Good News Garage takes used cars, repairs them, and gives them to low-income people who have no other transportation. The ministry, based in Burlington, Vermont, grew out of a 15-month Bible study to discover what New England congregations needed and would support.
Wheat Ridge Ministries (wheatridge.org) in Illinois gave the group a grant to pay for a sociological survey, and the results indicated the biggest need among the poor in rural Vermont was affordable transportation.
Former chef and food service manager Hal Colston had been wondering if his idea to start a community-based garage was from the Lord. Then the group discovered the Milwaukee-based Esperanza Unida, which uses donated cars to train welfare dads to become auto mechanics. They knew they were on the right track.
Good News Garage began at Ascension Lutheran Church in 1996 with a start-up grant of $35,000 from Wheat Ridge Ministries. Sponsored by Lutheran Social Services, it now has a new facility in Burlington, a staff of 24, a budget of $1.2 million, and has spawned Good News Garages in New Hampshire and Connecticut.
So far 1,100 families have received cars from this ministry. A University of Vermont cost/benefit analysis showed that for 30 families who got a car from the Good News Garage, within a year the state was saving $2,000 per household in welfare related costs, and that each family was earning $3,000 more than they had a year earlier.
“People don’t want to be poor,” Hal Colston, now director of Good News, asserts. “A car is the missing link that literally breaks the bonds of poverty. When a single mother (80% of Good News Garage car recipients are single mothers) gets a car and then a job, how do you think it changes her children’s attitude toward her?”
Congressman Bernie Sanders twice attended town meetings where he bumped into women who had received a Good News Garage car. Their stories so impressed him that his office called Hal to see what he needed. Hal replied that the ministry needed $1 million for their new facility. Congress set aside $850,000 for the Good News Garage.
Think “why not?”
The Burlington Emergency Shelter houses men who struggle with substance abuse as well as recently released male ex-inmates. For over 20 years, this faith-based residential rehabilitation program has proven its success at reducing recidivism in ex-inmates.
Its executive director, Pastor Bob Purvee, needed $150,000 to buy a new house so the program could help more of the ex-inmates on the shelter’s waiting list. The shelter gets its funding from individuals, churches, and local businesses, but its bylaws prohibit it from accepting state or federal funds.
Wanting to find a creative way to buy a new house, Purvee wondered if the ministry might qualify for a grant from a foundation that gives to faith-based programs. He attended a class to learn how to write grant request proposals.
Foundations are non-profit organizations that distribute at least 5 percent of their net assets each year to other non-profit organizations in return for IRS benefits. So, unlike raising funds through an offering or a faith-promise campaign, Purvee’s challenge is not to persuade donors to give money, it’s to convince a foundation that his project is a good investment.
Fortunately, his plans to expand the Burlington Emergency Shelter follow more than 20 years of success, statistics, research, and other measurable objective documentation. He can clearly define who will be helped and why his organization should be trusted.
Faith and prayer
The St. Louis-based Oasis International Ministries, founded by Mark and Joani Akers, has taken supplies around the world for missionaries to distribute for more than 15 years. In 1992, Mark wrote to Hoy Shoes to ask for any “residual shoe samples.” The sandals that were donated provided footwear for an entire orphanage in Mexico.
Concerned for missionaries on furlough in the U.S., in 1993 he wrote to the Enterprise Leasing Foundation and got a check back for $1,000 to rent them cars.
Now, a decade later, Oasis continues to ask foundations for resources to help pastors and ministries in remote areas of the world and in the inner city of St. Louis. They recently obtained new uniforms for every child in an orphanage in Belize, Central America, and then Mark and Joani learned that the orphanage needed a school bus. The pastors at Oasis’s last leadership conference in Africa need scooters to visit the members of their congregation more often. Pastors in Indonesia need motor boats to visit their members who live in isolated homes along a river bank.
How can Oasis find the resources to help?
After prayer, Mark decided to consult with a professional grant writer who already knows how to find and approach foundations. Presenting Oasis’s track record along with solid research and statistics, the grant writer will describe Mark’s plans in layman’s language to assure the funders that their investment will be prudent.
Lesley Barker is a grant writer living in St. Louis, Missouri.
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