Tell us why you need it
May 17th, 2010 | 
Author: Want to win a copy of the Banquet Success training system for FREE? Read on to find out how!
Scott Maynes, Executive Director of Life Choices in Lewiston, Idaho, joined the Banquet Success training program in February and immediately began devouring the training and rapidly putting it into action — with great results!
After going through the training on underwriting, Scott posted this comment March 2 on the discussion page for Module 2: Underwriting Success:
Yesterday I received a commitment from an underwriter that now covers the cost of our banquet ($12,500). I am very excited and so grateful for such a detailed plan of attack. I will be starting to work on the table sales now and I am hopeful for making the goal of 2X the cost of the event. Thanks so much for instilling hope!”
Two weeks later, on March 16, he posted this update:
Just passed the $25K mark with 6 weeks to go before the banquet. I am now gunning for 4x the cost of the banquet. God is good. Thanks for all your expertise and help.”
And then he posted this update on the discussion page for Module 3: Attendance Success:
I think we are going to pack out our event. I have 43 tables (8 per table) and at this time 25 tables are spoken for so far by underwriters and sponsors … I have two more weeks to sell tables so I think we stand a very good chance that we could sell all of them.”
And then, after Life Choices held its banquet on April 29, Scott sent us follow-up reports:
Wow! You guys were an awesome-sized God-send to this ministry. We had a HUGE success last night. Rebecca St. James father/manager said it was the best banquet they have been a part of. I know Rebecca St. James wrote down your info on a card to take with her. I am so humbled and so blessed by what God has done. After all the counting, the total for all the revenue streams up to this point is $101,877!! And there is still the follow up to go — still some more out there ‘on the table.’ Last year’s results were right about $50,000 for the banquet.
It is pretty funny when people ask how I did it. I have given the name of your training to several people and I think they are taking note. You guys are doing a great work in helping people like me take their events to a new level. Thank you so much for your training. It is the best thing that could have happened for me and this ministry.
BTW — I am happy to say that this means I won’t be getting my money back on your guarantee. Great stuff guys.”
Great job, Scott! Your banquet results serve as an inspiration to all ministries that are gearing up for banquets in the midst of this challenging economy.
And now YOU have two chances to win the exact training system — at absolutely no charge — that helped Scott achieve these results!
FIRST: As mentioned last week, if you are going to the Heartbeat International conference in Orlando, Florida, Gloria Leyda at Ambassador Speakers Bureau will be holding a drawing to give away a complete Banquet Success training system (a $697 value).
All you have to do is go by the Ambassador Speakers Bureau table #400 at the conference and enter their drawing for the complete package of 20 audio CDs and binders packed with step-by-step training materials.
SECOND: We got feedback from numerous people who are NOT going to the Heartbeat conference — but who still wanted a shot at getting the Banquet Success training system at no charge.
To be completely fair to everyone, we’ve decided to give away a second training system.
And this giveaway will not be based on random chance, but instead will be determined by YOU.
Here’s all you have to do …
At the bottom of this page, in 150 words or less, post a reply telling us WHY your ministry needs the Banquet Success training system to help increase your next banquet — like Scott did. (Be sure to include your name and organization name in the post.)
We’ll choose the best response, and the winner will get the entire Banquet Success system for FREE.
That’s it!
We can’t wait to read your answers — and then give the system away to the ministry that best articulates how Banquet Success can help them.
Maybe you’ll experience results similar to Scott’s!
To Your Banquet Success,
Shawn Carney & David Bereit
Banquet Succes
Dear David and Shawn,
We are a home for unwed, pregnant teen moms and their newborns. We are quite underfunded at this time and though we have volunteers who want to help in this aspect, we need the tools to train them how to hold a successful banquet/fundraiser. For the past two years we have run “Winter Balls” that covered the cost of the event with a few thousand left over for helping the ministry. At this point, our doors are staying open because everyone is working as volunteers. Even the House Parents….so, we desperately need your training tools to have a successful fundraiser and to move into a more effective ministry here at New Beginnings.
