88. Transforming Ministry for Youth: How Young Life Raised $119K in One Night [$10M Story, Part 2 of 5]

Summary

Summary of Episode 88: Transforming Ministry for Youth: How Young Life Raised $119K in One Night [$10M Story, Part 2 of 5]

The Fundraising Masterminds Podcast, hosted by Jim Dempsey and Jason Galicinski, presents Episode 88 titled "Transforming Ministry for Youth: How Young Life Raised $119K in One Night [$10M Story, Part 2 of 5]". This episode is part of a five-part series celebrating the collective success of over 100 Perfect Vision Dinner events that have collectively raised $10 million for various ministries. The episode spotlights Chris Iwasco from Young Life, sharing his transformative journey and the strategies that led Young Life to surpass their fundraising goals.

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1. Introduction to the Episode

The episode kicks off with Jim Dempsey reflecting on his past challenges with fundraising banquets. At [00:10], he shares:

"I hated doing the banquets. It was just exhausting. And it's the same people that are showing up every year. There's no new blood coming to it."

This sets the stage for discussing innovative fundraising approaches that move beyond traditional, often monotonous methods.

2. Overview of the $10M Story Series

Jason Galicinski introduces the series:

"We're in the second episode of a five-part series called the $10 million story." ([01:28])

The series highlights how over 100 Perfect Vision Dinner events have collectively raised $10 million, inspiring nonprofit leaders with practical solutions and success stories.

3. Guest Introduction: Chris Iwasco from Young Life

Chris Iwasco from Young Life joins the discussion at [06:36]. Young Life, known for its global outreach to youth, benefits significantly from strategic fundraising efforts like the Perfect Vision Dinner.

4. Chris's Journey into Ministry

Chris narrates his calling to ministry:

"I've always known that being in ministry in some capacity was a call in my life." ([06:56])

Starting as a club kid in high school, Chris transitioned to a volunteer leader in college, eventually becoming an area director for Young Life. His long-term commitment is evident as he serves in his hometown, reconnecting with his roots.

5. The Importance of Reaching Youth

Jim emphasizes the unique opportunity youth present:

"Statistically, the hearts of a young person are going to be more open than they are as an adult." ([09:28])

Reaching out to youth early can prevent them from facing life's pitfalls and build a strong spiritual foundation. The discussion highlights the challenges posed by social media and the evolving interests of younger generations, yet underscores their immense potential for impactful movements.

6. Challenges in Traditional Fundraising

Jim reflects on traditional fundraising struggles:

"I hated doing the banquets. It was just exhausting." ([00:10])

He describes these events as repetitive and draining, often involving the same donors without attracting new support, leading to burnout and limited growth.

7. Introduction to the Perfect Vision Dinner Mentorship Program

The Perfect Vision Dinner mentorship program emerges as a game-changer. It's a structured 21-22 week class focusing on "friend-raising" instead of just fundraising. The program offers:

• Homework Assignments: Videos and workbooks to guide participants.
• Weekly Cohort Meetings: Accountability and support from peers.
• Practical Coaching: Tips on negotiating with vendors, planning events, and managing donor relationships.

8. Chris's Experience with the Program

Chris shares his transformative experience:

"The accountability that the model that the class provides was probably the most valuable part." ([22:55])

He highlights how the program's structured timeline alleviated last-minute pressures, allowing for thoughtful planning and execution. Practical skills, such as negotiating contracts and organizing effectively, empowered him to approach fundraising with confidence.

9. Achieving Success: Raising $119K

Implementing the Perfect Vision Dinner strategies, Chris recounts:

"We ended up coming in at $119,000 after the dust settled." ([31:27])

This surpasses their initial goal of $100,000, turning around a previously deficit-stricken budget. The success not only closed financial gaps but also paved the way for new ministry initiatives, including expanding to middle schools and securing additional donations for operational costs.

10. Insights on Development and Donor Management

Key strategies that drove success include:

• Matching Challenges: Presenting matching gift opportunities significantly boosted contributions.

  "We presented it in the context of the matching challenge. People heard that and said, okay, we can meet the match." ([36:40])

• Monthly Donors: Emphasizing the importance of monthly donations created a steady financial backbone.

  "Monthly partners are such a huge and critical part." ([35:33])

• Effective Communication: Crafting compelling scripts and building genuine relationships shifted donor perception from superficial to meaningful engagement.

11. The Winner's Circle and Future Goals

Chris's achievement qualifies him for the Winner's Circle, an exclusive group for mentors who raise significant funds. Jason explains:

"We're taking the foundation and raising the floor every year." ([27:00])

This circle provides ongoing support, encouraging continued growth and setting higher fundraising targets for future events.

12. How to Get Involved

Listeners inspired by Chris's story are encouraged to apply for the Perfect Vision Dinner mentorship program:

• Application Process: Requires filling out an application to ensure fit and commitment.
• Program Offerings: Twice a year sessions with structured mentorship and relationship-building focus.
• Engagement: Emphasizes building genuine friendships and understanding the ministry's needs.

13. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with an invitation to listeners to join the mentorship program and support Young Life's ongoing initiatives. Chris expresses excitement about future fundraising endeavors, and the hosts reiterate the transformative power of strategic fundraising and mentorship.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jim Dempsey on Traditional Banquets:

  "[00:10] I hated doing the banquets. It was just exhausting."

• Chris Iwasco on Feeling Prepared:

  "[24:24] Knowing how to go in and ask for this size cut of that kind of meat, those tips and whatever, I felt armed."

• Jim Dempsey on Youth's Open Hearts:

  "[09:28] Statistically, the hearts of a young person are going to be more open than they are as an adult."

• Chris Iwasco on Mentorship Accountability:

  "[22:55] The accountability that the model that the class provides was probably the most valuable part."

• Jim Dempsey on Matching Challenges:

  "[36:40] We presented it in the context of the matching challenge. People heard that and said, okay, we can meet the match."

Key Takeaways

• Structured Mentorship is Crucial: Programs like Perfect Vision Dinner offer the necessary framework and support to transform traditional fundraising approaches.

• Focus on Relationships: Shifting from mere fundraising to friend-raising creates deeper, more sustainable donor relationships.

