By Van Beall
The Gift Card program offers two easy ways to create extra money for mission ministries from the money you are already going to spend. The most familiar method is the physical gift cards sold on Sunday mornings, which is the bulk of gift card sales (about $5.4M) and is still highly encouraged.
I find that electronic gift cards (“e-gift cards”) are even easier to use because I can customize the amount while standing in the checkout line based on what I am about to purchase. While Home Depot, Walmart, and Amazon are the merchants where I almost always pay with e-gift cards, in the last 12 months I’ve also ordered e-gift cards from Target, Kohl’s, CVS, Staples, Cheesecake Factory, Subway, JC Penney, Uno Pizzeria, AMC Theaters, and Cinemark Theaters. Each e-gift card order, ordered on my phone, was immediately available for that purchase. Those e-gift cards had a total face value of $5,000 and the Mission Ministry fund received an additional $180. I also bought thousands of dollars of physical gift cards.
The $180 – $15/month – is arguably a small amount, yet it was helpful to those who benefitted from the extra money (mine goes to UMCOR). Can you imagine the impact if 200 Glen Martians started shopping the same way? That could mean an extra $3,000/month for mission ministries, and at no extra cost.
Where does this money go? To one of 12 ministries that you, the purchaser, designate. Those ministries are Angels for a Cure, the Building Campaign, the Cold Weather Shelter, the Early Learning Center, Habitat for Humanity, Journey to Bethlehem, the Mission Ministry Support Fund, the Music Ministries, the Paul Behrens Scholarship Fund (scholarships for mission trips), Sleep in Heavenly Peace, UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief), and Wish Upon a Star.
There are currently 72 physical gift cards available on Sundays. Online there are over 750 merchants! Many restaurants pay 6-12%, and other merchants pay up to 20%. Wherever you are shopping or eating (many dozens of restaurants are in the program), it is likely there is an e-gift card for that merchant. And this fundraising never costs more than you were going to spend anyway!
To register, the first thing you need is the Glen Mar organizational code. Email the Fundraising team to get the code—and ask any questions you have. Then, visit the RaiseRight website. You can also download the RaiseRight application on your phone. Register as a Glen Mar supporter. You must connect your bank account on the RaiseRight website or via the app for these on-line purchases.
Last, all the proceeds from shopping with gift cards are tax deductible and appear on your end-of-year giving statement. So, keep shopping with both types of gift cards – it is worth the effort!
