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On May 4, 2004, Alpha USA/Twin Cities held the organization's first Ask Event^™, "The Power to Transform," at a beautiful clubhouse of a local golf club. Marlin Meendering, Chair of the Alpha Partners Board, waited with the rest of the Alpha team for the official start time as their 225 guests were warmly greeted and settled at their tables. At precisely 7:30 a.m., after almost six months of preparation, planning, and occasional struggle, the Alpha USA/Twin Cities team was about to see whether their investment in the Benevon 101 Workshop was going to pay off.

It was back in December of 2003 that volunteers supporting the Twin Cities regional office of Alpha USA attended the Benevon 101 Workshop in Jacksonville, FL. At the time, the team members were in no way sure if the investment they were making was the wisest course of action. Marlin later admitted, "I remember our discussions before registering, and most of us really questioned whether it was wise to invest so much money in the workshop fee, especially when we really would be hard pressed to come up with it." Ultimately, they decided that the potential benefits of implementing a mission-based system for building sustainable funding from lifelong individual donors outweighed the risk of investing the money.

The biggest challenge always facing the Alpha USA/Twin Cities team was finding time for fundraising. "We're all volunteers who are very busy in our own lives, jobs, and ministries," Marlin points out. In fact, 98% of Alpha USA is run by volunteers, and "none of us really knew how to do a good job of raising money for a ministry that we are passionate about, and nobody wanted to go down the path of arm-twisting, begging, etc. We wanted to be able to re-envision fundraising as a life-long, sustainable process and not as a one-time or series of events type of process." The Alpha USA/Twin Cities team was ready for what the 101 Workshop had to offer, and they were relieved to find a reliable system to that would effectively structure their fundraising efforts. They experienced their biggest breakthroughs in the areas of teamwork, structure, new ways of thinking, and in finding a voice that "has empowered us to spread the vision and mission of Alpha without having our 'hand out' all the time."

When the team arrived back in the Twin Cities after Benevon 101, they immediately began implementing Point of Entry^® and Point of Entry Conversion Events. The Point of Entry format allowed them to use their new voice to powerfully share the mission of Alpha USA with their guests. The event begins with Alpha/Twin Cities' regional director, Margene Vessel, casting the vision for Alpha in the region, which includes her story about what motivates her to invest her life for and in Alpha's work. The Alpha USA/Twin Cities team then presents their guests with surprising facts and statistics that convey the need for Alpha, plus stories or interviews with people whose lives have been changed through the Alpha course. The POE concludes with an informal question/answer session where guests get a chance to not only ask questions, but also give suggestions and visit with both team members and other guests.

At these Point of Entry Events, they talk about Alpha USA's mission "to explore the validity and relevance of the Christian faith" in a way that is neither denominational nor pressuring, all in the span of an "informal, friendly" ten-week course. Alpha stresses that the background of the course member is not what is important; rather, what is important is their desire to explore the relevant questions of Christianity for today. Over the course of their work, the Alpha USA/Twin Cities team has had astonishing results. Though they deliver their Point of Entry Events to many people who have already been through the Alpha course, these people often had no idea that, as Marlin puts it, "the regional office has trained and supports more than 400 churches in Minnesota and beyond that run the Alpha course, and also helps churches get a course started."

The Alpha USA/Twin Cities team also set up a system to follow up within two days with their Point of Entry attendees, and the team was happy to learn that the Point of Entry Events really got their message across. Marlin explains that, "We use our friendly 'thank you' calls to invite suggestions/feedback and ask if they'd like to continue to be involved with Alpha regionally. As a result, the interest in Alpha's vision has risen. People seem to know more clearly what the regional office actually does, and how it is making a difference in people's lives."

The cultivation process steadily progressed, and soon the planned date of the first Alpha USA/Twin Cities Ask Event was just around the corner. As they prepared everything for the event, they found themselves challenged to "trust the model." Marlin remembers that originally, they were tempted to ignore the five-year pledge because some thought it "simply would not work in the Twin Cities marketplace. We had to keep reminding ourselves to 'follow the recipe.' We preach the same thing over and over again to the churches we train, so we had to keep reminding ourselves to follow the model." But whenever doubt crept in, their Benevon coach proved to be a source of reassurance. "Our coach really encouraged us to stay the course." With the guidance of their coach, the Alpha USA/Twin Cities team built a timeline and wrote and re-wrote each component of the event to emphasize the mission of Alpha USA at a regional level and the emotional impact of its work.

At 8:30 a.m. on May 4, 2004, the crowd filed out of "The Power to Transform" event. The event had gone flawlessly. When asked for his personal highlights of the event, Marlin recalls, "The video we used from the national office included a very powerful and direct statement from George Gallup of Gallup International about Alpha's power to transform. Margene's Visionary Leader talk clearly revealed how her life and ministry had been transformed due to Alpha, and the two people who were interviewed also made dramatic testimony of God's transforming power experienced through Alpha." The immediate response to the emotional power of the event was outstanding. "People were amazed that we got everyone fed and produced such a quality event in such a short amount of time." What remained was to open the envelopes and see if the event was as big a success financially as it was emotionally...and it was! In one hour, Alpha USA/Twin Cities raised $194,035 from 225 guests in gifts and pledges—more than four times what they had ever raised previously in one event.

Looking back on his team's initial fear to invest the money to take the Benevon 101 Workshop, Marlin now laughs and tells us, "That fee looks like the 'deal of a lifetime' in comparison to the money that [Benevon] empowered us to raise." But Marlin knows that the money raised from this one event is only a start. "To put it simply, it is not about the money, rather it is about the process of raising the money that excites us. [Benevon] provided us with an extremely effective model for raising more money than we ever imagined, so that we now can achieve our mission and dreams for Alpha in this region!"