Thanks for this opportunity to share our heart, Rhoda J. Gigstad
I was greatly impressed by the 7 Secrets download. I have served with a number of ministries and involved in numerous banquets but felt you know something even more than many of us who have years of experience. We are a non-profit attempting to make a major impact on the culture in Illinois in order to restore our state, churches and families to God’s principles. We are planning our fall event and it will be the difference in keeping the doors open. With one staff member it is hard to continue. The possibilities are endless if we have the resources and you sound like the best starting point.
Dear Shawn and David,
There is a Crisis pregnancy Center (the only one) in our city of over 41,000 people, and they have asked if I could help them to raise funds to help keep them going. They have always wanted to have a banquet, but said just last week that although they talked about having one two years aso, they were too busy trying to help young mothers and keep things going to do it. I would like to help them. We are not sure where to start, and would really like to win a copy of your wonderful fundraising package.
Thanks for the opportunity to enter. Dianne Harbin
Hi Shawn, Hi David, we would love a copy but we will be the least deserving of all the responses you recieve. So instead I’ll use this opportunity to just say HOWDY! We have signed a contract with TAMU Foundation to endow Susie’s scholarship come this fall. I’ll need to fund the 5 for the CFL should they continue. Hope your families are well. Andrew is getting better with time. Joey is available for the speakers bureau so keep him in mind! Take care, God Bless.
Joe Calvey
I am on the committee for our banquet at Woman’s Choice Services in Illinois. we are having our 4th banquet in November and would love to use your techniques. The other posts sound just like us- working with small staff and volunteers but with much devotion to God’s cause in saving the unborn and helping empower mothers. I think we could use your plan.
Franklin Life Pregnancy Resource Center, Inc. is in much need of Banquet Success!!! We have been operating for the past 8 years in approximately 600 square feet with no windows. We are very cramped and constantly having to say excuse me just to get around the front desk and copier to get to the bathroom (that we share with the other ministry we are in the building with) to do a pregnancy test. Yes we have been blessed but we are limited on the things we can offer due to our space, therefore we definitely need to have a Successful Banquet to raise the funds for a larger facility. Help Banquet Success, We need you! Sincerely, Tina Brock – Director
Dear David and Shawn,
I have no eloquent words to speak rearding the urgent necessity of your Banquet Success program! I have never held a banquet before for anything, I have no funds (literally)and I do not have a pro-life organization-yet, other than our local 40 Days for Life group of participants! Through much prayer and God’s awesome response, we have an opportunity to get a local pregnancy resource center relocated in the same parking lot as the Planned Parenthood that we pray in front of during our campaigns-and year round in fact. We have a couple praying and discerning about acquiring an ultrasound machine for us and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, through an aide, has expressed interest in coming to speak to our group! The building I have been praying on for over a year has been vacant for at least that long and also has enough space for a Eucharistic Adoration Chapel and for a pro-life educational resource center where I envision classes on Natural Family Planning, harms and consequences of contraception, post-abortion healing retreats and bible studies, chastity/purity classes, parenting classes and, because it is located in the heart of the medical community, including Wake Forest-Baptist Hospital, even special classes to educate medical professionals, all the while having Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament on the same premises of Planned Parenthood, healing and evangelizing while we are educating! The Banquet Success program is just what we need to continue the restoration of our community to the culture of life that our four 40 Days for Life campaigns have begun! Please consider our local pro-life endeavor and efforts when you make your decision! God bless you and thank you for giving us such an opportunity make an impact on our local community through 40 Days for Life!
