I signed up to be a Congregational Champion. Now what?

First offs, a big THANK YOU for agreeing to fulfill this role within your congregation. The more churches we have — the more volunteers — the more people talking about the project, the easier the task will be for each of us.

The goal of what we are doing is to build two houses in Champaign. To do that, we need to gather a lot of volunteers, hold fundraisers, and work together to make each person's job easier. To orient yourself with what we are doing, and the basic facts, read the Talking Points document. This is prepared to give someone talking to another individual or group a way to have most of the important facts in one place.

The task we are asking you to do includes the following:

• Receive bulletin or newsletter inserts from the Leadership Committee and arrange with whoever puts the bulletin together each week to get them inserted. You may of course modify the publications that we do, adding what is going on at your church.
• Monitor communications from us and what's available on site http://tbChampaign.com
• Talk the project up to various groups or individuals within the congregation. Keep updated news and needs flowing through your congregation.
• Arrange for fundraisers within your congregation, either setting them up yourself or finding help with other people who believe in the good is done by Thrivent Builds with Habitat
• Determine what method of volunteer signup will work best in your congregation, then arrange to get people signed up to help out at a work day.
• Keep track of hours spent on the Thrivent Builds with Habitat project within the congregation; report those hours on the Fundraising Report when mailing checks to the Chapter Specialist. (See the forms page).

What do we need from each congregation

We are asking each Lutheran congregation within Champaign to agree to:

• Publicize the build within their congregation through bulletin, newsletters, and talks by you or by the Leadership Committee.
• Sign up volunteers to help at work days, to help provide lunch, or other tasks that are needed to accomplish the goal of building two homes
• Hold fundraisers within the church to help meet Thrivent Builds goals for the congregations ($14,000 for the two builds in Champaign)
• Identify one or two Work Days when members of your church can provide lunch. It would be best if each church identify two workdays; if enough churches sign up we will contact you and see if you want to drop one of the two days.

We are asking that one person serve as the Congregational Champion to help coordinate these tasks within the congregation. If you are reading this and are not the Champion in your church, and the Contact Us page does not have a champion listed, please contact Joan Wingo and sign up for that role.

Various members of the Leadership Committee are available to come talk about the project at your church. We recommend talking several times from now until the end of the build. Perhaps once immediately to help get the idea of the build into your congregation. A second time when you are holding a fundraiser or trying to get people to volunteer to work. Perhaps a third time as the house is being built to keep your members up to date on what is happening. We welcome the opportunity to speak about the project anytime you think it will help.

Getting volunteers

Based on your church, one of two methods may work best.

• Pre-arrange with Habitat to designate a workday from the Build Schedule for your church. Sign up volunteers to work on that day, and get the list of names/phone numbers to Habitat. You may provide a full work crew for the day, or you may provide as many as you can; Habitat will find others to fill out the crew.
  This may be a good social event for your church. We would love to see two churches come out on a workday, one working on each house, and have members of your church get to know each other a bit more, and socialize with members from another Lutheran church during the lunch period!
• Sign up volunteers and let Habitat assigned them to workdays.

A combination of those may work best in your church — some people who want to work may not be available on the day that is chosen by your church; some people may have specific skills or interests (preferring painting the walls, for example); so they may want to sign up for a day other than the designated day.

In any case, because of Insurance requirements, Habitat has to have a list of people who will be on the worksite or a given day. There are no walkons allowed; everyone who will be there has to be pre-registered.

What do I do with this volunteer form?

Now that you have the form filled out ..

If you have only one or two pages of names, I've found it easier to enter the information on-line. If you are a fast typist with a good internet connection, just go to the Volunteer for Work Days page and enter your members. You may also mail or FAX the completed form in (contact information is on the second page of the form).

Fundraising efforts and ideas

• Hold a door collection - perhaps after a talk by the leadership committee after services at your church.
• Publicize the fund to your members and ask them to put a separate check in their normal envelopes, marked "Thrivent Builds with Habitat".
• Sell 2x4's to members of your congregation. $50 buys a 2x4. Provide a large permanent marker and let the member write a message to the homeowner on the board. We will use that board in the house; the homeowner will see the message as the house is being built, and we will take a picture of it in the house and provide that picture to the homeowner at the dedication ceremony.
• To get youth involved, have a project during Sunday School for each grade to make a page for a scrapbook to welcome the homeowners into their new home.
• Turn the above into a fundraiser by selling a piece of paper for $5 or $10, have the purchaser write a message to the new homeowner, then include this paper with the scrapbook that the Sunday School Kids have decorated.
• In the church bulletin, list how much a window costs, how much a door costs, and so forth and let people make a donation toward the purchase of one of those items.
• Other ideas can be found from the resources page of Thrivent Builds - Events Ideas document is one of them.
• Use your imagination and come up with something innovative that will work in your church!

Communications from the Leadership Committee

You may communicate with any of us at any time with your questions. Norm Fisher is easiest to reach by email; Joan Wingo is the primary contact person for those who prefer to use the phone, or you can contact anyone at Habitat directly — see the "Contact Us" option at the right.

We have set up an email list for Champions to convey information to you as the project progresses. We will pass bulletin inserts there, or communicate with you with other information. This list is set up as a Yahoo!Group, which keeps archives of all communications, so you can view old mails at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tbChampaign-Champions - emails will come to your account from tbChampaign-Champions @ yahooGroups.com. If you are not receive emails from this group, either go to the archives and sign up yourself, or email Norm Fisher and he will add you to the list.


We are here to answer your questions and support you in any way. Please feel free to contact us at any time!

So what do I need to do now?

Look around this site - http://tbChampaign.com - and familiarize yourself with the project.

Talk with the leadership of your church, or people who you think will be primary volunteers, and determine if you as a church want to sign up volunteers for one day, or if you want to just let Habitat allocate volunteers as needed. IMPORTANT: If you want to sign up for a specific day, be sure to contact Habitat as soon as possible to make sure you can get the day that you want. With two houses being built, you could provide all the workers on one home and another church provide the workers on the other home if two churches want to sign up for the same day.

Go to the forms page (listed in the menu on the right).

• Print out the build schedule.
• Print out the first "Volunteer Registration Form" (you will probably need several copies of this page)
• Print out the "Gifts in Kind" form

Arrange times when the Leadership Committee can come in and talk to your membership — voters meetings, before or after services, speak to your church council, and any other opportunities you think we can reach members of your church.

You know your congregation, and what might work best to promote volunteering or donations to the project, so if you have something that you'd like to try, email or call us and we'll provide whatever support you need.

Look over the notes that are in tbChampaign-Champions@yahoogroups.com email list to see prior communications to the Champions.

Identify people in the construction industry and ask them if they would be willing to donate Gifts in Kind — someone who could provide excavating or other items needed to build a house. See the "Gifts in Kind" form on the forms page. Note that Habitat has relationships with various construction organizations in Champaign county, and some of the items for these builds are already provided; they need to approve any Gifts in Kind.

What is Illini Radio Group doing with this project?

Thrivent Builds provides 65% (or $91,000) of the funding for the project, Habitat for Humanity is responsible for providing 25% ($35,000) of the funding, and the Lutheran churches are responsible for 10% ($14,000) of the funding to build these two homes.

Habitat has reached out to Illini Radio Group and they are holding a fundraiser to help Habitat meet their 25% requirement. Illini Radio Group is excited to get their listeners involved in an activity that produces a real impact in the community. More information can be seen at Illini Radio Group.



Again, thank you for agreeing to help with this exciting project,

Norm Fisher
Joan Wingo
Chapter Specialist - Thrivent Builds
Champaign County Chapter
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans