How Your Gifts Are Used

From Focus on the Family's founding — a book on child discipline and a 25-minute weekly broadcast that first aired in 1977 — we have been blessed with growth, making it possible for us to create a wide array of family-strengthening ministries. Learn more about the many ministries of Focus on the Family.

Every gift to Focus on the Family is used wisely and conservatively to help provide families and individuals with a variety of home-strengthening ministries — both in North America and abroad. When you give, you help support dozens of ministry efforts, ranging from radio broadcasting and publications to counseling and international outreach.

Here's how generous friends like you can help:

• When husbands and wives need to find trust, intimacy and faith, your gift will help strengthen marriage relationships.
• When families struggle with grief, confusion and tragedy, your gift will help them find healing and hope.
• When people need to know God's love and His plan for families, your gift will help bring them closer to Him.

Fundraising Guidelines

Here at Focus on the Family we believe that the way an organization handles its finances is a reflection of its integrity and reliability in every arena.  As a result, we have chosen to limit and regulate our methods of money management with great care.  Here are the principles and policies that have guided us through the years:

1. We believe that this ministry belongs to God and that we are merely His managers and stewards.  Our role can be summed up in a single phrase: to stay accountable to His objectives, interests, and concerns.
2. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away (Job 1:21).  As long as He supplies the means, we will continue to serve others in His name.  If He closes the door and cuts off our support, we will regard this as an indication of His sovereign will. We understand that the future of His work in the world does not depend upon the survival of this organization.
3. God sustains this work through the generosity of His people. Focus’s continuation as a ministry is directly dependent upon their willingness and ability to give. It follows that our friends need to know about our financial circumstances. Accordingly, we will not hesitate to provide them with relevant information, both in the good times and in the bad. But we will not beg or resort to disrespectful or dishonorable methods of fundraising, since this would only be to insult their sensibilities and disavow our confidence in the Lord. Nor will we ever attempt to raise more money than we need.
4. In the same attitude of high regard for those who make our ministry possible, we will never sell or rent our donor database. On the contrary, we will treat our supporters’ personal information as a solemn trust and maintain the tightest security on our list of contributors and friends.
5. In view of the sacrificial nature of the contributions we receive – contributions which, in many cases, come from families who are struggling to pay the mortgage and keep food on the table – we are determined to steward our financial resources as carefully and conservatively as possible. There is no room for extravagant or unnecessary expenditures in Focus on the Family’s operating budget.
6. For similar reasons, we will resist the temptation to run the ministry at a deficit. If on occasion it becomes necessary to borrow funds to cover large and unforeseen expenditures, we will do our best to repay the loans as quickly as possible. When we make a purchase, we will pay the invoice within 30 days.
7. We believe that a Christian’s first financial obligation is to the church; we have no desire to come between our friends and the local congregations to which they belong and from which they derive their spiritual sustenance. As a result, we do not expect them to contribute to our ministry until after they have supported the work of God’s kingdom in their own faith communities.
8. We will implement measures to ensure fairness and accountability in all of our financial interactions with donors and supporters. To be specific, we will receipt all donations and show the fair market value of any materials requested and sent in order to help contributors determine the tax-deductible portion of their gifts.
9. As a way of holding ourselves accountable to the principles articulated above, we will conform to the standards established by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) and the Canadian Council of Christian Charities (CCCC), organizations created to ensure ethical fundraising and administration practices.

These, then, are the principles that have defined our philosophy of financial stewardship and shaped our approach to fundraising.  They are based upon a firm conviction that everything we are and everything we have comes to us by the grace of God.  Provided we remain faithful, we are confident that the Lord will sustain us while His purposes for this ministry endure.