Every YWAM worker, including the founder, Loren Cunningham, raises enough funds to meet his or her own financial needs. For most people in YWAM, these funds come from friends, family and churches who contribute financially. Other YWAMers rely on their own savings, part-time jobs, foreign employment, and small businesses or even--in the case of some of our older staff--pension income.

YWAM has purposely chosen to emphasize personal support raising as the primary means of funding for our staff. Although we recognize there are many other valid ways of financing ministry, the way we have chosen is based on Biblical principles and has enabled us to include tens of thousands of people each year from over 180 countries in the task of fulfilling the Great Commission.

It's also a financial model that enables many important ministries to exist in our world today. Just as the staff of a church or a community service organization relies on donations to pay their salary, so our staff also rely on financial partners to meet their financial needs.

We believe, and have experienced over and over, that personal support raising provides many benefits to our staff. It often creates a close bond between the financial partner and the worker on the field, it helps our workers experience God's faithfulness in tangible ways, and when combined with a commitment to pray as well as to give, it provides powerful teamwork that results in encouragement for our workers and supernatural blessing on our ministries.