Course Overview

Introduction to Champion Community

The difference between a donor list and a community that sustains your mission.

About the Course

People give to causes they believe in. But they stay, year after year, through budget shortfalls and leadership transitions and shifting priorities, because they belong.

The difference between a nonprofit that struggles to retain supporters and one that seems to multiply them often comes down to community: whether champions feel genuinely connected to the mission and to each other, or whether they're simply receiving communications from an organization they once gave to.

This course introduces Mi's vision of champion community, grounded in the New Testament picture of the body of Christ, and previews the Monthly Giving Program Plan you'll build throughout this topic, a tool that transforms recurring giving from a payment mechanism into an induction into something people are proud to belong to.
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Course Outline

Frequently asked questions

We already have a monthly giving program. Is this course still useful?

Yes, and possibly especially useful. Most monthly giving programs are set up as financial instruments, not community-building tools. This course will help you see your existing program through a different lens, one focused on what it means for a person to commit to monthly giving relationally, not just transactionally. Many leaders who already have programs find that this course reframes what they're doing and points toward significant improvements.

We're a small non-profit with limited staff. Building "community" sounds like a lot of work. Is this realistic?

Community doesn't require a team or a budget. It requires intentionality. Some of the most vibrant champion communities Mi has encountered were built by single-person development shops who simply started paying attention to whether their closest supporters knew each other. The tools and approaches in this topic are scalable to organizations of every size.

How does this topic connect to Champion Development (P-E-O)?

The Champion Development topic focuses on individual champion journeys: how one person progresses from Participation to Engagement to Ownership. The Community topic focuses on the collective: how champions relate to each other and to your mission as a group. They're complementary, and Mi Academy is designed to help you see both dimensions together.

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