Encouraging and Coaching Through Fundraising
Michelle Wallace spent five years equipping crew to come on board with Mercy Ships. Mercy Ships has a unique model in that our volunteers pay to come serve! To cover room and board, each volunteer pays crew fees and this usually requires fundraising. As part of the FinACE team, Michelle helped to coach and encourage crew as they financially prepared to volunteer on board.
In this episode, Michelle explains the process of fundraising and why it is so valuable — not only to the person going to serve, but also for the person giving. Michelle shares her joy in using her gifts of encouragement and helping as she walked volunteers through their financial budgeting and fundraising.
In an area that can feel overwhelming for some, Michelle’s kindness and gentleness brought peace and reassurance to new crew as they raised funds to come on board.
If you’d like to help crew and the mission of Mercy Ships, you can give at mercyships.org
Looking for a way to join our mission of bringing hope and healing? Partner with us through a gift, volunteering with us, or by joining us in prayer.
New Mercies Podcast Transcript
Welcome to the New Mercies, a podcast by Mercy Ships, where we’ll take you behind the scenes and on board our incredible hospital ships that are transforming lives all over the world. We invite you to join us each week as we sit down with our crew, patients, volunteers, and partners to hear their stories of life-changing hope and healing.
Did you know that our crew pay to volunteer on board our ships? That’s right, everybody pays crew fees to cover room and board and other expenses while they serve. But Mercy Ships provides a whole department to help crew raise the funds they need. Michele Wallace spent five years equipping crew through encouraging them and coaching them on their fundraising journey. And she’s here today to tell us all about it. Here’s my interview with Michele Wallace.
Raeanne Newquist:
Well, Michelle, welcome to New Mercies.
Michelle Wallace:
Thank you so much, I’m excited to be here.
Raeanne:
Yes. Well, I’m excited to reconnect with you, you and I did our onboarding with Mercy Ships together? Oh, my goodness, how many years ago was that now? I guess four years?
Michelle:
Yes, I think so.
Raeanne:
2019. I’m just so excited to get to reconnect with you and hear more of your story. So, so glad to have you on the podcast today. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from and how Mercy Ships entered your story.
Michelle:
So, I am from the East Texas area. My family was originally from New England, but they moved here right before I was born. So, they’re transplants, but I’m not. I grew up basically in the same house and back there now to help take care of my dad. So, it’s kind of, you know, just always where I’ve been. My dad has been a longtime supporter of Mercy Ships. He was one of the O.G.’s that heard it on the radio and thought it was super cool. And so, he looked into it and has been giving to it for years and been a like I said, like a big supporter. And over the years, he has always said you should look into Mercy Ships when I was looking for jobs, or when I moved back from the Dallas area. He said, you should look into Mercy Ships. And I just kind of always brush that off. I don’t know, I had this uninformed vision in my head that Mercy Ships… because he talked about how they did training and things out in Lindale.
And I just had a vision of a ship in the middle of the field that people lived on and did training. Like I want nothing to do with that. And so, when I found that when I moved back from the DFW area after my mom had passed, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do and where I was going to settle. He brought up Mercy Ships again. And I said, okay, fine, I will just look into it. And so, I got on Indeed, and I just threw an application in there. And I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t hear anything from them. And so, I took another part time job over like the spring just kind of freelancing and doing things. And then randomly one day, they called me and brought me in for an interview. And I interviewed and they called me the same day and said, hey, we want you and so I started a week later.
Raeanne:
Oh, my goodness. And what position did you have? What area were you working in?
Michelle:
So, I worked in what’s called the finANE department. And in typical Mercy Ships fashion, we love our acronyms, it stands for financial accountability, coaching, and encouragement. It was originally part of chaplaincy, even though during my time there, finance kind of absorbed it. But it always felt like chaplaincy to me. It was just encouraging people on their fundraising journey, making sure that they were mentally and financially prepared to serve or to fundraise and things like that. So that was the department and even though my job morphed, my title morphed, over the time I was there, I was basically doing the same thing for the five years I was at Mercy Ships.
Raeanne:
That’s really cool. And that’s an aspect actually, that we haven’t talked about at all on the podcast. We’ve mentioned briefly, you know, that people pay to volunteer, but why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that looks like? What is the financial responsibility of our volunteers, and then yeah, a little bit more about what you did to encourage and facilitate that.
Michelle:
Mercy Ships has what are called crew fees. And they are basically what you pay to come serve on the ship that covers your room and your board and your insurance, things like that, just like your basics while you’re on the ship, because as you will know, everything happens on the ship, you eat there, you shower there, you do your laundry, there everything. So, it kind of covers all the fees and expenses that go with that. Plus, anything that you have to sacrifice to do, I think means a little bit more to you. So just being able to go for free. I mean, it’s great for a lot of people to be able to do that. But it’s also a really good incentive to be intentional about what you do when you have finance involved.