• Early and Strategic Planning: Extended timelines and practical coaching prevent last-minute chaos and enhance event effectiveness.

• Leveraging Youth Potential: Engaging youth effectively can lead to significant impacts, both spiritually and financially.

• Continuous Growth and Support: Joining exclusive groups like the Winner's Circle fosters ongoing development and sets the stage for future successes.

For those interested in replicating Chris's success or enhancing their fundraising strategies, applying for the Perfect Vision Dinner mentorship program is a recommended step. Visit midcounty.younglife.org.org or connect with Chris Iwasco on Instagram @midcountyYL to learn more and contribute to Young Life's mission of impacting youth worldwide.

Transcript

[Jason Galasinski]

You're listening to the number one podcast for nonprofit leaders getting your nonprofit fully funded. This is the fundraising masterminds podcast for me.

[Jim Dempsey]

I hated doing the banquets. I hated it. I always took like a week off after.

[Jason Galasinski]

It was like a necessary evil.

[Jim Dempsey]

It was absolutely a necessary evil. And, you know, my boss will watch this video and he'll remember some phone calls that he and I have had, or it's just like, I don't want to be the dancing monkey anymore. I'm so tired of it. And it's just exhausting. And it's the same people that are showing up every year. There's no new blood coming to it. And, you know, we could have probably just invited them to write a check and they would have. But this whole song and dance, it was so exhausting forecasting for this next year. And he saw that the number was a lot higher than what he was expecting. He said, what are you really thinking that you're going to do on this? Because by now he knew that I was in this class. And I said, I'm going to, I'm going to do 100,000. And he's like, no, that's. I mean, yes, let's go. But yeah, what do you think you're really going to do? I'm going to put in 50. It was just really awesome to be able to come back to him and say, hey, look, look, look at how this worked out.

[Jason Galasinski]

So you guys ended up coming in at 119,000 after the dust settled.

[Jim Dempsey]

Yep.

[Jason Galasinski]

Blew past that 100,000 by another 20.

[Jim Dempsey]

Correct?

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

I'm sure your boss was pretty happy with that.

[Jim Dempsey]

Really great.

[Jason Galasinski]

Welcome back to another episode here at the Fundraising Masterminds Podcast. We're super excited to have you with us today. I'm your host, Jason Galasinski, and with me, my co host, Jim Dempsey.

[Chris Iwasco]

Hi, Jason.

[Jason Galasinski]

How are you today, Jim?

[Chris Iwasco]

It's great. I love April. As we start to. Flowers start to bloom. It's a great part of the year.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah. We're in the second episode of a five part series called the $10 million story. And really the inspiration came from this. Of all our classmates that went through the Perfect vision dinner in 2024. There was about 100 plus that went through. And Jim, when we totaled up everything.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

We found that it added up to about $10 million. Can you believe that?

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, it was amazing.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah.

[Chris Iwasco]

I was blown away. All that money going towards the kingdom.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah. Super excited.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

So we thought it would be super fun to have, you know, five people from the Perfect Vision Dinner. Join us on the episodes and to talk about, you know, who they are, what they're doing and what their experience was of the Perfect Vision Dinner.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

So last week we had someone from the Gospel Rescue Mission. This week we have someone joining us from Young Life.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

Next week we're going to be doing someone from cef, and then we're going to have someone from Christian schools. And then finally we're going to end with someone from a maternity home.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jason Galasinski]

Well, before we bring on our special guest today from Young Life, I thought it'd be great if we could watch a three minute video just so we could learn about what Young Life is all about.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, I think that's great. Let's do it.

[Narrator]

What can the Lord do? Over the course of 80 years, he can inspire a woman named Clara Frazier to pray for lost teenagers in the small town of Gainesville, Texas. He can answer her prayer by raising up a man, Jim Rayburn, and giving him a big dream of introducing kids to the Savior. He can rally hundreds of thousands of caring adults and send some out into the world of young people. Place in others the desire to pray and supply still others with the means to support this sacred calling. Over 80 years, he can draw millions of kids to himself. Every kind of kid. Kids in the suburbs, kids in the city, kids with disabilities, kids with babies, kids without homes, from every corner of the globe. Gainesville, Paris, Nairobi, Hong Kong, Bogota. He can do this through the selfless love of men and women entering the world of kids, consistently taking the long road, day after day, week after week, month after month, going, meeting, listening and caring. Building bridges of trust which produce relationships kids long for every day. It's because of these friendships that we can introduce them to Jesus Christ. Over 80 years, he can provide us a place, platform where we share about his love. A time of fun and song, where a faithful friend stands up and with Bible in hand, explains the amazing love story in terms kids can understand. It's a party with a purpose and everyone's invited. Over 80 years, he can secure dozens of sacred places around the world where kids can experience his presence. Places of beauty, places of hospitality, places of adventure, places of laughter, places of healing, places of transformation. Over 80 years, he can equip his people to help adolescents grow deeper in their faith. People who know the word and teach it. People who pray for them and with them. People who serve and call their young friends into service alongside them. People who point them to the larger body of Christ where they'll walk with him for the rest of their lives. What can the Lord do over the course of the next 80 years? If he is gracious enough to allow us eight more decades of ministry, then he can take us further than we've ever thought possible, leading us into more neighborhoods and colleges and bases and cities and countries, raising up more laborers who embody the communities they're serving. Beginning more work with hurting and lonely kids, enabling us to help them go even deeper as disciples. Thank you, Lord, for what you have accomplished over the last 80 years. We still believe that by your hand, the best young life work has yet to be done.

[Jason Galasinski]

Well, joining us from the southeast Texas area is Chris Iwasco. Chris, welcome to the show.

[Jim Dempsey]

Hey, how are you guys?

[Chris Iwasco]

Good. Good, Chris. Thanks.

[Jim Dempsey]

Glad to be here.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yep.

[Jason Galasinski]

Good. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into ministry and, and what kind of got you started with Young Life?

[Jim Dempsey]

Yeah. So the story is going to take about three hours.

[Chris Iwasco]

Oh, that's awesome. We've got.

