Epic Ablaze! money fail, by Mollie

We’ve discussed before how poorly Ablaze! has done according to its own rigid counting criteria. We’re supposed to Gospel touch 100 million people by 2017 and are less than 10 percent of the way to the goal — even though 1/3 of the time has already elapsed.

Well that’s NOTHING compared to the fundraising arm of Ablaze! As of the end of the last fiscal year, Fan Into Flame! had raised a grand total of $14,885,950 in the bank. They have more pledges — in fact, they claim over $31 million in pledges — but that’s the grand total of actual funds raised.

Not bad you say? Well, guess how much it cost to raise that money. A whopping . . .

$10,043,041

Which means that we’ve cleared all of $4.8 million. Ouch.

The LCMS spent $2.1 million on fundraising CONSULTANTS alone in 2007. Which is actually $600,000 more than it costs to run KFUO-AM for an entire year.

Many of us have problems with the poor theology underlying Ablaze! But everyone has to have problems with the financial and administrative mismanagement on display.

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