Jeff Nichols 0:10
Welcome to Fellowship One:Seven, a podcast from Child Evangelism Fellowship® for the Christian community. On this podcast, we dive into the world of child evangelism and discipleship through interviews and discussions with ministry leaders and thinkers. Hello everybody. Welcome to Fellowship One:Seven. We’re honored today to have Jason Galacinski with us from Fundraising Masterminds. Fundraising Masterminds is an amazing organization that is coming alongside CEF chapters around the country to help them in their support raising and the results so far have been phenomenal. Jason, I can’t tell you how excited I am. They have gone really, really well, and I am so excited about the future and our continued partnership. So I want the listening audience to get to get to know you better, like I know you. How about you start off by telling us how this whole thing got started. How did Fundraising Masterminds get started? And tell us a little bit about your background and Jim’s background that positioned you perfectly, in my opinion, to start this organization.

Jason Galicinski 1:18
How much time do we have?

Speaker 1 1:19
One minute and a half to tell that story.

Jason Galicinski 1:24
Yeah. Well, I mean, My story really started in my teenage years when, you know, I grew up in church and stuff. But I really, you know, I was one of those guys that I thought I knew everything about God, until I realized I didn’t, and then at some point in time, one of our youth leaders challenged us to go on a mission trip. And I, at first, I didn’t want to go. I was like, I don’t need that, you know, but then the Lord prompted me to go on a mission trip to Brazil with Teen Missions International, and that pretty much changed my life forever. I mean, I was like, one of those guys that I kind of knew what I wanted to do, like I was, I was really good at computers. I wanted to be a computer programmer. I wanted to, like, work for Microsoft or something. I don’t know I just kind of knew what I wanted to do. And then the Lord grabbed me and was like, No, you need to. You need to. You know, I have a different plan for you. So, you know, is, like, I went on this mission trip to Brazil and and it was, you know, Teen Missions International is still around today. It’s still sending hundreds and hundreds of teens, you know, overseas. And it’s a great…

Jeff Nichols 2:37
They’re amazing. They’re an amazing ministry still to today.

Jason Galicinski 2:40
Yeah. So, I mean, they impacted my life. And that was back in 1995 you know, and went, so we were the 95 Brazil boat team. Went to Brazil for like, you know, two, three months. And, you know, I don’t really remember a whole lot about what we did, but I do remember that, you know, Team missions was really focused on scripture, memory, daily time in the Word daily time, you know, devotions at night, devotions in the morning. It’s just like intensive, you know, discipleship. And it really just, you know, the Holy Spirit just really worked on my heart during that summer and, and I fully surrendered, you know, to God, and just said, All right, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it, you know. And and he and he clearly told me, you know, I want you to go to Bible college. So I was like, Okay, I guess I’ll go to Bible college, you know. And so the Lord ended up leading me to Moody Bible Institute, and then went, you know, through that program, and then just being like, fully surrendered, you know, I didn’t really know I felt called into ministry, but I didn’t feel called to be a pastor, so I and I have, like, more technical skills, and so, you know, I just was like, I just want to, I just want to build the kingdom. I just want to have a big impact. And ultimately, you know, that led me to getting involved with Moody Radio while I was on campus. And then that led to another radio My first job was, you know, working with Harvest Bible Chapel in the Chicago area. They helped start a radio ministry, and I have helped get that off the ground. That gave me, you know, a lot of training. And, you know, as I started working with, you know, Harvest more and then started working with other ministries in town, and just volunteered a lot to a lot of places. I started noticing that they all did these, like, weird, quirky things called dinners and banquets and fundraisers, you know. But I was like the guy that was being asked to do sound, you know, at the dinners, you know, I wasn’t, yeah, you know. So, so I, the Lord, just kind of started exposing me to these things. And it was like in 2003 or something, one of the ministries that I was ended up working for Biblical Counseling Center in Arlington Heights. They hired this man named Jim Dempsey to come teach them how. To do a vision dinner for their organization. And so Jim and I met for the first time in like, 2003 and at the time, you know, I was kind of the guy in charge of registration and, you know, so I wasn’t really getting, like, the download of all the strategy, but I was definitely a part of the team, and met Jim and and Jim was really during that time we started, Jim was encouraging us to use online registration, and so we started just me being having a computer background. I started building this program that we could like, this database where people could register their own tables online and stuff. But that ended up evolving into a whole company by accident. It was, that’s a whole long story, but, but I ended up starting the company.