[Jim Dempsey]

All the listeners are ready for this. Yeah, we're ready now. I've always known that being in ministry in some capacity was a call in my life and from a pretty young age knew that it was going to be young, young people, youth. And through a series of events, the Lord just kind of made that super obvious which direction it was going to go. And I was a part of young Life as a club kid, what we call them, I was going to in high school.

[Chris Iwasco]

Okay.

[Jim Dempsey]

Got to serve as a volunteer leader in college. Took a little bit of a hiatus in the post college and early career life. But then just through a series of events, the doors opened up and got an opportunity to come back on as a volunteer leader as an adult. But then some, some other doors opened to come on staff. And I've been in this capacity as an area director for seven years. And what's really awesome is that I'm doing ministry at the school that I was a club kid at. And so just being back in my own hometown, so super honored to carry, you know, that, that role in, in my own home hometown.

[Chris Iwasco]

So. Wow. Boy. Yeah. You seen some of those teachers that you knew?

[Jim Dempsey]

List is getting smaller and smaller. But when I first moved back, my, my English teacher was still there. And that was a really again, that actually is a part of the story is she'd been the one who assigned me to do this particular book, the Catcher in the Rye, as my research paper.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

And come to find out the Lord used the that story to put it in my heart that there are kids out there that are getting lost in life, and somebody needs to step up and recognize that and do something about it. And so as a junior in high school, you know, this particular English teacher didn't realize, I don't think that she was setting me on a course for the rest of my life.

[Chris Iwasco]

That's great. That is great.

[Jason Galasinski]

You know, one of the things that we often say in this podcast is a lot of times people get into director roles, and it's not like you decided in high school, like, hey, I'm going to be the executive director of a nonprofit. Right. So what was the. The point in things started to align with you where you realized, you know, I think I want to do this full time.

[Jim Dempsey]

It really became a prayer, Lord, shut this down if this is not of you. And I had a background in restaurant management before I got involved with ministry. And I thought I was going to open up a coffee shop and kind of do this thing. And I thought it was going to be a teacher. And just a series of just like, very real obvious, like, if this is not God, this is beyond coincidence. And just having that humility to be able to say, lord, what. What are you calling me into? And him just you, through mentors and some pastors in my life, just saying, just, you need to wait. Just, just, we don't know what it is. We just need to wait. And then, like, you know, like I said, some doors opened up for. For this, and I'm so thankful because it's been amazing.

[Chris Iwasco]

Wow, that's great. Well, Chris, I'm going to lobby a little bit of a softball. Why is it important to reach young people with the gospel?

[Jim Dempsey]

I mean, you know, so statistically, the hearts of a young person are going to be more open than they are as an adult. The kind of a. I don't know if it's a joke or not, but it's more expensive to. To. To fix an adult than it is to, you know, maybe set a kid on a path at a young age.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

So I just know that there's a lot of pitfalls in life that a young person can be. Can be spared from.

[Chris Iwasco]

Oh, yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

There are wounds that the Lord will use in our story, and it's a part of the testimony. You've got scars, and the Lord uses those. But, man, if I can. If I can watch somebody else touch it and say, it's hot and okay, I don't need to do that because I learned your lesson. You know, I know that the Lord cares tremendously for young people. Yeah. You know, he talks about that several times throughout the Gospels of. Of his heart for young people. A lot of the disciples, you know, there's some research out there that talks about how a lot of disciples are probably not old men with beards. They're probably young, absolute people.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

He's even maybe the first youth pastor.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. There's something about once we get older, we get more cynical and skeptical and. And just, you know, just hard and our hearts get harder. And so it's great.

[Jason Galasinski]

One of the things that I love Life is just the camps that you guys do. Those camps look so fun. I see those videos, I'm like, can I go there? Do they have adult camps like that?

[Jim Dempsey]

Spoiler alert.

[Chris Iwasco]

Well, I'll tell you one of the. I, I think I told you this, Chris, but one of the best videos I saw Young Life was where they. It was a. Giving testimony at one of our dinners. And this man said, you know, I've. I've had a lot of wealth over the years. I bought planes. I've bought, you know, expensive cars. I've bought expensive properties. And he said, I bought a Young Life camp one time, and he said, if I to redo my whole life again, that that plane is sitting in a graveyard, essentially, that car has been in a wrecking area. I'd buy two other Young Life Camps because it made such a difference in it.

[Jim Dempsey]

We used basically that premise for our end of year giving campaign was about planned obsolescence. Like so much of our technology and what we're going to buy is just going up in a landfill.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

But as believers, there's responsibility on us to steward our money and organizations like Young Life, and we're not the only player in the game. But organizations like Young Life are inviting people to partner with us to help us get kids into a place in a context where they can hear the gospel without the distractions.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

Of whether it be family drama or, you know, just classroom drama, or now social media and the world that, you know, kids are living on online. So our camp spaces are their holy ground where so many people are going to be able to look back and say, my salvation story started on a camp property.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. Well, and I think programs like Capernaum. I mean, genius. What an amazing space that you guys are in that a lot of ministries are not even in. So that's so neat. I love it.

[Jason Galasinski]

Chris, what would you say is, like, kind of the number one issue that young people are struggling with? Have you seen, like, a change even in the seven Years that you've been working with them.

[Jim Dempsey]

Absolutely. Even in a like very microcosm, like one, one grade graduated off and then the next grade end. I was like, oh, this is a whole different audience. I'm talking Covid had something to do with that. You know, but kids are far more easily distracted and so having their attention span is a challenge. So some of the classic, you know, things that you might do in a club talk, when we're presenting the gospel or whatever, we have to be real punchy. You don't have the, you know, the, the currency of attention span anymore. So your, your club talks are going to be a little bit different.

[Chris Iwasco]

So the felt boards don't work the way they used to.

[Jim Dempsey]

You know what, I'd be interested to try it out though. Yeah, maybe so, so we, we find that they're, they're far more distracted. They, they're dealing with a world, a window to the world on social media that previous generations have not had to experience. Just the weight of all of the evil in the world. Can, can we can weigh you down?

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

And there's a lot of depression and fear and worry that previous generations haven't had to carry because they just weren't aware of it.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

And so I don't think God intended us to know everything that was going on in the world.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

If he did, he would have created us with WI fi connections.

[Jim Dempsey]

Right. I think he told Adam and Eve about avoiding knowing all the things.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, exact. Exactly.

