This past Sunday, I had the privilege of baptizing seven of our TREK Program participants. During the baptismal service, one parent – a proclaimed atheist – made the decision to accept Jesus as his personal Savior. To God be the glory! Our clients and program participants are experiencing salvation, deliverance, healing, and transformation through their participation in the ministry and treatment services programs at HopeQuest; TREK, InStep, Walking Free, Journey, One Way, and our Successful Living Seminars.
The financial pressure related to the cost of this ministry has been overwhelming. As a result, I have led us to change our business model to increase program fee revenues for clients who are able to pay for intensive treatment services. However, we have still maintained scholarship options for those who are experiencing legitimate financial difficulties, along with a sliding scale fee based on a person’s income level. Click here to visit the website and read the letter where I announced this change. I have also led us to reconsider the way we budget for the costs of ministry operations at HopeQuest.
In the past, we limited our operating budget to a total dollar amount I felt we could successfully raise the funds to underwrite – regardless of whether or not the resulting budget plan truly reflected what was actually needed to make the ministry work. Today we’re more realistically planning for dollars required to provide for the actual number of tent poles we must have in order to hold up the existing ministry tent that God has entrusted us with. As the leader of our ministry organization, I have led us to make these two very strategic changes in the way we think about and plan for the cost of the ministry programs at HopeQuest. I believe such changes will in fact help us to continue making much needed and very effective helps available to people who are being ravaged by addiction and co-related, co-occurring, and dual-diagnosis mental health issues.
One other area where we’ve had to make a strategic change is in the area of advertising. As a smaller ministry organization, we have always been able to avoid the cost of advertising by depending primarily on a word-of-mouth marketing strategy which worked because of our unique relationship with Woodstock First Baptist Church and the large number of people who talk about their awareness of the ministry programs at HopeQuest. As our ministry organization has grown, it has become increasingly difficult to survive with the inconsistent levels of client participation that has resulted from a word-of-mouth only marketing strategy. In addition, other organizations – which do not provide the same level of Christian based professional services as HopeQuest – are advertising consistently and frequently on Christian radio. The absence of a similar voice for HopeQuest further impacts our ability to be a present option for people to consider as they deal with their search for Christian based professional intensive residential recovery treatment options. Because the metro-Atlanta area FM stations are so expensive, we have tried to avoid this medium. However, realizing it to be a necessity, we were able to negotiate a rate with The Fish 104.7 FM (Salem Communications Network) to have 9 commercials (one per hour on Sundays between 6 AM and 3 PM) on both their AM and FM stations. We are already receiving a number of inquiries resulting from people hearing the advertisements.
To accomplish the same goal in areas outside of the metro-Atlanta area (click here to see the geographical map highlighting the international impact being made at HopeQuest) we have followed in the footsteps of other successful ministries we highly respect – such as Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family – by launching a daily 15-minute radio outreach program – Just Ask Roy. Click here to visit the website and listen to previously aired programs and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. Through this AM radio medium, which we were able to get at an incredibly affordable package allowing us to expand our outreach efforts to five major cities: AM station WBXR in Huntsville, Alabama; AM station WELP in Greenville, South Carolina; AM station WWNL in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; AM station KCNW in Kansas City, Kansas; and AM station KLNG in Omaha, Nebraska. It is my prayer that this syndicated program will offer hope and encouragement to many while making much needed resources available to people by directing them to the ministry program and professional service offerings available to them at The HopeQuest Ministry Group, Inc.
This year, we are continuing our involvement with the Georgia Association of Residential Recovery (GARR) homes and the National Association of Residential Recovery (NARR) homes, both associational organizations being focused on raising the standards along with state and federal regulatory requirements regarding organizations involved in providing residential recovery programs and professional treatment services. We have been blessed that both organizations have chosen to recognize our level of excellence and standards in ministry and professional work through asking us to be involved in associational executive leadership.
Throughout 2012, we will continue to make Christ known in the professional mental health and addiction treatment communities as we are involved as a sponsor, lecturer, and conference exhibitor (marketing HopeQuest). It has been my experience so far that the professional community really doesn’t think that Christian and church related organizations can be effective in mental health and addiction treatment work. The quizzical and skeptical inquiries we get concerning the combination of “professional” and “ministry” is quite interesting. It is likely that the staff at HopeQuest will become leaders in the pioneering effort of bridging the gap between the medical professional community, the mental health professional community, the addiction treatment professional community, and the religious based (not all of them are Christian) recovery discipleship programs. It will be another interesting and effectual year! It is a necessary involvement if HopeQuest is to continue growing and become a respected participant in the professional intensive treatment community.
We have initiated the process of obtaining organizational accreditation by The Joint Commission (Click here to learn more about the accrediting organization). Last year during our marketing efforts at the National Conference on Addiction Disorders (NCAD), I was able to to meet and discuss this process with Dr. Mary Cesare-Murphy, the Executive Director of the Behavioral Health division of The Joint Commission organization. She was very accommodating and helpful as we spent much time together helping me to understand the process of achieving this organizational goal. Once we accomplish this, we will have everything we need in place organizationally to begin accepting insurance company reimbursements as a form of client fee payment.
Finally, everything within us is praying that we’ll be able to launch our major gifts emphasis this spring, hopefully by April 1st. The Cherokee County Planning and Zoning Board has approved the overall direction of our campus site master plan. It is imperative that we continue with this planning process and raise the funds to begin the development of our own campus facilities. We are literally busting at the seams in our currently leased spaces. In addition, we must plan for the spaces needed to train professionals and ministry leaders who desire to adopt the HopeQuest model and replicate components of our ministry programs in other areas.
