  Frequently
Asked Questions
- Who is Mission Management
and Consultants, LLC?
- Who does Mission Management
represent?
- To whom does Mission
Management represent churches, Christian schools, and ministries?
- What does Mission Management
do for churches, Christian schools, and ministries?
- What are some of the
advantages of using Mission Management versus a local bank or
singe-source church lender?
- Why should a church,
Christian school, or ministry use MMC as opposed to seeking
a mortgage loan on its own?
- What harm does it cause
for the church to seek funding on its own first and retain Mission
Management only if it is unsuccessful in that funding quest?
- Is there such a thing
as a “bad loan” if it gets the church building funded?
- When can our organization
begin?
- What can our church
organization do to better improve its financial position?
- Should our church do
an in-house stewardship campaign or retain the services of a
professional stewardship company?
- What Stewardship Company
does Mission Management recommend?
- How does Mission Management
get financing when many others fail?
- Can we use our own
bank for the loan?
- How long does the loan
process take once we begin?
- How can you obtain
a loan commitment so quickly?
Who is Mission Management
and Consultants, LLC?
Mission Management is a mortgage banker made
up of Christian bankers, professionals of various disciplines,
businessmen and women, and pastors or other ministry-gifted people
with a passion to secure the very best rates, terms and conditions
for churches as they seek mortgage funding.
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Who does Mission Management
represent?
Mission Management represents only churches,
Christian schools, and ministries.
A Christian organization is defined as one that
believes that Jesus Christ is deity (God), that He came to earth
as a man, that He died a sacrificial death on the cross at Calvary
for the remission of our sins, that he was buried and arose from
the dead on the third day, and that He is seated at the right-hand
of the Father today.
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To whom does Mission
Management represent churches, Christian schools, and ministries?
Mission Management represents churches, schools
and ministries to commercial banks, other financial lending
institutions, and alternative lending sources to secure
the very best terms, rates and conditions on mortgage loans for
its church clients. We have national, regional and local relationships
and with our extensive relationships in the commercial lending
world, we are positioned to negotiate at the senior level for
your church loan to get the very best rates, terms and conditions!
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What does Mission Management
do for churches, Christian schools, and ministries?
Mission Management becomes your organization’s
exclusive in-house mortgage banker and financial counsel.
MMC counsels the church on the five elements of successful financing
including:
- Gathering the financial records and data
and analyzing the risks
- Formatting the funding request package into
an effective and professional request that gets the loan needed
at the price pre-set by MMC
- Determine the market
- Negotiating the terms and conditions of the
loan to ensure that the church gets the very best terms, rates
and conditions and that the church will have the flexibility
it needs for future financing as the church grows.
- Timing the process to secure funding earlier
than the church organization would be able on its own
Further, MMC actually performs the five steps
for the church in a professional manner that places the church’s
funding request in high esteem among commercial lending sources,
thus securing the very best terms, rates and conditions available
to the church client.
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What are some of the
advantages of using Mission Management versus a local bank or
singe-source church lender?
Borrowing money (buying the use of capital)
is like purchasing any other kind of commodity. The price is set
by supply and demand. When the church injects serious competition
into the loan process, the church gets better rates. When the
church makes a strong first-time impression and has all of its
request properly documented, stated and structured, it will be
in a stronger negotiating position. Since bankers have their own
culture, the church needs somebody that “speaks bank”.
One of the greatest challenges for churches is that churches speak
“church” and the borrower and lender often “lose
something in the translation”. That failure of communication
often results in poor rates and terms for the church or denial
of the loan request altogether.
Since Mission Management becomes your organization’s
in-house banker and financial counsel, we present the church in
the manner that banks understand. We speak “bank”.
Recognizing the uniqueness of churches and ministries from for-profit
organizations, we educate the bank on how churches operate in
a manner bankers can relate. We pre-underwrite the request
ensuring that the loan package and request is professional, organized
and structured in a viable manner, comprehensive, concise, and
obtainable.
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Why should a church,
Christian school, or ministry use MMC as opposed to seeking a
mortgage loan on its own?
Understanding church finance is a specialty
and a science. In our experience, many churches and Christian
ministries have goodhearted and properly motivated boards made
up of volunteers and church staff. Most of these individuals have
never negotiated or obtained a million dollar or more loan, especially
in a commercial loan setting. These committees simply lack the
proper expertise, understanding, knowledge or skills to “do
battle” with commercial lending institutions.
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What harm does it cause
for the church to seek funding on its own first and retain Mission
Management only if it is unsuccessful in that funding quest?
First, lack of proper documentation, structure
and presentation can effect whether the funding request is granted.
What is difficult for the church community to sometimes understand
is once a lending institution turns down a funding application
it takes a position on that church that is usually final.
Second, once the church has “shopped”
its loan request to two or three banks, word gets out that the
funding request is being denied and creates an atmosphere among
lenders that leads to further rejection.