Jeff Nichols 5:51
Now refresh people. Jim was working with Cru at that time.

Jason Galicinski 5:55
Yep.

Jeff Nichols 5:56
He was is in development. Already, major development officer for for Cru at that time.

Jason Galicinski 6:01
Yep, that’s good. So he Yeah, Jim was, Jim was he started with Cru in the 1970s and was hired by Bill Bright and he worked with Bill for a number of years, and Bill had really kind of figured out, like what was working in development, but he didn’t really have the ability to scale. And so Jim, you know, really worked with him on, like taking his ideas and like bringing them to scale. And so that’s, that’s kind of what his focus was. And then he would teach, he would train others, you know, along the way. And Biblical Counseling Center was one of those ministries you know, that he trained so, so all that to say, you know, I ended up creating a program called ministry sync, or it’s now rebranded to FundEasy. And Jim Dempsey was one of the key guys that kind of helped encourage me to start that business. And then Cru was one of the first customers to buy it and to use it. And so in a roundabout way, we kind of built the software around Jim’s model and his whole system and everything. And that kind of took off and became its own thing. Well, excuse me, over the years, we started serving a lot of organizations. We started with the pregnancy center movement, and that kind of took off. And then we started working with Christian schools and homeless shelters. And so after about 15 years, just like fast forward, really fast, we had served over 4000 ministries using the software side of things. And again, the focus was, you know, helping ministries raise funds, you know, using software, and, you know, managing their banquets, and, you know, doing peer to peer fundraisers and stuff like that. But what I had noticed, and Jim and I talked about this a lot, is that, you know, us, as a software company, we kind of took the position of, we don’t really feel like it’s our place to tell people, like how to run their dinners or how to run their events. We’re just whatever they want to do. It’s fine. You know, if they want to sell tickets, it’s fine. If they want to do an auction, that’s fine. You know, it’s not our place as a software company to be opinionated about that. That’s more like Jim’s job, you know, and so. But as we started working more and more and more with people, we just, I started to just realize, like, Well, gee, every single ministry that gets trained by Jim really raises a lot more money than anyone that has all these other ideas. You know, we’d see people selling tickets or doing auctions or, you know, and they would raise like, you know, 30 or 40,000 and Jim would come in and raise like 200,000 or 300,000 just like blow everyone out of the water. In about 2016 through 2020, like, that kind of four year window, I started having more conversations with Jim of like, So, what exactly do you teach? You know, like, there’s something to this, you know. And we started having more conversations, and I started learning more about, you know, development and best development, best practices, and what friend raising means versus fundraising. And it took me a long time, longer than I would really should admit, but it took me a while to figure it all out. But then at some point, it was during 2020 during the Covid era, Jim and I had some really long, extended talks, and it just like, clicked all of a sudden. And I was like, Oh my goodness. Like, literally, everyone needs to get this. And it just like, all made sense to me. And then I just kind of flipped, and was like, We need to get this out. Like, people just don’t get it, you know, they don’t understand. What friend raising actually is they think that they need to fundraise and raise money, and it’s all transactions and money focus. But really, at the end of the day, it’s all about, you know, getting partners invested in your vision. And when I finally understood what it was really all about, then I just got really excited. And I was like, we just, we have to start a new business. We need to, we need to start coaching people, you know. So that’s kind of what ended up leading us to start, you know, fundraising masterminds. And I asked Jim if he would, you know, help, you know, be the lead coach on that. And he graciously agreed. So we started that in 2021 I think, and you know, did all the filming during Covid and stuff like that. But it’s been just incredible to see, you know, how the Lord has blessed that, you know that effort, and we just have seen it, you know, just time and time again, that when people apply these principles into their ministry, the Lord just blesses it like crazy. And it’s really just, it’s really just teaching directors how to trust God.

Advertisement 11:10
Do the children in your neighborhood know the true story of Christmas through a Christmas Party Club, you and your church can work alongside Child Evangelism Fellowship to reach children with the gospel this Christmas, CEF will connect you with everything you need to confidently host a CPC, visit CEFonline.com/CPC, to learn more, that’s CEF online.com/CPC.

Jason Galicinski 11:39
You know, it’s not like we’re these geniuses that are teaching you all these, like crazy tactics, but a lot of it is just, there’s a couple key there’s, there’s a bunch of key principles that, if you stack them on top of each other, and then you couple that with, you know, trusting God for big things, we just see how God is working and using these principles. So.

