(You can sign up for relevant updates every 4 to 6 weeks on Strategic Initiative 4.1 - To revitalise child sponsorship by following this link: https://wvi.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=5df94d1809479a3c31f93420d&id=d7bbde1124 )

2. CONVERSATION NOTES

These pages provide a place to capture the key points made during your conversation. It does not need to be a word for word record. But it would help to record key points of agreement, difference, questions or concerns. After the conversation please log on to the online feedback system found here: http://ourpromise2030.org/index.php/promising-conversations-10/ and transfer your points. WELCOME QUESTION: From what you heard in the video, what stood out to you as most important?

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QUESTION: From what you know about the Our Promise strategy - what are the right funds, who are the right donors, which are the right programmes and places?

REVITALISING CHILD SPONSORSHIP IS OUR FIRST PRIORITY QUESTION: What do you see when you look at Child Sponsorship from where you sit in the organisation?

QUESTION: What is your level of belief that we can continue to revitalise child sponsorship (high, medium or low) and what would make it higher?

GRANT FUNDING AND PRIVATE CASH EXTENDS OUR REACH QUESTION: What do you think these supporters will find compelling about our work in fragile contexts? What will we have to do to tell our story really well?

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CLOSING THE CONVERSATION QUESTION: What is the one thing you are going to take away from this conversation?

CONNECT WITH US OurPromise@wvi.org

www.OurPromise2030.org www.wvi.org