Our overall budget requirements for the year totals $1,590,000 ($132,500 monthly) and includes only those things that the Board of Directors and I have worked to understand as necessary expenditures to accommodate the ministry work. I am grateful for the many professional Christian men and women (medical doctors, therapists, psychologists, nurses, etc.) who participate in the HopeQuest mission by donating their services. Otherwise this budget would be larger.
With all the Lord is leading us to embrace in 2012, I am praying for many to rise up to the task of funding this great work through consistent sacrificial gifts to underwrite the operating budget. In addition, I am outlining some of the key projects that our partners in hope might review in prayerful consideration of how to support this work. It is the Lord’s ministry, the Lord’s vision, and it will require the Lord’s people to pull together if we are to continue in the unfolding of this worldwide vision of making a difference for Jesus Christ.
Here are some immediate needs we have:
- $3,500.00 to replace the 10-year old mattresses in our client residential spaces. These mattresses were used when we received them and have served us well for a long time. However, they must be replaced.
- $5,000.00 to repair the septic tank in our current women’s residence. We’ve had to pump the tank three times now at approximately eleven day intervals. The environmental folks tell me that the field lines are stopped up and must be replaced. This work is scheduled to take place on Monday, January 23, 2012.
- $3,000.00 to cover the cost of the consultant who is helping us with our standards and compliance review regarding accreditation project.
- $26,400.00 to cover the annual cost ($2,200 monthly) of our daily fifteen minute AM station radio program as outlined above.
- $25,920.00 to cover the annual cost ($2,160 monthly) of our weekly commercial spots (Sundays 6 AM – 3 PM) on The Fish – AM and 104.7 FM – stations.
- $7,000.00 to cover the materials for renovating an unused building on our campus so it will be suitable and accommodating for administrative and ministry work.
- $4,500.00 to cover the cost of replacing an Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system.
- $10,000.00 to cover the cost of a commercial software package for system data backups. As a standard of practice, I personally build all of our information technology server solutions and most of our workstation/desktop solutions from donated hardware and open-source (no-cost) software solutions (other than the highly discounted things we purchase through Microsoft’s charitable organization discount program). I also develop our internal software applications such as our Electronic Health Records (EHR) system and collaborative [team] budget planning system. As a result, we have a very sophisticated enterprise level network computing and software application environment at literally no cost. However, we are at a place where we need to procure a commercial backup solution for organizational data. It’s just one of those things we cannot build on our own.
- $4,000.00 to cover the cost of upgrading the one MAC system and Adobe Master Collection CS5.5 – needed in our marketing department to support our above mentioned advertising efforts, website development, radio programs, and etc.
- $1,500.00 to cover the cost of our participation in the Georgia School of Addictions Studies Conference (GSAS).
- $1,500.00 to cover the cost of our participation in the Georgia Addiction Counselors Association (GACA).
- $3,500 to cover the cost of our participation in the National Association of Addiction Treatment Professionals (NAATP).
- $32,960.00 to cover the annual cost of our organizational insurances: general liability; professional liability; umbrella liability coverage; auto coverages; directors and officers liability coverage; workman’s compensation insurance; and etc.
- $10,000.00 to cover the cost of printing a professionally designed organizational ministry information packet with components usable for prospective donors, prospective clients, professional partners who are interested in referring clients to us, and interest we receive at conference exhibits. It is a necessary tool and we have reached a point where not having it available is impacting our ability to present ourselves as the professional organization that we are.
- $18,000.00 ($1,500.00 Monthly) to cover the cost of a consistent monthly newsletter focused on: 1) keeping our ministry partners informed, and 2) furthering the interest of prospective donors as we work toward their involvement as partners-in-hope.
- $15,000.00 to cover the cost of reprinting three major products we use in our outpatient accountability, support, and counseling group efforts: the Building for Freedom workbook; the Journey I workbook; the Journey II workbook; and the Twelve2Life workbook.
- $8,436 to cover the cost of staff development for select employees who are charter staff members of The HopeQuest Ministry Group, Inc. organization and it’s flagship program: TREK. The staff development is directed towards advancing the employees level of certification regarding their work in the professional addiction treatment context.
- $9,780.00 to cover the cost of providing the Successful Living Seminar: Friends & Family – a family (and other close relationship) group counseling and educational event provided every other month for clients and families who are participating in the residential and non-residential intensive treatment programs.
- $14,000.00 to cover the cost of one participant in the 90-day TREK Program (residential intensive treatment service ministry program) and its following 180-day Continuing-Care post-intensive phase follow-up program. The bottom line is that the organization’s scholarship committee can only make the scholarship available for someone with a legitimate financial hardship if the funds are available.
These listed projects total up to $203,496. It is my prayer that we will raise this money and set it aside in order to be assured that these strategic projects can be funded to a point of completion this year and without interruption. Please pray with me toward this end and please prayerfully consider how the Lord Jesus may be leading you and your family to be involved.
I look forward to sharing with you soon about some other exciting things that are happening as we all continue together in making a difference for Jesus in the lives of people who are in need of redemption, deliverance, healing, and life transformation.
Your brother and co-laborer in Christ,
Rev. Roy A. Blankenship, MAMFT, LPC, CCADC, BCCC
Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer
The HopeQuest Ministry Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2699
Woodstock, Georgia 30188
Website: www.hqmg.org
Phone: (678) 391-5950
Email: Roy.Blankenship@hopequestgroup.org