Jeff Nichols 12:02
That’s amazing. You know, when you were describing your story Jason and the convergence of your pathway with Jim’s pathway, that God ordained from before time, for some reason the word came to mind, serendipity. I don’t know why that word came to mind, but just the serendipitous plan of God to to to put you guys together with your experience and expertise, and Jim’s vast experience and expertise, and you’re doing Kingdom work. I mean you, you are doing Kingdom work. And I, I want to emphasize that to our listening audience, that these guys are not software company people. They’re not manipulators. They are Kingdom focused advisors that are pointing people to a reliance on Jesus more than their plan, more than their coaching, more than anything else they’re they’re pointing people toward a reliance on God and His provision. That’s what I love. One of the things I love most about Fundraising Masterminds. You mentioned several of the different arenas that you work in, with pregnancy centers and Christian schools and that kind of thing. And CEF kind of became a part of that list a while back. Tell us about how all of that partnership got started.

Jason Galicinski 13:13
Yeah, so basically, there’s a local chapter starting up in our in our hometown, and we, I think we had heard about CEF, like, 10-15, years ago, like back in the Chicago area somewhere, you know, and, but we never really was involved in it. We kind of knew about it. But then, you know, some friends of ours in the homeschool community were excited about this chapter that was starting. And they, you know, we were like, What is this, you know? And they, they, they just got us all excited about it. They told us what it is and how they you know, CEF trains youth to share the gospel with younger people, and we go into the public schools and all, and we’re like, that sounds really cool, you know. So we’re, our family is kind of mission minded. We’re always looking for missional ways to get involved and, and it was just, it was just, you know, our friends just happened to be getting involved with it. And so we kind of, we joined with them, you know, to to get involved in, I think one of our friends daughters was like a leader or something, of one of the clubs. And then she invited our kids to, you know, participate, and, you know, do some of the activities and things. And then that evolved into, I think two or three of them went to the CYIA™ training for the summer, and that really was impactful to them. And just learning, you know, how to share their faith. Because, you know, at the time, they were really wrestling with, you know, well, how do I, you know, how do I share my faith and like, I know how to talk about God, but I don’t, like, how do I actually lead someone to Christ? And, yeah, you know, CYIA really helps give them, like, that framework. And so it really helped them to mature and grow. And I saw them get more. Confident in their faith and stuff like that. So that really helped them. And then they started going into the public schools. And, you know, for probably a year and a half every week, they would go in and, you know, do the clubs and talk to the kids. And one of my kids are kind of musical, so they would bring their instruments and, you know, lead the singing time and stuff like that. But, yeah, it was just very impactful. And then we were invited to a fundraising banquet at, you know, the local thing. And it was like, all the mistakes that you that I know, you know not to do I was, I’m gonna try not to mention any names, no locations mentioned. But, but, yeah, it was just, I was just sitting there going, Oh, my goodness. Is so bad. Like, this is, this is just all wrong, you know, this could be so much better. And then, of course…

Jeff Nichols 15:52
They were, they were, they were checking all the boxes, but the wrong boxes, right?

