Organizational FAQs

1. Meet the Need is a Christian ministry, not just a charity… our goal is to mobilize more people to demonstrate God’s love to others through acts of service.
2. Meet the Need works primarily with and through churches, ministries and missionary organizations. We are essentially an outreach service provider to churches and ministries, equipping them with software, tools and support to help them reach those they want to impact, locally or across the globe.
3. With most volunteer recruiting sites, you’re competing for volunteers and resources with education, arts, sciences and other secular charitable organizations. However, with Meet the Need you’re not competing with non-ministry causes because we are a ministry organization ourselves – so we only allow needs to be posted by Christian organizations like yours. Best of all, because churches and church members are our primary base of users, you’re reaching an audience that cares about ministry causes and are called to get involved in outreach by the Great Commission.
4. Meet the Need is not just an automated connection of individuals to organizations. We also have a full-time staff that provides services to support the outreach efforts of your church or ministry, like taking calls from those in need and following up on pending (i.e. not yet completed) donations.

With Meet the Need, anyone can give but every need must be met through a Christian “conduit”. If someone wants to give to a family but has not been confirmed as a member of a church or ministry that is registered with Meet the Need, then they can only give “through” a local church or ministry, not directly to the family. That approach has the added benefit of exposing those donors to local churches and ministries. Anyone registered under a church or ministry that is registered with Meet the Need may choose to connect directly with families in need.

As soon as someone registers under the name of your church or ministry, you will see them show up as a "Pending Member" on your organization's Dashboard when you log in. If they are in your database, you can automatically confirm their affiliation with your organization by changing the status of that "Pending Member" from Pending to Approved. As soon as you do, that individual will instantly see any needs you have posted for volunteer opportunities, missions opportunities or local families on their individual Dashboards when they log in to their account (either on MeetTheNeed.org or on your own web site if you decide to Run Meet the Need Through Your Web Site). Making them "Approved Members" will also let them opt to give items or services directly to local families if they so choose (we only give "Approved Members" of registered churches the ability to meet needs of local families themselves… that way there's always a Christian "conduit" delivering the goods or services).

You can view and update a wide variety of need and donation activity through your organization’s private “Dashboard” at My Account on MeetTheNeed.org, including:

• Your profile and primary contact information
• The status of needs of your own organization
• The status of needs of local families
• The status of needs of any missionaries you may have
• The outreach activities of any individuals or groups within your organization (e.g. Bible Study groups, Women’s groups, etc.) that are using Meet The Need
• Easily create a “Help Someone in Need” section of your very own web site complete with Meet the Need’s database, search engine, software and all other functionality… and it will look like you built all of that yourself!

No. Your organizational and personal information is only used to administer the Meet the Need program. We do not disseminate, distribute, sell or otherwise share your information with other organizations without your consent. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy.

Meet The Need is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Public Charity whose purpose is to mobilize the Christian community to reach out to those in need in their local communities or across the globe in the name of Jesus Christ. As a member of Meet the Need, we offer you a wide range of services and benefits, including our 24x7 call center to take calls from families in need in your area, forums for you to discuss best practices and lessons learned for doing local outreach with other pastors and ministry leaders, planning assistance for mobilizing your "members", and of course full access to the Meet the Need outreach platform.

As a Not-For-Profit Membership Organization, we ask for your help in covering the costs of providing you with a state-of-the-art solution that would be much more expensive in the for-profit world:

• Churches – We charge modest Membership Dues to Churches to join Meet the Need once their memberships are approved.
• Ministries – There are no Membership Dues for ministries to post volunteer and resource needs for churches, ministries and individual users to see, but we ask that they consider making a donation to help cover the costs of administering Meet the Need.
• Outreach Events – Meet the Need will discuss requirements with event coordinators and base Membership Dues on the degree of customization needed for the event.
• Church Groups/Teams – Teams within a church that is a member of Meet the Need are automatically granted full Membership status at no charge once they are activated by that church.

We do not want the cost of Meet the Need to impede ANYONE from being part of this global effort to mobilize the Christian community to meet the needs of those less fortunate!

No, it is not our intention to ask your members, volunteers or anyone else associated with your church or ministry to donate money to Meet the Need. Although Meet the Need is a 501(c)3 Public Charity and can accept tax deductible public contributions, we do not solicit funds from individuals who use Meet the Need. Our philosophy is that we don’t want those who give THROUGH Meet the Need to give TO Meet the Need. Instead, we want them to focus on continuing to use Meet the Need to give to others.

In addition to Membership Dues from churches and events using Meet the Need, it is funded by donations from a select group of individuals and foundations that believe in our mission and feel called to support this ministry.

Meet the Need was an idea that started in 2000 when its founder, Jim Morgan, was working as a strategist for a Dot Com consulting firm. As a Christian, he wondered how the power of the Internet could be leveraged for a ministry purpose rather than just as a money-making or money-raising tool. God gave him an inspired thought… rather than people shopping for what they want to buy on the web, why can’t they “shop” for someone who needs what they want to give away! Through one-to- one connections, donors could not only help meet physical needs but spiritual needs as well. And the rest, as they say, is history. A local ministry based on that principal was launched 2 years later in the Tampa area as a pilot and Meet the Need was launched in 2008 after three years of additional design, development and, most importantly, prayer!