So we would charge crew fees depending on whether you were short-term or long-term volunteer there was insurances involved, of course travel accommodations, and for our more long-term volunteers that were at home expenses, you know, sometimes you still have a house payment, you still have a car payment, you still have student loans, you want to keep the cell phone bill up and things like that. So, it was a lot of helping them determine what they should keep what they should get rid of what kind of finances they have in hand versus what they need to fundraise for. And we want everyone… we wanted everyone to be financially healthy. We didn’t just want you to get there and realize that you had no money or that you couldn’t buy a doughnut on the ship because you were budgeted so tightly. So, we tried to help everybody find a happy medium of that have, you know, be a good steward of your money, but also realize that you’re going to be living on the ship, it’s not a vacation for a week. So how are you going to manage your money in that way, and just working through that with them.
Raeanne:
It is such a helpful position and a helpful department. Because I know for us, we had never done anything like that before. I mean, we had gone on little, short-term mission trips, but to go to something that we had committed two years to it did require a financial obligation, but also a lot of stuff we didn’t know, we didn’t know how to budget, we didn’t know how to figure out how much support to raise and all that kind of stuff. So, your department was so helpful and enlightening to us. I know that in the greater mission of Mercy Ships, we’re talking about caring for the patients and caring for, you know, impoverished people in West Africa, who can’t afford safe and timely surgery. But to get to that point, there are many steps along the way. As we mentioned, you know, there are doctors and nurses, there are crew, and then how do they get there? How are they equipped, and that’s one of the parts that you play. Tell us how you saw your job as contributing to the larger mission of Mercy Ships,
Michelle:
I would consider one of my biggest spiritual gifts to just be first off as a helper, like I love to help. And also, encouragement, it’s one of on all the tests that you take for personality, it’s always my top tier, I love to encourage people. So, we’re a job to have the word of encouragement in the title, it was kind of a perfect little gift for me, you know, people that are giving up their lives, like you guys did to come and serve on Mercy Ships and like live out their calling. It’s so important that you acknowledge that and you respect that, like, people just really want to feel valued, and they want to feel seen and understood. So, you come from it in a place of this is really important. And we’re really thankful that you’re here. And this is how we can help you do that. And so, it always felt like I was part of the mission in that way. Like I was another steppingstone for them to get to live out the calling that God had placed on their lives. And so, I always took that really seriously, I wanted them to feel seen and understood and known, but also know that they were supported in that way. And so that every day I went to work even on the hard days knowing it wasn’t about me, it was about you guys, it was about the people that were going on the ship that were giving their best yes to the Lord. So, I was going to give my best yes as well.
Raeanne:
I love that. I love you saying that it was kind of your job, your privilege, to help people live out their calling. But in so doing your living out your calling, as God is uniquely equipped you as an encourager, and someone that can spur people on I just love that. It’s so important. And really, as you encouraged and helped prepare and equip crew to go, then they kind of showed up as their best self because they were prepared and ready. Working in Mercy Ships, obviously, it’s a unique environment, how did you find it to be different from maybe some of your previous work environments?
Michelle:
I loved the environment of Mercy Ships. You know, when you work for a Christian organization, it kind of feels like a big family in a lot of ways. And not to say that, you know, jobs don’t have their issues. But we’re encouraged to come to the community gathering and be around each other. We were encouraged to take coffee breaks to just fellowship with one another. And when you’re working toward one singular mission like that, it makes everything seem a little bit more worthwhile. Because you’re seeing the fruits of your labor, even people that have been at Mercy Ships for 40 years, or 20 years, or that were waiting on the Global Mercy to be done. And they’ve been working on it for years and years. Every single day, you see a little bit of the fruits of your labors.
Like I would see some of our African volunteer friends who started off with $5 and didn’t know how they were going to get on the ship. And we coached them on fundraising. And all of a sudden they had $500 in their bank account, and they’d never seen $500 before. I don’t know anywhere else in the world that I could have been a part of that from little East Texas. And that’s one of the biggest God winks in my life is I spent most of my life thinking that I was going to be a medical missionary living in a hut in Africa. Like that was my life plan for probably a decade and that did not pan out because God had other things for me and I needed to be home closer to my family to help care for them. But it’s an absolute God thing that I got to spend every day for five years helping other people live out that dream.
Raeanne:
Oh, wow, very cool. Very, very cool. Well, you kind of mentioned it a little bit just now, but maybe tell us about a highlight for you, or an impactful moment during your five years with Mercy Ships.
