hi I’m Tim Walterbach with Inspiring Better Businesses thank you for joining us this afternoon I’ll be talking about an acronym that I developed to help people identify how they might get ready to receive investors attract investors to your business or attract donors to a nonprofit this is originally developed for nonprofits I was tasked with by a foundation to review ministries and businesses that were seeking funding from us and I I watched a faithful giver and saw that some people got funding and others went away empty-handed and I began to ask the question from this man who had a lot of influence and had the gift of giving and watched him for three and a half years and tried to determine why did some people get money and others didn’t there was a acronym that developed FA vor that that identified five words faithfulness accountability vision organization and return on investment I’m going to talk a little bit about faithfulness first I’ll use this gentleman I work for as an example he he had been entrusted with great wealth because I believe he was faithful in the little things started in fifth grade for him he made little creepy crawlers those of you that were children during the sixties and seventies might remember creepy crawlers but he’d make those take him to school sell them and he gives the money to missions early on he had a clear vision of what he wanted to do to be a giver then as he got a little older he I started buying cars and selling them and to pay his own way through college and always made sure that he had a car available for any missionary that might need transportation while they were back in town grew that business and that led to the next business with led to the next business but he was the point was he was faithful in small things the definition for faithfulness someone who is demonstrates the ability to use all available resources to its full potential so as I watched the different people that approached this for funding I remember one story that might illustrate this as good as any this man happened to be a friend of mine that approached us to get some funding for a football field he had a dream to have a inner-city football league and he laid it all out he had great vision laid it all out what he was going to do if he just had the money for this vision we thought about it considered it and you know he had a hit an inside man in there but I found I couldn’t pull for him as strong as I’d like to I mean his vision was great but there was one thing lacking faithfulness he didn’t have a track record we didn’t know if if we entrusted him with the $200,000 that he was requesting to build football fields we didn’t know that that was gonna be a waste of our money or not there was no track record there so we had another man very interestingly come in right after that and he shared with us his vision to reach inner-city kids through sports through football and he told us how he went to the local college worked at a deal where he could use their football fields when they weren’t in use and he had already started his ministry to these inner-city kids see this was someone who is demonstrating the ability to use all available resources to their full of potential guess where what and he was requesting $15,000 not the to hundreds of guests who got our money and who was the it was the the guy that could do it for 15 and was already doing it there’s a there’s a principal who then is faithful and a wise servant whom his master has made ruler over his household to give them food in due season see there’s a there’s a test out there will you be faithful with what you have if you’re faithful over a little then you’ll be made a ruler over much so that’s a biblical principle but it’s also true in the natural if you’re trying to attract a bank or an investor and you know a bank is gonna want to see they’re not going to give you money for a dream a startup unless you have a lot of collateral and even at that they probably won’t they want to see a level of faithfulness that you can go in and say this is what I’ve done with what I have I’ve taken the resources that were available to me and I use them all my available resources to the fullest potential and I’ve been faithful over what little I have and this is a universal truth around the world and often as a businessman I would support ministries in different countries and I would often hear well we just don’t have those resources to start where you’re at and I said well I started off with a weed eater and started mowing lawns that led to a brush hog business that but the long woman had bought a tractor that led to money for a janitor company which I sold that then that led to money for a magazine that produced that magazine led to a develop becoming friends with a developer and I started building homes for him and built homes for the last 25 years but I could approach investors this house that I’m standing in I was able to approach an investor because of my faithfulness in the business because of my good standing in the community because of the buildings that I would develop because I could speak his language I he he could tell that I knew what I was talking about when I approached him and he had a level of comfort where he would loan money and partner up on the project like ISO where they were working with banks investors or business partners everybody wants to know have you gone as far as you can with what you have there’s I’ll end with a quote it was attributed to Henry for but I read a book about Edison recently a biography and it was attributed to him but whichever one they both had the same concept hustle why you wait they both worked with investors and they knew there’s this time to hustle while you wait to do what you can with what you have thank you