Toni Buckler, Local Campaign Director
The Pregnancy Center of Okeechobee seems to have very similar stories as the ones above. I have been involved for over two years and it seems as though the weakest part of our ministry is fundraising. We have tried to raise the bar on fundraising but don’t know how to begin. We definately need professional training, fundraising is the least favorite part of my job so I’m hoping to absolutely love it. We also have very limited space (400 sq ft)and limited funds but we see God moving in a big way. He continues to bless us at the center we just want to be able to keep up. Help us grow. Life Matters, Lisa Lumpkin-Director
LifeCare Pregnancy Center of West Central Iowa is a new Christ-focused center trying to open its doors to a wide-open area with a high abortion rate, Planned Parenthood presence, and no life-affirming facility for over 130 miles. LifeCare is in the very beginning stages of development and has gained interest from churches, pro life groups and community members who are excited to see this ministry evolve. Many are praying that this will happen quickly.
LifeCare has raised enough money to pay legal fees and incorporate as well as begin the training process for the directors. We have not yet held a banquet but feel it is the best way to get the word out and make this dream a reality. We need sound advice from Banquet Success to put us on the map and keep us there!
Katie Taylor
Why do we need this training? The ministry of the Pregnancy Resource Clinic is moving! In December 2009 we converted to medical and as everyone in this type minsitry knows – when you start offering ultrasounds as a part of the ministry – your ministry changes. We are seeing more abortion minded and abortion vulnerable clients. We have been praying for this and it simply is amazing – the women that are walking in our door – our prayers are being answered! We knew they would be when we were ready for this challenge. Our town is about 75,000 people but service an area of well over 120,000 people as the next closest clinic north or our location in a 2 hour drive. There are 2 Universities and a junior college in our service area – we need to create a presence on these campuses – but the only way to do that is to increase our income. In January thru April this year we have seen more clients than we did in all of 2009 – but we need help – help to secure the funds needed to keep this ministry rolling. We had 13 women just last month complete our volunteer training course – it is phenominal! All of these opportunities to minister cause our budget to increase – we have to bring in more contributions and investments in the ministry.
Why do we need the training? We need to reinvent our banquet – we have go to look at ways to expand our donor base and increase the giving at the banquet. We’ve ask God to help us with this and I keep getting these emails from you – it must be a sign!
May God Bless you for all you do to help the pregnancy ministrys all across this country.
Hello, my name is Molly Smith. I am the Executive Director of Gianna’s House PRC, located in Rock Falls, IL. We opened a short time ago on 10-29-07. I attended Heartbeat’s annual conference last year in Richmond, VA. I will however not be attending this year because in April, I attended NIFLA’s Institute in Limited Obstetrical Ultrasound. It is our goal to convert our PRC to a Pregnancy Help Medical Clinic in the near future. We are making strides each day. It is a very expensive process. The expense is not only in the purchase of new equipment, but in the extensive training the nurses must complete. Therefore, it is vital that we learn how to significantly increase the donations offered through our fall Banquet fundraiser, so that we in turn can speedily and successfully bring the much needed life affirming ultrasound services/window to the womb, to the new mothers in our surrounding community. Thank you so much for helping centers such as Gianna’s House. May God bless your work!
Halton Pro-Life’s mission is to save the lives of unborn babies from abortion and their mothers from its psychological and physical harm, and to defend the elderly, disabled and sick against legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Our means are to educate the general public and, increasingly, youth. We use newspaper advertising. We support a TV campaign. We rent space for a Resource Centre and stock it with books, DVDs and other material. We run a website. All these are expensive but effective: as people learn the truth, they understand how vital it is to protect life in the prevailing culture of death. For funding, we depend solely on the generosity of donors. We cannot afford to do more than a fraction of what is needed. Funds sometimes fall perilously low. That is why we need the Banquet Success training to help increase revenue at our banquet. Tom Kelly, Executive Director.