Michelle:
Wow, there were a lot, but I think one of the most impactful moments of the whole time that they’re involved you in our onboarding team. I remember when COVID was in full force, and it had been for a little while. And the ships were kind of segregated, where we were all wearing masks. And we can spend a lot of time around one another in groups. And the ISC was the same way. You know, a lot of us were working remotely, I was at the time. And so everyone was, you know, they were lonely, and I felt isolated. And then I don’t even remember who it was, but they came up with an idea of our onboarding, get together via zoom, or via Google Chat, or whatever we did at the time.
And I remember sitting there in my room, or my home office, and seeing you guys, uh, seeing our friends on the ship seeing friends in Alaska and other countries. And we were all on the screen together. And we were just for once, everyone was laughing, everyone was happy. And we were able to talk about our struggles and pray for one another, and like, just uplift each other and kind of remember where we started and where we were going. And I just remember being in this sadness, and in the silence that we’re living in, in COVID, that there was still joyed to be found. And that kind of helped propel me to like, keep going with what I was doing for the mission.
Raeanne:
Yeah, that was a powerful time for sure to be able to rely on one another. And like you said, the family that we built together, to still continue to care for each other. We had no idea when we signed up that we were going to hit such a huge bump in the road, if you will, maybe it was even bigger than a bump in the road. But the fact that we had that time together to build a relationship to become a family, it really served us well, when things got really hard.
Michelle:
Yes, absolutely. It definitely did.
Raeanne:
What are you currently doing?
Michelle:
I currently am the manager of administration and community for a local innovative solar power company here in East Texas. I get to combine being organized and bossy and sassy and all the things that’s Michelle and use that to our advantage there. I plan events and community volunteering work. I organize the lives of all of our director and executive level people. It’s kind of a job that God built just for me. Like I get to do all my favorite things every day, and they are my new family.
Raeanne:
How do you see your time at Mercy Ships as contributing to the work environment that you’re creating now?
Michelle:
Mercy Ships taught me a lot about who I am. It taught me that my muchness is a gift and it’s not a flaw of mine. And what happened personally and professionally in my five years that I was there, and I always kind of thought I was this big old softie, who would fold under pressure and couldn’t handle it. But Mercy Ships really helped me learn that you can be a pocketful of sunshine and still be strong. That things don’t always have to look like you thought they would to be beautiful and to be used by God. And then I learned that people are the same everywhere you go, whether you are from a different country or a different state. I remember in our onboarding group, we had to do those assignments at the end of the week. And part of my assignment, I read from a poem that says we are more alike than we are unalike. And I just remember, learning so much about people in general, from Mercy Ships, like culturally, but also just personality wise. I always knew that I wanted to reflect Jesus in everything that I said and did, but I think sometimes I forget and forgot how you can do that in the simplest of ways. And when I made the decision to transition out of Mercy Ships, that was the thing that came up the most in my talks with all my coworkers, it was how I showed Jesus in my character, I guess you could say. And I don’t mean to say that as a flex though, if you are going to flex, Jesus is probably the best thing. But it definitely changed how I lived my life in terms of how I look at each day and how I approach it.
Raeanne:
Wow, some powerful life lessons that really translate into any job that you’ll ever have.
Michelle:
Yeah definitely.
Raeanne:During your five years at Mercy Ships, you obviously got to meet so many people helping all this crew that we know is ever changing. New crew come and go all the time. And as you’re encouraging this new crew and helping them with their finances. Was there anyone or any group of people that stood out to you or impacted you?
Michelle:
I remember two different ones specifically, the first one being in our onboarding group. We had our friend Allison that was there. And she worked at the ISC with us, and she actually met her husband who would had been on the show came to the ISC or to our Global Center. And he worked there for a time while the Global Mercy was being finished. And they met and they fell in love. And then they came to the Global Mercy together. And so that was really cool watching that love story happen right in front of my eyes. And then getting to help them walk through the fundraising process kind of on a professional and a personal level, that was a really cool and sweet season to walk through with them. And then they walked through some other tough seasons that Mercy Ships walked through them with as well. And just being able to see how that all progressed was really a testament to God’s goodness, and just something that I was really happy to be a part of.
And then another one that I could think of, and I can’t recall his name, but he was one of our African crew. And he was one of those that started off with no money in his bank account and through coaching, and he learned how to use his crew crowdfunding page. And he was able to self-fund his trip to Mercy Ships for his first six months there. And then while he was there, he made friends on the ship that paid for him to stay another six months. And then he’s there for a year. And then he qualified for the financial support program that we had. And even though he qualified for the program, and he could have stopped fundraising at that point, which a lot of the people would do, he kept it up. And when I left, he had been there for two and a half years and was still doing all of that he’s still fundraising. He was teaching other African crew members how to do that. And I remember thinking we don’t we didn’t give him enough credit. Because when we talked about him in the beginning, we were like, I don’t know how he’s going to do it. I did not have the confidence in him that he had in God. And he sure proved me wrong.