[Jim Dempsey]

So.

[Chris Iwasco]

But, but Chris, do you see. And again you're. Of course we're moving out now. It's interesting to think, moving out of the, the Z generation, moving to the Alpha generation now, which is probably a lot maybe where you're working. But do you, do you see hope though in this, these next generations?

[Jim Dempsey]

Absolutely.

[Chris Iwasco]

I think there's too many people have written off.

[Jim Dempsey]

You know, I know this generation is so. Because of, you know, the double edged sword. Right. Of the social media world. There's so much nonsense and junk that can distract them or pull them off point. But it's also they're the most connected. They can fire off movements like you wouldn't believe and they have the capacity of doing that. Like we're not digital natives.

[Narrator]

Like.

[Jim Dempsey]

No, we have to learn these new techniques and these, they are born almost, it seems like with the ability to navigate social media so well. I mean my son's almost 4, but he's already learning how to do stuff on my phone. How.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

I just don't understand how you're so good with this so fast, my middle daughter is already talking to her audience. You know, it's like you don't even have a device. They just know how to do the thing.

[Chris Iwasco]

It used to be, you know, kids would come out of school, want to be titans of industry. Now they want to be content creators, social media influencers.

[Jim Dempsey]

Exactly. That's a funny.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

Scary reality.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

But. Yeah. So they can mobilize so well and they care.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

They have a deep, big heart for opportunities to, like, improve people's lives. They're easy to motivate. And so there's.

[Narrator]

There's. Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

Don't. Don't bag too much on this generation and the generation coming. They've got a lot to offer.

[Narrator]

Just.

[Jim Dempsey]

It might be different than maybe what we were good at in earlier generations.

[Jason Galasinski]

Adapt. I love it.

[Chris Iwasco]

I love it. Yeah. One of the things crew has seen is that it used to be we would have to expose 10 for one to come to Christ. Nowadays, we're starting to see a one to three ratio. That's how fast things have changed. That the openness to the gospel is significantly better than.

[Jim Dempsey]

Some of that has to do with just time away from, like, maybe the enlightenment, you know, not to get too philosophical, but where it was very humanistic. And I think they're wise and they recognize that. Okay, that's kind of not working.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right, Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

Still haven't solved world hunger. Still haven't. You know, and so maybe. And I noticed that they are far more open to, you know, talking about the spirit. Right.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

Makes for some really good conversations.

[Chris Iwasco]

Oh, that's.

[Jason Galasinski]

I've noticed that they're a lot more, like, into real relationships. Like, they're. They don't trust corporations. Like, you know, my parents were, like, all about corporations and all about trusting, you know, the big.

[Chris Iwasco]

Even the church. Church. You know, I mean, it was just implicit. It was always trusted.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah.

[Chris Iwasco]

And now there's skepticism.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

We have, in youth ministry, have the trope of, you know, hey, next week, invite your friends. You know, make sure you're reaching out and inviting your friends.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

And. And I had this, like, eureka moment one day because I was noticing that my attendance numbers really weren't changing. And then, of course, you know, there's a big, you know, with young life is. Is we go to them instead of just inviting them to come to us. But there's a partnership where you're. You're asking their, you know, them to reach out to their classmates and their teammates, whatever. And it was almost a eureka moment because I'm Saying, hey, Jack, you know, why aren't you, why aren't you bringing your friends? And he's like, she's here, he's here, he's here, we're here.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

Who else did you want me to invite? Oh, I need to not use the word friend anymore. I need you word like classmate or teammate.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

Because they are, they do run in very far small. A lot of that because of. You can have all of these superficial friends.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

You know, on your social media feeds. But the genuine real friends, they crave that. And that's going to be in the small.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

Well, Chris, I would love to pivot to kind of more of a development topic now. I'd love to hear a bit more about. As you joined Young Life seven years ago ago, you said you came from a restaurant background. Right. So where were you at in terms of fundraising? Where were you at in terms of development? What were some of the things that you were doing that was working, that wasn't working? Like share just kind of a. Give us a temperature reading of kind of where you were at.

[Chris Iwasco]

You were doing something. You had the prior dinner, prior to doing this model, you raised $18,000.

[Jim Dempsey]

So that's all of 18.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. Not that you didn't raise something.

[Jason Galasinski]

Right.

[Chris Iwasco]

So you were doing something.

[Jim Dempsey]

It's in the DNA of Young Life to, in our development, you know, overall funding model that we're do a dinner, we're going to do a banquet. And different, different areas are more successful with that. And I think some of that was really driven on personality and you get the right combination of a committee member who's really good at doing parties and maybe some really networked members in your community who are good at just kind of saying, hey, we're going to rope these people in to come to this.

[Jason Galasinski]

Do you guys call it like a roundup for something?

[Jim Dempsey]

So, you know, we kind of experimented with some things. Covid shut us down for that particular year. We didn't have a banquet at all that year, the previous year. So it had been 19 was. Was good. It was as good as any of the ones that I'd been a part of. I think our high water mark for our area was about 40,000. Oh, okay. And so we didn't have one in 19 or in 20 and then 21. We tried to do this thing and it just really didn't work. We were trying to be sensitive to social distancing and how do we do this still? But. But still know that we've got to raise money and it didn't go so well, then 2022, we said, hey, let's try this different thing. We called it the roundup, and we're trying to just have a good time. Let's take the stuffiness out of it, and let's just have a good time. It was real casual, and we did all the things that I would learn in the future not to do. We did some of those things. We did the raffles and we did the auctions, and we had all, you know, we're going to sell this, we're going to sell that, and we're going to get sponsors and we're going to get underwriters. I mean, literally, the things that you guys in class one will say, okay, for doing those things, things stop. So that was really hard to hear. I was like, oh, man.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

Well, it. I mean, to yalls point, it did not. It did not move the needle. In fact, actually, we raised some of the least amount that we'd ever raised in one of our banquets. And so we'd kind of hit. I don't know if this is where you're wanting to go to, but we kind of hit a place where we were in trouble. Yeah. We were in deficit. We were in reduced pay at that point. And we ended up actually having to do a layoff and just. It gutted me. Absolutely gutted our community.