We just had Abby Johnson for a fundraiser. It was a great event, but we know we can do better. We want another crack at it with Abby possibly in the next coming months, to expand our opportunities with 40 Days for Life, for unifying our community, and with helping our fellow chapters to follow our example to win the battle against abortion. We know our influence can spread to more of the grassroots, pastors and candidates running for office. We listened to the conference calls and the 7 Secrets and know that if we had the expanded techniques to use, our board members could use this to build the best RTL chapter in our own history. We want to expand our opportunities with the African American pastors and churches, and we have a great start with some pastors already. They are starting to listen! Billboards, auctions, rallys, banquets, educational trainings for the public, high school/college youth co-ordinations…We’re ready to do more and our board is prepared to take it to the next ten levels! Give us a chance with your materials, we won’t disappoint you! We are ready to grow, now!
Executive Director, Mark Stevenson
Dear David and Shawn,
Students for Life of Illinois reaches out to campuses in Illinois and surrounding states. We currently have about 30 campuses on our network, but due to our limited staff and budget, we can not give the necessary personal attention to all of those schools. In addition to helping pro-life students to build a culture of life on their campuses, we also run the local 40 Days for Life campaign which has saved at least 8 lives. We would like to have a banquet so that we can increase our reach to more campuses. SFLI has never done a banquet, but we would like to do our first banquet right with your system.
Life is Good,
John-Paul Deddens
Executive Director
Dear Shawn and David,
Situated next to the Twin Cities’ largest college campus, the University LifeCare Center has helped more than 10,000 women, men and babies since opening in 1975. Staff educate clients about ALL of their options when facing an unplanned pregnancy. This is a VERY special year for ULCC as we celebrate our 35th anniversary! As the development committee chairman and Board Vice President I have never once coordinated a banquet let alone a banquet of this scale and importance. We have booked Dr. Alveda King to be our guest speaker for November! We have just begun to plan our banquet and having the Banquet Success Training system would undoubtedly give us the tactical tools and encouragement to blow this banquet through the roof! Our Board of Directors and development committee are ready to get to work! Please provide us with your wisdom and nurturance! You won’t regret it!!
Sincerely,
Neal Buddensiek, Development Chairman and Vice President of ULCC Board of Directors
we need this because we just celebrated 20 years– we work with Latinas who are targeted big time by the abortion industry– and are the largest growing minority– and yet our dinners seem to be bringing in no more than 25,000 to 30,000 year after year and have become somewhat stagnant with the same people and same programs. we want to become medical, and be the best latino center in the country.
Mary SUarez Hamm, Director of Development, Centro Tepeyac Silver Spring Women’s Center
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. As we work together in the trenches bringing God’s love into these battles of principalities and powers, I can’t imagine how you will be able to choose one Center to recieve this gift.
I’m sure the Holy Spirit will get involved.
The Tri-State Pregnancy Center ministers to areas of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and is located in Matamoras Pennsylvania. We’ve been in existence for about 12 years and for many reasons have never had a banquet. Well, this year we are stepping out in faith . Our new Executive Director has a Spirit inspired vision and a deep passion in this ministry but in order to move forward, money is needed.
So here I sit on the last days of the Easter season anxiously awaiting the surprises of Pentacost and humbly cast our entry into the mix knowing that the Holy Spirit will inspire your choice as he continues to use us in this most important ministry.
May God Bless You
Marie Biel
As Executive Director of a Care Net pregnancy center in rural western New York, I *know* there is more we can do: We can empower more women to choose life for their babies; we can persuade more teens to reserve sexual intimacy for marriage; and we can lead more post-abortive people to the Source of hope, help and healing: Jesus Christ. I know that our Center is prepared and equipped to do more, serve more and be more of what God wants us to be in this community. So why aren’t we? What’s holding us back? Money. Resources to fully staff our vision, including the time to recruit, train and motivate the passionately pro-life volunteers I know are “out there” in our supporting churches. Serving this high-poverty, high-teen-pregnancy county for 20+ years, we have celebrated many successes. But we can do more. I hope Banquet Success can show us how.