Raeanne:
Wow, that is really cool. We actually spoke with a young man from Sierra Leone a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, and he had a similar story where he didn’t have the money. And he said, Wait, what I have to pay to work here. He goes, I’m African, we get paid to work, you know. But in his story, he mentioned that there was another person on board that he befriended who paid his crew fees, and helped him out was so amazing. I love that, that God is big enough, He’s going to provide right if he wants someone there, He’s going to provide, which brings up a really interesting point. There’s probably a lot of people who shy away from coming and volunteering with Mercy Ships, because of the finances, you know, that you have to pay to go. And a lot of people are really hesitant to fundraise, they feel, I don’t know, embarrassed. It’s hard to ask people for money. And it’s a really uncomfortable thing. So, dealing with that a lot. How do you encourage people through their fundraising? And what would you say to people listening right now who are thinking, I’d love to go, but I don’t want to raise support.
Michelle:
I think something that we said a lot while I was at Mercy Ships is that not everybody can go to a ship in Africa. But they can go with you. And they can go with you in their prayers, and they can go with you in their finances. And that is some people’s calling is they can’t physically go, but they can bless you with finances. And so, you not giving them the opportunity takes away their blessing as well. And a no is not a rejection. If someone can’t give you $500, but they can give you $5, God can multiply that. Or you tell the church that you’re going to, and you get up there and you make a huge speech about it. And you have one person give you money that day, that person might call Mercy Ships the next day and put in donate $1,000 anonymously to you, you never know who you’re impacting. Or they might go home and tell Aunt Betty that they talked about this missionary at church today. And she was like, oh, I always wanted to go to Guinea, or Sierra Leone, or wherever we are at that at the time and call and pay for your crew fees for a year. So, you never know who’s listening to your story and who you’re impacting. And you never know what they have to offer. Just like you don’t want anyone to discredit what you have to offer. You don’t want to take away someone else’s opportunity to be a part of the mission in that way.
Raeanne:
That is so true. And we experienced that firsthand. You know, as a family of five, we had to raise support for five people. And I’ll never forget, it was our last Sunday at our sending church. And we still had a gap that we hadn’t raised yet. And my husband got up and we did a presentation about Mercy Ships. And it was the day that our church was commissioning us and praying over us and we showed like a little three minute video of Mercy Ships. Well, across the street from our church is a university and about the time that we were having this service, the students were wrapping up their school year and so parents were on campus helping move kids back home or what have you. And some of those parents were in church that Sunday with our college students. So, my husband makes the presentation and then our missions pastor got up and said, hey, you know what, let’s help close the gap, you know, for this family to go overseas as we send them out, there was a man from Chicago, who was visiting his daughter at the university. I never met him, we had never met his daughter either. And he was so moved by the Holy Spirit during that presentation that he wrote us a check for $10,000, and then left. My husband actually had to ask our missions pastor, who was that and then chase him down in the parking lot to say, thank you. But you just never know, you never know. And it’s so true what you said that some people that is their calling, is to give, and why would we rob them of that opportunity?
Michelle:
Absolutely. I remember, the first time that I went to Africa, it wasn’t with Mercy Ships. It was many, many years ago. But I was a youth leader at the time, and I had a gap as well. And we were just at Pizza Inn or something. And I was talking to my youth pastor and telling him about the gap and things like that. And I remember one of my eighth-grade boys walked up and handed me $5. And that touched my heart so much, but then all of his friends 5,6,7 people all took $5 out of their pocket, all these little high school and junior high boys. And we’re like here, Michelle $5. So by the time I left that day, I was $100, closer to my gap. And that meant more to me than if, you know, the church had written me $1,000 check because those people, they sacrifice their lunch money for me to go do this, you know. And I know the Lord bless them for that, like, I know that they remember that they helped me go to Africa, so that you never know who you’re going to impact.
Raeanne:
Yeah, absolutely. You just really never know. You never know how God is going to move in the hearts of others. And there’s even a passage in the Bible that says you have not because you asked not. But I think even more than that, it’s inviting people in to go with you to come alongside you and go with you. And I am so grateful for you, Michelle and the work that you did with Mercy Ships to encourage crew and that difficult financial aspect of getting to the ship and I love that there’s a team that continues that work. So, thank you so much for using the gift of encouragement that God has given you. And thanks for sharing with us a little bit of Your Mercy Ships journey today.
Michelle:
Thank you so much for having me. It was my joy to serve with Mercy Ships and my joy to be here today.
Raeanne:
If you want to give to the mission of Mercy Ships and help support the crew that go volunteer, you can give at mercyships.org. Come back next week to hear from Cameroonian Martha Ashu and her incredible Mercy Ships journey that has taken her to many countries and helped shape her future.
For more information about Mercy Ships, go to mercyships.org, and to keep up with the guests on New Mercies, follow us on Instagram at NewMerciesPodcast.