Jason Galicinski 15:55
Yeah, I had, and so, so I kind of was like, Okay, how do I, how do I, you know, help them? And so we ended up getting in touch with the director, and then I think we ended up meeting the state director, which was you at the time, you were the state director of Tennessee. And so somehow we ended up meeting and having a conversation. And, you know, I think we just started talking about, you know, what we do and how we can help. You know, CEF chapters raise 100,000 through this program. And usually when I, you know, tell that to people, they look at me like, I’m from Planet Mars or something. They’re like, they don’t believe me. You know, it sounds too good to be true and so it took a little bit of, you know, talks and stuff. But I think once, once you guys saw the numbers, and you saw the track record of Jim and all the material that we’re going through, it was like, Wow, this could really, you know, this would be really great. So I remember telling you Jeff early on, like, I like CEF, I started to be convinced that, like, it’s a ministry that is relatively undiscovered for the most part, with like, younger people, you know, like, it’s, it’s well known in the older communities and stuff, but for like, people in their 20s or their 30s, like, they don’t even really know what CEF is, and it’s kind of like this undercover thing. And I was like, if, like, it’s it would be so easy to do vision dinners for CEF. I just got so excited about because it’s such a compelling ministry, and it’s so needed right now. And I just got really excited about it. And I think I kind of spilled that over to you, and then you started getting excited. I did, oh, here we are. Like, a year later, we’ve done 15 dinners for CEF, and we’ve raised over let’s see. I’ve got the numbers right in front of me here. We’ve raised, collectively, $1.7 million for CEF chapters. You know, over the 15 chapters, I think, think just about all the 15 chapters, except maybe two, raised 100 over 100,000 you know, at their dinners, and some of them weren’t even doing dinners. Yeah, it’s been great. So I, I’m fully on board with our mission. I think it’s totally doable to raise 100,000 for all the chapters. I think we have a really good framework. I think we partnered with you guys. You guys helped us with some of the templates and the wording and everything. So we kind of customize the training to CEF specific. But yeah, we it’s, it works really great. Because, I mean, CEF has that, that three fold mission of, I hope I get this right, support, equip, train or train support, equip, right? And so we, kind of, when we put together the dinner, we help you come up with your three year vision, your three to five year vision. Of, like, if money wasn’t an issue, you know, what? What do you actually want to do? You know, don’t think about how much is going to cost. Just think about what is your vision that God wants you to do. And then we help kind of build these, like accelerators, these three accelerants, and we kind of build a program around that, and we try to fit it into the train, equip support framework, yeah, you know, yeah. But then at the same time, we’re very focused on, you know, getting the right people in the room. So the biggest reason why dinners tend to fail is because you have the wrong people in the room. They people tend to treat the dinners like a fundraiser. You know, they’re selling tickets for $25 they’re just like, whoever wants to come is fine, you know. But when we do a dinner, we spend a considerable amount of time really focusing in on trying to get the right people in the room. And so what we look at is the right people is like business owners, entrepreneurs, movers and shakers of your community, networkers, you know, people that have the means to be able to fund things, but they just maybe don’t know of an exciting opportunity, but they were given that opportunity, they would, they would totally do it. So we’re trying to fill a room with people like that, and this the program, the perfect vision that are helps you find those people, you know. So one thing people don’t fully understand is like, we actually help you find those people. We help you find the table hosts. We help you fill the room with 300 of the right people, and then we help you put together a really good, well packaged program that really explains to these people, like, what the problem is, what the solution is, what you’re doing about that, and where you want to go, and how they can roll up their sleeves and get involved.

Jeff Nichols 20:55
And I will Amen and hallelujah, that you are doing exactly that. You are packing, using it in a way that is easy to understand. I have been in a bunch of these dinners around the country that our chapters are doing. Every one of them are on point rather than being scattered. And it is a friend raising dinner.

Jason Galicinski 21:17
I wanted to ask you about like, what’s your experience? Because I know you get, you get asked to be like the main speaker to all these dinners. So, like, what’s your experience going in from your side, just kind of flying in and being a part of it?

Jeff Nichols 21:30
I love them, Jason. I get to be a part of these perfect vision dinners, and I get to go be a part of the ones who aren’t perfect vision dinners. And there’s a, there’s usually a big difference between the two.

Jason Galicinski 21:43
Well, what’s the difference? What are you noticing? We start we can’t do that much.

Jeff Nichols 21:48
Yeah. Vision dinners are tightly planned and focused. They have a very concerted focus that they stick to for the night, rather than running off on rabbit trails. And I liked what you said, you’re getting the right people in the room, rather than just trying to fill a room with as many people as possible, you’re getting the right people in the room. And it’s not an appreciation dinner, which appreciation is fine. It’s not a thank you dinner. It’s not an awareness dinner. It is a friend focused, you know, support raising dinner. And when that focus is there, and when the way that you help the chapters put this together, especially encouraging them to use those CYIA students for testimonies. I wish I had a record of every one of these testimonies that I’ve heard from these CYIA students. They are amazing, and God is moving in their lives. And that’s what people want to see. And I will say at some of these dinners, when I get up to give my talk, I don’t have to say anything. Look, look at what God is doing in the lives of these young people. They want to see impact like that. And it gives the opportunity to show people the impact that CEF chapter is having to reach the kids in their community. It’s, it’s one of the best partnerships. I’ll say it again. The word that comes to mind is serendipity, because when I came into this role about a year and a half ago, our state leaders the number one need they had was development and support raising. That was their biggest frustration, the number one need and God, had just put Fundraising Masterminds our paths together at the right time, for the right reasons, for the right purposes, and it’s been, it’s been a beautiful partnership so far. Then I can’t wait to see what God continues to do in the future. So thank you, Jason, for everything that you and Jim and others are doing for our CEF chapters. You’re having Kingdom impact in amazing ways. I want to swerve off that just a little bit as a closing question. And I want to go back to a 30,000 foot view, and kind of the challenges and opportunities that you see looking out there in the future, you know, kind of right now, in the next few years, it is a chaotic time in this world. We’re a very polarized country right now, and yet we have the Gospel that unites us, and you guys get to work with those Kingdom minded ministries and organizations. What do you see as some of those key challenges and opportunities in these next few years?