[Jason Galasinski]

One of our first calls, you were dealing with that and you were really struggling.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. And, Jason, I'd love to take a step back, though. How did you. How did you hear about fundraising Mastermind?

[Jim Dempsey]

I think it was on Instagram. Coming across a short reel or something like that. And it definitely was, you know, too good to be true kind of a thing. And, you know, he's naked oil salesman and all that kind of.

[Jason Galasinski]

He's Anna's best friend. Anna loves Anna loves Chris. I was going to put that name on her yeah, yeah, desk.

[Chris Iwasco]

That's her vision for independent Instagram working.

[Jim Dempsey]

It worked for me, but that then got me interested enough to go to YouTube, watching the longer, you know, full episodes.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

Which then learning that there's actually a podcast, and so subscribing to Apple's podcast and then listening to some archived episodes and then just finally is like, okay, these guys seem to really know what they're talking about, so let's at least have that conversation. You and I hopped on.

[Jason Galasinski]

What was the. What was the thing that kind of convinced you that we knew what we were talking about?

[Jim Dempsey]

Oh, gosh.

[Jason Galasinski]

Like, what was the thing that kind of got you to action Going from that skepticism to like, okay, well, the.

[Jim Dempsey]

Reference check that you gave me was finally the, that last, you know, thing that, that.

[Jason Galasinski]

What do you mean by that?

[Jim Dempsey]

You'd provided me with a couple of people to reach out to. References. Yeah. So having a conversation. I don't remember his name, unfortunately, but he just was able to sing your praises and said, yeah, it was real. We did truly raise this much money and we followed their system and it absolutely worked. And wow. So we. That for me was that final confirmation that I needed. But what was it that caught my attention? I think it was just the authority that you guys were speaking with. And I could, you know, I could tell from, from both of you that you knew what you were talking about. And then obviously Campus Crew is a tremendously respected organization and for you to have been a part of it for that long, it's like this is veteran tips. This isn't. Sure, you know, you aren't making it up on the fly.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right?

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah. You were talking about, you know, the different events that you were trying, but were you like, now you're in the winner circle and you're learning about, you know, how to keep and how build relationships. Were you doing anything from a development perspective before that was not working or working.

[Jim Dempsey]

I loved the phrase that y'all introduced us to the. Not just fundraising, it's friend raising.

[Chris Iwasco]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Jim Dempsey]

And that just really was like an eye opening thing and, and not to bag on any of the training that I get from Young life because we, we do have training and we are taught how to do some things, but just something that just wasn't connecting for me. Right. And, and so having the system, because I picked up pretty quickly on that. The Vision dinner is going to be kind of the opening to a bigger world of donor development, of relationship management and areas where I was weak. They hire a lot of us on because we're really good with kids and it's almost like you got to learn how to do the development side of things. And if you don't, I don't know, if you don't have the aptitude for it or something. That just never really clicked for me. And I hated doing the banquets. I hated it. I always took like a week off after. It was like, yes, absolutely Necessary evil. And you know, my boss will watch this video and he'll remember some phone calls that he and I have had or it's just like, I don't want to be the dancing monkey anymore. I'm so tired of it. And it's just Exhausting. And it's the same people that are showing up every year. There's no new blood coming to it. And you know, we could have probably just invited them to write a check and they would have, but this whole song and dance, it was so exhausting. Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

So now that you've been on the other side and you've done the perfect vision, enter, like, do you feel that way about dinners now or do you feel more.

[Jim Dempsey]

And so much of it is because the way that you guys teach us to develop a team, and again, it's not real rocket surgery that's taking place here. It definitely makes a ton of sense, but it just wasn't happening.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

It wasn't things that steps that we were taking. And so the, the, the accountability that the model that the class provides was probably the most valuable part for me that we started 20 something weeks before the event. You know, and over the times we're going to summer camps, I'm still needing to peel away to hop on a zoom call with you guys or have a homework assignment to do.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

It took so much of the pressure off of it by, by stretching out that timeline. Right. So it didn't feel like it was all just barreling down on me.

[Chris Iwasco]

Young life is like crew. You wait until the very last minute. You know, you're, you're starting to think about it about six weeks out.

[Jim Dempsey]

Exactly. And that's just too late. It's just too late. Yeah.

[Chris Iwasco]

It kills you.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

I mean, you're guilting people to show.

[Jason Galasinski]

Up because, you know, so I'd love to hear in your own words, like, how would you describe the perfect vision inner mentorship program to someone who's never heard it before? What. What is it exactly?

[Jim Dempsey]

So it's going to be a 21, 22 week class where you're going to have an opportunity to do your own homework, watching some videos and using the workbook. But then once a week we're joining together as a cohort with you guys and other classmates and there's that built in piece of accountability of, hey, did you do these checkpoints? Are you following through? And you guys did a great job of asking the same questions every single week for those that might have lost something, fell off the radar or whatever. Bring it back up to the top. Have you done that yet? No. You need to do it. And then there was a tremendous amount of practical coaching that came with that. How to negotiate contracts with the location or with the vendors for your food or for decoration. So learning how to do those kinds of Things that again, if you don't know how to do it, you just kind of go in like a lamb to the lions.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

I just need a meal provider.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right.

[Jim Dempsey]

But knowing how to go in and ask for this size cut of that kind of meat, those tips and whatever, I felt armed, so armed to go into those conversations and. And then you have to take the pressure off of it from being something that you're kind of throwing together last minute and having that stretched out over the course of that time. I went into that night, night different than I hadn't done any other event. I was cool as a cucumber because I mean, hey, we'd done all the things, you know, and then the Lord did the rest. The room was full.

[Chris Iwasco]

That's right. Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

People were already just as they were walking in just going, wow, this looks really great. And I want to share this feather for yalls cap. I've had a particular committee member who's been to pretty much every single banquet in the 25 years that our areas existed and she said this was the best one that we've ever had. That meant a lot because I know she knew what she was talking about.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, well, Chris, you were so good too. We've got an app for our community as well. You were so good about being out there and asking questions. Yeah, and asking questions.

