Ep. 118 | Why Do I Feel Guilty Asking for Support? What’s Behind the Shame of Ministry Fundraising

If fundraising feels awkward, uncomfortable, or you’re never quite sure what to say to potential donors, join me for my free live workshop, Fundraise with Confidence.

You love your ministry. You believe in the work you’re doing, you believe God called you to it, and you can probably talk all day about the people you serve and what God is doing through your ministry.

But then money enters the conversation, and suddenly everything feels different.

You start feeling awkward. You worry about what people will think. Maybe you feel embarrassed asking someone to support you financially. Maybe you reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while and immediately wonder if they’re going to think you’re only contacting them because you want money.

I’ve been hearing versions of this again and again from missionaries and ministry leaders. Recently, I talked with a missionary who has been doing this for more than 35 years, and even after all that time, fundraising still made her feel uncomfortable. She described feeling scripted and fake when talking with churches about support.

So this isn’t just a problem for new missionaries who haven’t figured out fundraising yet. You can spend decades in ministry and still carry a lot of guilt, shame, and dread around raising support.

The question is: why?

Why Does Fundraising Feel So Uncomfortable?

There’s something interesting about this struggle. Most missionaries aren’t ashamed of their ministry. They’re not embarrassed about the Gospel or the people they serve. In fact, you may light up when someone asks you about your ministry because you genuinely love what you do.

The discomfort often shows up when you have to connect that ministry to money.

Now you’re no longer simply telling someone about the work. You’re asking them to give something. And when you’re personally raising support, you’re essentially asking someone to help pay for you to continue doing that work.

That’s where some complicated beliefs can start showing up.

The Guilt of Asking for Money

Guilt can sound like, They work hard for their money. They have their own family to support. Who am I to ask them to give some of it to me?

For missionaries raising personal support, this can become especially difficult. Most people go to work and receive a paycheck from their employer. Your situation may be completely different. You’re doing the work, but part of your job is finding people who will financially support you so you can continue doing it.

If you’re uncomfortable with that arrangement, fundraising can start making you feel like you’re asking for charity or pity. You may wonder why someone else should pay for you to do ministry when they’re working hard at their own job. You may even wonder whether they’re secretly thinking you should just get a “normal job.”

And those thoughts don’t stay neatly tucked away inside your head. They start affecting the way you communicate.

You might soften your ask so much that the person you’re talking to doesn’t actually know what you’re asking them to do. You may apologize, overexplain yourself, or try to justify why you need the money. Even your tone, facial expressions, and body language can communicate that you’re uncomfortable with the invitation you’re making.

Eventually, it can become easier to avoid asking altogether.

When Fundraising Starts Feeling Shameful

Shame takes the discomfort a little deeper. Instead of simply feeling bad about asking for money, you start wondering what asking says about you.

Maybe they’ll think you’re desperate. Maybe they’ll wonder why your ministry isn’t already funded. Maybe they’ll think you’re being pushy or selfish. And if you’re reaching out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while, you may worry they’re going to think you’re using the relationship just to get financial support.

At that point, fundraising becomes incredibly personal.

That’s also why rejection can hit so hard. Someone may have completely practical reasons for choosing not to support your ministry, but when you’re already carrying shame into the conversation, their financial decision can feel like a judgment of you.

Instead of hearing, I’m not able to support this right now, you can begin interpreting it as, They don’t believe in me. They think I’m being pushy. They don’t think my ministry is worth supporting.

And if this is someone you have a personal relationship with, there may be another fear underneath it: Is this going to make our relationship awkward now?

After enough experiences like that, it’s understandable that fundraising becomes something you dread.

When You Know You Need to Fundraise—but Keep Avoiding It

The difficult part is that the need for funding doesn’t disappear just because fundraising makes you uncomfortable. Your ministry still needs financial support. Your personal budget may be dropping. For some missionaries, not raising enough support could eventually mean leaving the field.

So you know you need to do it. You just keep putting it off.

This is where procrastination can start looking surprisingly productive. You decide you need to rewrite your presentation before reaching out to anyone. Then you realize your newsletter needs some work. Maybe you should research some new fundraising strategies first. Maybe you need to find the perfect words before you contact that potential donor.

Any one of those things could genuinely be helpful. But sometimes they’re also giving you a very reasonable excuse to avoid something you’re dreading.

If guilt and shame are underneath your fundraising, another strategy or script may not actually solve the problem. You may need to figure out what you believe about fundraising in the first place.

What’s Actually Underneath the Guilt?

I want to give you a simple exercise to try the next time you need to reach out to a potential donor.

When you notice that pit in your stomach, the procrastination, the guilt, or the sudden desire to figure out exactly what you’re supposed to say, stop for a minute. Grab a piece of paper and finish this sentence:

I feel uncomfortable asking this person because I believe __________.

Then write down whatever comes to mind.

Don’t worry about whether it’s technically true. And don’t immediately correct yourself with the answer you know you’re supposed to believe. This isn’t the time for the polished Christian answer. You’re trying to uncover what is actually happening underneath the discomfort.

Maybe your first answer is, They’ll think I’m using them.

Then ask yourself why that matters. What happens if they think you’re using them?

Maybe your next answer is, They’ll think I’m a terrible person.

Okay. What happens if they think that?

Keep following the thought. You may discover that the thing underneath your fundraising anxiety is quite a bit deeper than simply not knowing what to say to a donor.

This can also be a really meaningful exercise to do with the Lord. Invite Him into it and give yourself permission to acknowledge what you’re actually thinking and feeling instead of immediately trying to make those feelings disappear.

You don’t have to solve everything during this exercise. For now, you’re simply trying to notice what’s underneath the guilt, shame, or dread you’ve been experiencing. Once you can name the belief you’re carrying into fundraising, you finally have something real to work through.

You Don’t Have to Keep Fundraising This Way

If fundraising has become something you dread, I don’t want you to simply find a better script and continue carrying all of this heaviness into every donor conversation.

This is exactly what we’re going to dig into during my free live Fundraise With Confidence Workshop on October 5th. We’re going to spend time looking at the mindset behind fundraising and some of the beliefs that can make asking for support feel so uncomfortable.

Then we’re going to take a practical next step. I’ll introduce you to the story-driven framework I use for fundraising messaging, and we’ll work through the first piece together so you know how to begin connecting someone to your ministry when you start a fundraising conversation.

If you’re tired of feeling guilty, awkward, or ashamed every time you need to raise support, I’d love for you to join me.

Grab your free seat at irisstorytelling.com/fundraising.

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