A BRAND NEW PREGNANCY CENTER – WE COULD DEFINITELY USE THE HELP! Incorporated just this year, we have been working diligently to get the resources needed to open our center. A New Hope Pregnancy Resource Center is still in the birthing stages. Over 1,000 girls have traveled to surrounding counties over the last several years to get the support they needed during an unplanned pregnancy. From 2005-2008 approximately 300 babies were aborted from our county. This is a tragedy. Surely if we have a pregnancy resource center in our community we can drastically decrease this number. It is our desire and vision to be able to provide this greatly needed resource to our community. We are in desperate need of fund raising help so that we can raise the money needed to get our center open asap. We think your materials will be just what we need to make our dreams a reality! THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING US!
After being healed of the shame and pain of my abortion through the Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ I told God, “I will go where you want me to go, I will say what you want me to say and I will do what you want me to do.” He led me, in 2002, to start Silent No More Minnesota; we are affiliated with the Silent No More Awareness campaign with no financial support. We produced the testimony CD “Voices for the Voiceless” English and Spanish. We have given away over 4,000 all over the Americas and creating videos; our first one is Valerie up on Youtube, “silentnomoremn Valerie”. We produced the film, “In the Wake of Choice”. We are now running a billboard campaign without ever a successful banquet. We have had only 2 fundraiser events and one had 20 people with one person as a new donor. HELP!
Ann Marie Cosgrove
Founder and President
Silent No More Minnesota
I’ve been involved with our pro-life group here for 10 years. We provide education, support and programs to help those in need. We help support area-wide pro-life efforts like sidewalk counseling, 40 days for life and the ecumenical memorial prayer vigil. We work with area pro-life groups and agencies, including Students for Life of Illinois and others…
We have had a number of Rose Dinners, where we have a speaker and raise money for our local crisis pregnancy centers and other pro-life groups. Our last formal dinner had one couple step forward to give a large donation, resulting in a new crisis pregnancy center being built. we want our next function to be successful!
We would love to help more – raise more funds to make a bigger impact. We are a small church committee – and it would be wonderful to help agencies more!
I would also love to see our community to start a proper medical clinic for women – providing life-affirming help to women in need, without resorting to medical procedures and medicine that violates pro-life pursuits. As they say – dream big!
God bless you for all you do! Keep up the good work!
Sav-A-Life Shelby is celebrating their 25th year as a ministry. In honor of this celebration we will be having Governor Mike Huckabee as our feature speaker. This is a huge leap of faith, as we have never undertaken an event of this magnitude. Our ministry has two locations and is presently in need of a larger facility to accommodate the growing needs of our clients. We presently have two main fundraisers a year, with the banquet being the major one. As Development Coordinator of the Ministry I will be coming up to my one year Anniversary. Your program training would benefit us tremendously. and would be a blessing to the ministry. we are also in need of more space to allow us to increase our services to include medical pre-natal care. We are also needing more space for our counseling Center. With donations down across the board for ministries we are not the exception to that. The Lord is growing our ministry into our Shelby County Public School System where our abstinence program is being welcomed. We see the Lord working in so many areas of our ministry and are now experiencing growing pains. Thank you for you for all you do to help educate, motivate and inspire. To God be the glory
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as unto the Lord.”
In honor of His name, and in answer to the call to excellence, I present my highest and best hope to take the Okanagan Valley Pregnancy Care Centre’s five-year track record of successful banquets to a higher ’sky-high’ level.
How much more can Banquet Success help us to magnify the Lord’s name and reveal His love beyond current boundaries? For His honor and glory, Banquet Success shares our vision — to go for gold: “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.”
The Pregnancy Support Clinic of Valdosta would love to win the Banquet Success Kit. We will be hosting our 20th Annual Fundraising Dinner in March of 2011 and would love to blow all previous records out of the water. We are poised to really move our organization to the next level and feel our Dinner is a great opportunity to do that. We strive for excellence in all that we do and know this tool in our arsenal could be the key to even greater successes. As many other clinics, we have been affected by the downturn in the economy, but are finding we have a strong support base that could be maximized with the right assistance. We know this program could offer that assistance! Your proven method has done so much for so many other clinics and we really want to be the next success story!