[Jim Dempsey]

Interacting together, you know, answering our own questions with each other.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, yeah. That iron. Sharpening iron. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now tell me how you will go into the next year more confident. You know, we talked about $118,000. That's just the beginning. I think you're just scratching the surface. You know, I can see 150, 200, 250. I see all those in your future.

[Jim Dempsey]

A lot of growth opportunity. One of it is we were able to identify who the real like movers and shakers in our table hosts were and go into one particular one. I won't say her name out loud, but she did amazing. She had three tables. Oh, wow. Hey, from those three tables worth of attendance, who should be a table host? And so there's that multiplication factor and so going in already, you know that name storming class. Class is going to be even easier because we're starting not from zero. We're starting from 25 almost.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Jim Dempsey]

And knowing, you know, who did, who did good and who didn't do so good and then going into with again, you know, knowing what venue to go to, I don't have to spend so much time looking at different venues or what caterer because we're in. Our area is small. I don't have kind of the hotel situations like some do. So we'll have to do outside catering for our next one as well. And I already know who to talk to and.

[Chris Iwasco]

Good.

[Jim Dempsey]

We have that relationship built. So so many things are just going to move faster.

[Chris Iwasco]

Right, Right, exactly.

[Jim Dempsey]

And not starting in the summer or whenever the class would start but. But now we're already talking about it. Now we're zeroing in our dates.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. That first year, I mean it's just like you're trying to take a drink of water from a fire hydrogen and it's just, it's just overwhelmed. And what we see in the second and third year is just building from that and you have a base to build on. You got to.

[Jason Galasinski]

Well, that's why I'm so excited about the winner's circle because it's like we're just taking the, the foundation and raising the floor every year, you know, so. And Chris, you, you've joined the winner's circle?

[Jim Dempsey]

I am.

[Jason Galasinski]

You get everything done this month?

[Jim Dempsey]

Most of it. Most of it, yeah. You don't want my. We, we did a really big Christmas. Thank you. With that list. And so to go back in and like touch point again, you know, I did a little here and there, but we'd already done actually that, that exercise.

[Jason Galasinski]

But what I love about the, the winner circle is we, we've stretched it out over a three year period. Right. So we're, we're taking your perfect vision that are new partners that you got and we're starting to, to build relationships with them. In the first year of the winner's circle, that's really the focus. And in the second year we're going to focus on major partners. So it's like now that we've got this base and you've started building relationships, then we can start identifying who in these people are major partners and how can we lift them to higher levels. And there's just so much good stuff coming. The dinner is really just the beginning. And it's like I talked to so many people on the phone who just kind of think, think they just have this kind of it's too good to be true mindset or like I can't believe that these guys would raise a hundred thousand dollars in their first event, you know, and, and it's like that's just the beginning. I don't know how I could say it to you. You know, like, I try so hard to like show examples and record videos and everyone just Thinks, oh, this is just staged or whatever, but it's like, no, it's actually real. There's a real person here. His name is Chris. He went through the program.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. And for those of our listeners who don't know what the Winner's Circle is, the Winner's Circle is an exclusive group that's for our graduates of the Perfect Vision Dinner mentoring program who succeed and achieve at least the minimum of 100,000. And it's by invitation only, and it's for those individuals who are willing and want to take development seriously and take it to the next level. And, Chris, I'm so proud of you because you were one of those individuals who qualified and got the invitation and accepted it, and now you got the opportunity to build on that foundation she laid the first year.

[Jim Dempsey]

Yeah. Super excited to build this and, you know, however long I'm in this role, but to be able to, you know, I'm not saying, boss, I'm not quitting, but just that it's better than when we got it right.

[Jason Galasinski]

You know? That's right.

[Jim Dempsey]

Be able to have that kind of relationship with these. Because it's, again, it's kind of a small community, and. But to say, hey, we take this seriously and serious enough for us to go through these classes and go through this training and mentorship program.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. Well, we talk. You know, we always talk about. About wanting to be the best dinner in your city and in your area. And I think you're. You're a good way down the road to be in that for your. Your dinner, so that's neat. Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah. Now, Chris, we set out a goal for you to raise a hundred thousand dollars. I want you to tell our audience kind of what you thought was actually realistic when you.

[Chris Iwasco]

Which you may have been happy with.

[Jim Dempsey]

Or something I've been happy with. Well, with 40,000 being what we could remember being the highest that we'd ever raise in one of these, I was. I was hopeful, and I just. I put in our budget that we would raise 50, so I'd kind of built my whole year.

[Jason Galasinski]

You said, whatever, dude. We're going for 50.

[Jim Dempsey]

Yeah, whatever.

[Jason Galasinski]

What you thought.

[Jim Dempsey]

Probably exactly how I felt. Because. Because my boss was asking, you know, hey, so what are we thinking for this event? And I told him. And.

[Jason Galasinski]

And did you tell him that we were going for 100 or did you.

[Jim Dempsey]

I'm trying to remember exactly how that conversation went, but there was a point where he said, or. He found. He found that I was in the class because I. I didn't like Go through. I don't know if that's a story that worth telling. How, how I got the money to do the class.

[Jason Galasinski]

That is a really interesting story. Yeah. We'll circle back.

[Jim Dempsey]

Okay.

[Chris Iwasco]

Because that's A lot of people do.

[Jim Dempsey]

Struggle, you know, whatever.

[Chris Iwasco]

A lot of people struggle with that. Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

So I didn't, I didn't go through the, you know, the young life. I didn't swipe the card for the class. And so he didn't know that I was going through the class. I just out. I wanted to kind of play this one close to my chest and just, man, if I, Yeah, this doesn't go right.

[Chris Iwasco]

If you don't. Yeah, yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

And so my commitment, not all my committee members knew that we were doing this. And, and, and so I, I, I hold. I'd held on to that.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

For that long. So he was, he was asking how I was doing with my budget and forecasting for this next year. And, and he saw that the number was a lot higher than what he was expecting. He said, what are you really thinking that you're going to do on this? Because by now he knew that I was in this class. And I said, I'm going to do a hundred thousand. And he's like, no, that's, I mean, yes, let's go.

[Chris Iwasco]

But yeah, what do you think you're.

[Jim Dempsey]

Really going to do? Yeah, I'm going to put in 50. And then it was just really awesome to be able to come back to him and say, hey, look, look, look at how this worked out.