Finally, just like with personal credit requests,
the church gets one chance to make an impression with lenders
and that impression generally determines whether the credit or
loan will be granted, and what the rates, terms and conditions
of that credit or loan will be.
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Is there such a thing
as a “bad loan” if it gets the church building funded?
Absolutely! Mission Management spends a great
deal of effort helping churches recover from bad loans. Church-minded
people are generally experienced in buying a home and obtaining
a home mortgage. Few have obtained commercial loans. In the home
loan setting, there are many federal and state safeguards to protect
the consumer. In the commercial lending arena—the church
loan arena—it is buyer beware!
One common loan “crisis” we often
encounter is something called the “Interest Swap”,
which is a form of a derivative product designed to benefit the
bank—it rarely benefits the church. Two major problems exist
with “Interest Swap” funding packages—first,
there are few “derivative specialists” in the banking
world and none in the church world. Second, the Interest Swap
virtually locks the church into a bad loan and prevents refinancing
and future church growth for the duration of the contract. The
sole purpose for these derivative products is to permit the bank
to hedge against increased interest rates on church loans. While
that can be argued as an “upside” if it secures the
loan, the downside is far too severe for most growing churches.
The interest swap requires extremely large
“breakage fees” often in the range of ten (10%) percent
or more of the remaining loan! When the church asks, “Is
there a prepayment penalty associated with this loan?” a
bank loan representative can honestly say “No” because
the “breakage fee” is not a prepayment penalty. Further,
the language associated with these vicious contracts is so difficult
to understand that many church lawyers just “sign off”.
Banks count on that.
Finally, without experience and banking knowledge,
negotiating out of the Interest Swap is generally unsuccessful.
It takes tremendous clout and loan options for the church to navigate
these dangerous waters. Mission Management routinely navigates
around these derivatives.
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When can our organization
begin?
The church can generally begin immediately once
it completes and submits the MMC one-page or on-line survey. Our
analysis will determine the amount the church can qualify for
and the amount it can afford.
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What can our church
organization do to better improve its financial position?
Stewardship and capital building campaigns are
very important in the area of church financing. A poor campaign
can damage the church emotionally and its ability to service church
debt, while an excellent campaign can bring a church together
as a team with sacrificial giving for the Kingdom of God. Properly
planned and executed stewardship campaigns are vital to the funding
process because they reduce the risk for the lenders and provide
an additional means of servicing the mortgage debt.
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Should our church do
an in-house stewardship campaign or retain the services of a professional
stewardship company?
In our experience, most in-house stewardship
campaigns fall short of the potential and often lead to internal
problems among members of the congregation.
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What Stewardship Company
does Mission Management recommend?
Mission Management has worked with churches
around the country in various stages of stewardship, whether in-house
or through one of dozens of stewardship companies designed to
help churches raise money. Our consistent experience is there
are only a few companies that perform with such excellence that
Mission Management can “bank” on and we are able to
leverage the campaigns in the early stages to increase the amount
of loan the church may obtain. Please contact us and we will be
happy to refer you to the best stewardship company based on your
needs.
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How does Mission Management
get financing when many others fail?
We obtain such excellent results for three primary
reasons:
- We have twenty-five years of mortgage and
banking experience, securing loans as large as $120,000,000,
along with our experience in loan audit and compliance—we
speak bank!
- We have the clout through the volume of loan
business we bring into the marketplace so that we can dictate
the very best terms, rates and conditions for our clients
- We have the personal and professional relationships
necessary to present the church’s case before national,
regional and community lending sources as well as with alternative
funding sources as the need may arise.
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Can we use our own
bank for the loan?
In many cases, the church can use its local
banker to secure the loan. Mission Management believes in strong,
healthy banking relationships and wants to enhance rather than
destroy those relationships between the church and its local banking
friends. MMC goes through its normal process, markets the loan
and obtains funding commitments, and then returns to your local
banker and permits him/her to meet the rates, terms and conditions
of our best offer. The banker appreciates that he/she got the
business and the church appreciates that it continues and strengthens
its community relationships, while being good stewards in keeping
down the cost of church funding.
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How long does the loan
process take once we begin?
After your church organization submits the signed
contract and application fee, we begin immediately. Once the church
has gathered all of the requested documentation in proper form
necessary for MMC to complete the underwriting and loan package,
it is Mission Management’s goal to have one or more loan
commitments in the shortest amount of time possible. It all will
depend on the condition and accuracy of the documentation.
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How can you obtain
a loan commitment so quickly?
We do the underwriting for the lender. We have
analyzed the risk, identified the market, and structured the loan
for acceptance. We have done all of the work for the lender, using
our twenty-five years of mortgage and banking experience plus
audit and compliance experience to present the most professional
and comprehensive package most lenders ever see.
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