I don't know if this is an audie thing or if I'm just not looking in the right place. I have contacted TONS of grant-giving foundations and community organizations in the past few weeks. But absolutely none of them will even consider you unless you have 501(c)(3) status. When I tell them that we are a church and churches are exempt from having to be 501(c)(3) organizations (in fact, most churches are NOT 501(c)(3) organizations), then they don't know what to say and leave you hanging in limbo without a definitive answer. Has anyone else experienced this? It's quite frustrating, to say the least. Thusly, the whole idea of getting the church off the ground remains just that -- an idea.
So, what are some pieces of advice that have been given to me over the past couple months. One is to simply become a 501(c)(3) organization and the doors will open up. If I had $500 sitting around somewhere and six months to sit around and do nothing, this would be quite do-able. Another is to hire a fiscal agent. Every grant guideline I ever read says that they don't give money to organizations that have a fiscal agent. Another piece of advice was to get a grant writer who will do everything on commission. It is frowned upon, and may even be illegal, for nonprofit organizations to do this. So, can you understand why when you throw these obstacles at somebody who is already used to banging their head against a wall they end up doing it even more?
In the end, my primary source of support may be from the congregation that I eventually put together. To do that, I will have to come up with some creative ways of advertising the church and its ministries. I have had absolute zero luck with advertising the church on Craigslist. Even the two or three people that did answer me on Craigslist ended up being less than desirable people. I will try other methods from now on instead of Craigslist. Currently I am putting together a mailing list of all of the homeless shelters and food banks in an 8-county area of the greater metro Twin Cities. I will let them know about the free wellness center, at least. I know that in some cases, though, I am basically trying to reinvent the wheel because some of these places are already affiliated with a free wellness center or a nurse practitioner who takes care of their guests.
Now I could rewrite this entire entry in such a way that I look at the glass as half full. I am not doing that because I am revealing, through blatant honesty, the FIRST impressions that go through my mind, before I start coming up with positive ways to look at things. In the end, my head will have hurt anyway because it's been bouncing off the wall AGAIN. I know that when you are reading what I write, you are saying to yourself, "Wow, he has such great ideas," and then you go back to doing whatever you are working on without flinching. That's what I mean when I said in a previous post that people only see Mickey Mouse. You probably just did it yourself. It is the person who BELIEVES in the ministries I am proposing and WANTS to see them work out that will act and BECOME INVOLVED. The rest will just say, "How nice," and will continue on their way.
Life as an audie is tough, isn't it. I wonder how I would feel about these obstacles if I were neurotypical. Hmm.
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