[Chris Iwasco]

I'm glad he supported you.

[Jim Dempsey]

Oh, yeah. There been. It was great.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

That just, yeah, just didn't.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. There's leaders who will knock, you know, I hate to say, knock their people down and. No, no, come on, Chris. Yeah. What's reality? Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

So, so you guys ended up coming in at 119, 000 after the dust settled.

[Jim Dempsey]

Yep. Wow.

[Jason Galasinski]

Amazing. So blew past that 100,000 by another 20, correct?

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

I'm sure your boss was pretty happy.

[Jim Dempsey]

With that one because we were already playing from behind, being in deficit going into the dinner. And so we were able to close that gap, end our final, our fiscal year ahead, but then start the new quarter two months ahead. And then young life world, we talk about being months ahead. And so we were two months ahead, just boom. And you know, we're not sitting on money in our account just so that we can have stockpiles of cash. This is the Lord's money. People invested this money into the kingdom, work and so we are so excited because we're already saying, okay, not only did we close that gap financially from last year's downfall, but we're also already starting new ministry to middle school kids in our area, and that was one of our accelerators. We're actively in conversation with some people to take the lead for one of our new schools that we want to give a whole. We want to give a whole staff person to that. And we had a new gift that came in. An attendant at the banquet at the Vision Dinner say, you know, hey, we heard you guys talking about your camp costs and transportation being so high. We want to write that check to cover the cost of the bus. And so we could even maybe add, you know, more to that number if you wanted to. But it's just the conversations that have come out and the. The tutelage that you guys gave us on how to have those conversations and how to present what the Lord is calling us to do.

[Chris Iwasco]

Well, that. That's music to my ears, Chris, because I'm all about dreaming big dreams. And the fact that this now opens the door for you to be able to, you know, hire coordinators and other individuals. I mean, people taking. Taking it to the next level, that's just so good. Yeah. Getting into new schools. Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

Let's circle back to that story, because so many people are listening to this podcast, and they are convinced that the perfect Vision Dinner, they want to try it, you know, but it's like, well, I don't have the money to even start. And I remember when we did that initial call, that's kind of where you were at.

[Jim Dempsey]

Where we were at. Yeah. Playing from behind. As far as financially, I did not have that money in my account.

[Jason Galasinski]

How do you do a Vision Dinner with no money?

[Jim Dempsey]

Exactly. Yeah. What do you do? I have some really phenomenal donor partners that have been with me for the entire time, and they give an annual gift that come out to be about the same amount as the cost of the class. And. And so I went to them privately and had already done, you know, my homework and presented the case and said, would you guys consider doing this differently? I know it's a deviation.

[Chris Iwasco]

It's an investment.

[Jim Dempsey]

It is absolutely an investment. I'm asking, you know, asked him and his wife to invest in. In my education, in this, that this is seed money. You and I had talked already about it and saying, hey, what kind of multiplier to expect? And, you know, what investor would not be excited by that kind of a multiplier? And so, 10 to 1, 10 to 1. And so he took some time to pray and talk to his wife about it and came back and said, hey, if that's how you want to use this gift, it's. We were going to give it to you anyway, whether it's here, just go into your, you know, your budget or going into this class. And so I did not, like I said, I did not use my budget to cover the cost, but indirectly I did.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

And so maybe finding, think, you know, if looking in your books and seeing if you've got that person that gives that kind of an amount or maybe compositing that together with a couple people. But that, that's how, that's how the Lord opened that door.

[Chris Iwasco]

You circle back to him. I'd be curious immediately just to say.

[Jim Dempsey]

Yeah, they were attending this. They sat at my table and I get to see them pretty regularly.

[Jason Galasinski]

And he had a really big smile on his face.

[Jim Dempsey]

Proud. Oh yeah, I love that.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah, I love that.

[Jim Dempsey]

Very excited to see he's. He's super close and, and we get to talk quite a bit and talk shop quite a bit. He's been in my life for a very, very, very long time. And so, so to see the highs and the lows and knowing what we were going through with our previous just year and the financial downfalls that we were experiencing and whatnot and to then to see things come out on the other side.

[Chris Iwasco]

So it's safe to say his gift literally turned around your efforts. Wow, that's neat. As an investor.

[Jim Dempsey]

Absolutely.

[Chris Iwasco]

Wow, I love that.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah. And I mean what Christian business person or entrepreneur, dentist or just a major partner, Right? What kind of person would not want.

[Chris Iwasco]

Of their money presented with the right tenfold?

[Jason Galasinski]

Not only did it bring in tenfold, but just think of all the partners it brought in. Think of all the ministry. It was like just a little seed, just a teeny little seed that went into the ground and now you have this huge tree coming out for the.

[Jim Dempsey]

Young Life audience that's out there. We live and die off of our monthly donor base. And the one time gift is awesome, that injection of cash. But the monthly partner is such a huge and critical part. We double.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

Our monthly partners as a result of the dinner.

[Chris Iwasco]

Well, for your audience, talk about that because we do emphasize that a lot of dinners just emphasize, you know, your gift tonight. But our model, because of Crew, fca, Young Life, other organizations, we emphasize the Monte a lot. Talk about that.

[Jim Dempsey]

So the, the thing that moved the needle the most was that we presented it in the context of the matching challenge. And so a gift of. Was it $100 a month or $1,200 one time there. And then we had also presented the case that that monthly gift is, I think it was said at least twice in our program, is a lifeblood for us. And people heard that and they said, okay, we can not only be a part of answering their need for that monthly gift, but we can also do it at the level that's going to meet the match. And and so yeah, we saw a lot of hundred dollar monthlies which with was just, I mean so, so amazing.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah. And our giving opportunities, we make those divisible, evenly divisible by 12. So little slow. Yeah. Ways to. Yeah.

[Jim Dempsey]

And, and for the, the match, I want to share that story too, please. You know, you guys teach us to go and find this match amount that we can present the night of. And we had an individual in the audience who saw that on the screen and he wrote the check to match that in just one, in one person. Matt made the match.

[Chris Iwasco]

And what Was your match?

[Jim Dempsey]

23,000.

[Chris Iwasco]

23,000.