Jason Galicinski 24:17
Key challenges and opportunities, it always seems to be related to just getting the right people, meeting the right people. Ministries right now are struggling financially, you know, seem to have kind of capped out. And the younger generation hasn’t necessarily, like, bought in, you know. So they’re not, they’re not quite sure, like, where Gen Z is yet. But the cool thing is, is that we’re seeing that a lot of Gen Zers that are coming to perfect vision dinners are actually buying into the vision and getting involved, you know. So they’re, they’re very hands on.

Jeff Nichols 24:58
Why do you think that is?

Jason Galicinski 25:01
I think, because they’re just kind of sick of, like the politics as usual kind of thing. And they want to, like, actually do something like they want to roll up their sleeves and get involved. And so I think one of the, one of the great things about the vision dinner is that we kind of pitch it not as this, like, generic, you know, we have our act together kind of thing, but we kind of, like, peel back the curtain and kind of say, like, here’s the here’s really where we need your help. You know, this is the vision. This is what God’s called us to do, and it’s working, but this is where we want to go, and it’s hard, you know, and it’s difficult, and we need your help, and there’s opportunity for you to roll up your sleeves. You can get involved financially. You can get involved with your labor, your influence, your expertise, like there’s it’s not just about money, necessarily. And young people are catching the vision. Jim always says, you know, every organization has needs, but very few have exciting opportunities. And so we always try to pitch your needs, quote, unquote, as exciting opportunities, you know, and when it’s done correctly, with a compelling vision backing it, you know, young people are jumping on and rolling up their sleeves and and some are very generous. You know, they’re, you know, not everyone is at that stage yet, but the ones who have the money, they’re jumping in and getting their hands dirty. And so the vision dinner is a great tool to help pass the baton to the next generation. If you don’t do the vision dinner and you’re just getting your same people together, and your demographic is like Baby Boomers, well, how are the Baby Boomers gonna pass it down to the Gen Xes, and you know the Gen Zers, you know the Millennials. You know well, that that happens through vision casting, but not vision casting in like, you know, someone’s musty old basement, but like, doing it in a professional setting, doing it in a professional way that kind of gets their attention and goes, Oh, wow. This is, this is really exciting. I want to join this, you know. And then then the baton gets passed.

Jeff Nichols 27:18
So I love that. I love that you said it very well. That’s because that is what’s happening in these dinners. I see it all over the country, and it’s amazing to see what God is doing between in this partnership. Well, Jason, tell us if you’re a ministry leader out there connected with CEF or not. If you’re a ministry leader and want to find out more about fundraising masterminds, how do they get connected? And if you’re a CEF leader, I know you got some special resources for them?

Jason Galicinski 27:41
Yeah. Well, you can go to our website, fundraisingmasterminds.net/cef, we actually have a special landing page just for CEF leaders. And on there, there’s a special video that Jeff and I put together that explains our partnership a bit more. And we also have a special discount for CEF chapters as well. So that’s all detailed out, the discount, the pricing, what you get, how it works, all that stuff is all listed on there. So check that out at fundraisingmasterminds.net/cef, and if you want more. If you want to meet Jim and I more, get to know us a bit more. We have a podcast called The Fundraising Masterminds Podcast. You can just Google it, but it’s on Spotify. It’s on Apple, and we have over 100 episodes that are free. You know, it doesn’t cost anything, and it’s just all about development, leadership, dinners, boards, like anything. There’s almost every topic on there now, but it’s a, you know, it’s a good way to learn and also just to meet us and get to know us a little bit better.

Jeff Nichols 28:51
I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Jason. Thank you for your partnership between you and Jim and Fundraising Masterminds and CEF and thank you for joining us today on Fellowship One:Seven. Have a great day. Thank you, Jeff. I’ll see you. Bye, bye.