[Jim Dempsey]

So yeah, the first thing I thought of when I'm going through and reconciling the numbers is like, what if I would have hunted a little bit more, would he have written 25? So why limit myself going forward? So another thing for next year in the sophomore year doing this is hey, how can, how big can we actually get this?

[Chris Iwasco]

That's right. It's so easy.

[Jason Galasinski]

When you get into the stinking thinking and the scarcity mindset, it's so easy, easy to just think like, oh, if, if I could only just get 300 people to give me $50. And we, we, we think in terms of like our circumstances, we don't realize that there's people out there that can write a hundred thousand dollar check.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Jason Galasinski]

That just seems like so unrealistic.

[Jim Dempsey]

I'm not that guy.

[Jason Galasinski]

No, no. Yeah. And it's, but they are out there and you know, business owners operate on a whole nother wavelength. They're dealing with millions of dollars and their Payroll is like 25, $50,000 a month, you know, and they're just, they're on a different wavelength.

[Chris Iwasco]

And so we're so used to asking them for loose change though. And, and when they finally hear a big challenge, it's like, oh, I can do that. 23,000, sure, I can do that. And that kind of blows us away because we're as ministry, we're so used to, well please give us a couple dimes and nickels and everything. Else.

[Jim Dempsey]

And I love the way that you guys taught us on our, you know, script writing for the different appeals that this we're presenting opportunity, you know, and join in water. Exactly.

[Chris Iwasco]

Make you feel guilty. Yeah. Yeah. Good.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah, it's really great.

[Chris Iwasco]

Yeah.

[Jason Galasinski]

Well, awesome. Chris, it's been really good to just reminisce about your success story. And I know that you're just one out of a hundred different people that went through the program last year, but it's. I mean, there's a hundred other stories like this. We could probably do stories like this over and over and over. We probably bore our audience to death.

[Chris Iwasco]

I want to hear Chris. I want Chris coming back sometime in 2026, next year at this time and talk about, you know, how much he raised and that he was 150 or 200 or. I can't believe I was ever that at that. So that's neat.

[Jason Galasinski]

Well, we've been talking a lot about the Perfect Vision Dinner mentorship program. And if you've been listening to this and you're kind of thinking, you know, I think it's time for me to give this a try, you know, we've got a QR code on the screen that you can scan. Go ahead and scan that with your phone, or you can click the link in the description. That'll take you to our website. And on the website, we've got all laid out for you how much it costs. We've got laid out what you get. Everything's there. We're not hiding anything. There's no sneaky sales pitch or anything like that. And we've got a lot of testimonies on there of people just like Chris. I think Chris is even on there with his testimony that we took that video literally, like, a few days after his.

[Chris Iwasco]

His.

[Jason Galasinski]

His dinner. So it was pretty cool. And, you know, if you are interested in the Perfect Vision Inner mentorship program, this is something we do twice a year. So we do one in the spring, one class in the spring to work towards the fall, and we do another one in the fall to work towards the spring. So you do have to apply. It's not something that you can just go in and, like, add to your cart and, you know, check it out and join. You do have to fill out the application, and then one of our team members will get in touch with you. We would like to. To get to know you, because we're always about relationships, right?

[Chris Iwasco]

Absolutely.

[Jason Galasinski]

So we want to build that friendship with you and that relationship, get to know your ministry, see if it's a good fit. And really we want to see if you're ready for something like the perfect vision in our mentorship program. Believe it or not, you know, it's not for everybody. It is intense and it does require commitment. So we just want to make sure that you're, you're ready for it. But, you know, get your application in and we'll get the, we'll get the ball rolling. We'll have a conversation. So, yeah, go ahead and get started. We got enrollment ends in three weeks. So in the next three weeks, we're going to be closing up the application and we're going to be starting our next program. So don't miss out. This could be a life changing moment for you if you enjoyed this episode. Definitely subscribe because we've got three more episodes coming of great stories like Chris. Next week we're going to be hearing from Warren Bird. He is a director from CEF in Doubt, Texas. It's going to be really great to have him on. But Chris, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. How can people learn about young life and get in touch with your particular organization?

[Chris Iwasco]

Jason, I really, I am all about even numbers. I'm not a big fan of ending with 119. I'd love for our audience that maybe wants to help put Chris over the top to at least 120. Me, I think that would be neat. I think Chris might enjoy that as well, too.

[Jason Galasinski]

Yeah.

[Chris Iwasco]

So how do we get.

[Jim Dempsey]

The easiest way is probably Instagram. Mid County YL is our handle and yeah, I'm the one that runs that page. So you'll be talking to me and.

[Jason Galasinski]

I would love to website that people can check out.

[Jim Dempsey]

Yeah, it's a mouthful, but midcounty.younglife.org.org and.

[Chris Iwasco]

You got a give button up there.

[Jim Dempsey]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Iwasco]

Okay.

[Jason Galasinski]

All right, well, let's see if we can get Chris up to one. 120 at least.

[Chris Iwasco]

120. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put them over the top. I thought about taking a collection here in the studio beforehand, but I think it'd be better for us.

[Jim Dempsey]

Well, Shameless plugged in real quick while I've got the opportunity. We're raising for camp scholarship. So yeah, right now money that we're gaining is going toward helping kids go to those camps that we were talking about.

[Chris Iwasco]

You want to send this year we've.

[Jim Dempsey]

Got spots for 40 at our high school outreach camp. I've got 10 spots for our discipleship camp. Then I've got eight spots for our middle school camp.

[Jason Galasinski]

I love it.

[Chris Iwasco]

It.

[Jim Dempsey]

I love it.

[Chris Iwasco]

Thanks, Chris.

[Jason Galasinski]

Y well, if you want to invest in young people, definitely check out Chris on Instagram or go to his website. Definitely check out Young life. The cool thing about young life is it's everywhere. Right? So we're not just 80 countries or.

[Jim Dempsey]

Maybe even 100 countries. Every state in the union, though.

[Jason Galasinski]

Every state in the union.

[Chris Iwasco]

80 years. Wow.

[Jason Galasinski]

Well, thanks a lot for joining us on today's episode. We look forward to seeing you next time.

[Chris Iwasco]

Take care.

[Jim Dempsey]

It.