Hope for
Writing the next chapter together
For 150 years, the people of Menlo Church have been investing in the future.
People who never knew your name made the investments that make Menlo Church possible today.
Now it’s our turn to make a difference in the Bay Area by investing in Menlo Church.
We’re launching an initiative called Hope for Everyone.
Hope for Everyone is a three-year, $80 million, one-fund capital investment campaign. This campaign will be a downpayment as we begin writing the next 150-year chapter of the Menlo Church story.
Let’s Dream Big for the Generations to Come.
There are two primary goals from November 2024 to October 2027.
100% Participation
We’re All In—Every Heart, Every Hand
Pray
Pray for Menlo Church as a whole and your campus specifically. Ask God to guide you in how you should be a part of Hope for Everyone.
Serve
There are many ways to serve as a part of the ongoing ministry of Menlo Church or with our ministry partners.
Commit
Come ready to make your commitment on Sunday, October 13 as we make our down payment on the next 150 years of Menlo Church.
$80 Million Dollars Raised
Invest in the future
For Menlo Church
The first investment target is $40 million ($13.3 million per ministry year) for Menlo Church.
This will support our ongoing ministry efforts where we consistently invite people to trust and follow Jesus.
Our Sunday services for all ages, support and recovery groups, visitation, premarital mentoring, students’ special events and camps, kids’ special events and camps, and all other ministry activities will be resourced by this part of Hope for Everyone.
For the Bay & Beyond
The second investment target is $10 million for the Bay and beyond.
We partner with over 75 organizations in the Bay Area and beyond to meet a wide range of needs from community development to humanitarian aid and spiritual outreach.
We have chosen partners who focus on fighting poverty and human trafficking, providing care for those struggling with mental health, church planting efforts, and crisis response. Through collaboration and partnership, we can effectively extend our reach and bring hope to those who need it most.
For the Future
The third investment target is $30 million for the future.
We currently rent the facilities where our San Mateo and Mountain View campuses meet, but we’re still responsible for maintenance costs. We will either purchase the current facilities or find other suitable locations that can be purchased.
All our campuses require significant improvements and upgrades to key ministry environments. The Hope for Everyone investment will focus on enhancing our student and kids areas, upgrading large venue technology, and improving fellowship areas. These improvements represent maintenance that’s been deferred over the past several years.
A Movement for the Multitudes
Our goal is to reach 250,000 people in the Bay Area by 2033.
What is a One Fund?
We believe we’re all on one mission. Hope for Everyone is a one-fund campaign, which means that every gift given to Menlo Church over the next three years will go to Hope for Everyone—to help us write the next chapter together.
Write the Next Chapter of Menlo’s Story.
Hope for Everyone is about making strategic investments now as a downpayment for the next 150 years of the Menlo Church story. We are all a part of that story—how God is welcoming the hopeless home in the Bay Area.
Make a Commitment
The hope of Jesus is our message—it’s what we have to offer to people and to a world wrestling with rampant and chronic hopelessness. The hope of Jesus is also our motivation—it activates us to get to work, to combine what we have to maximize the reach of hope as much as possible.
When we work together, empowered by the Spirit of God that is at work inside of us and through our actions, something unexplainable happens. We can go farther, give more, and climb higher than we can on our own. What will our place be in Menlo Church’s story?
Come ready to make your commitment on Sunday, October 13 as we make our down payment on the next 150 years of Menlo Church.
Recent Updates
Frequently Asked Questions
First and foremost, we are asking that you pray and seek God's direction on what He is asking of you. Prepare your heart to hear Him and listen to what He says. Engage in personal reflection with God. Talk with people you trust about what this commitment will mean for the next season of your life. Then take your next step. We are asking that you make a sacrificial commitment to be a part of the next chapter of Menlo Church's story - whatever that might look like for you. Follow God's leading. Finally, we ask that you prepare to be amazed. We serve an awesome God, and He is going to move in huge ways. We anticipate an unprecedented impact from our collective Hope For Everyone commitments - something only God can do.
We are more focused on everyone who is a part of the Menlo family seeing their giving as an integral part of the discipleship process and then being challenged by God to take a next step. This is our first priority—100% participation in the process. Even if someone wrote us a check today for $80 million, we would still do this initiative. Whether we’re just starting in our giving journey or we’re very committed givers, we all have a next step to take and room to grow in this area.
Our current annual giving is approximately $15 million, multiplied by three years is approximately $45 million. So, in essence, we’re believing God to grow our resources approximately $11.6 million per year for a total financial target of $80 million. For a church of our size and annual budget, this is certainly a goal that will require us to stretch and sacrifice, but we believe it is reachable by October 2027.
There is an urgency to the Hope for Everyone campaign. That’s because there is a dual cost to every moment we wait to fund these initiatives (especially those beyond our ongoing ministries).
The first cost is purely financial. We need to make investments in several of our locations to ensure they continue to function as effective tools for ministry, as an effective base of operations for our mission to serve the Bay Area and beyond. The cost of these investments will only continue to rise over time—whether it’s in repairs and updates that need to happen in some of our campuses or if it’s in purchasing buildings for the San Mateo and Mountain View campuses. The longer we wait, the more costly these investments become.
The second cost is spiritual, which makes it more difficult to see, but it is, in some ways, even more real. If we truly believe Jesus’ offer of hope is for everyone and if we believe He has called us to share that message of hope to those who need it most we are compelled to give and serve and work together with a sense of hope-filled urgency. The longer we wait, the fewer the opportunities for people to hear and experience the welcome-home message of Jesus in the Bay Area and beyond.
Be creative as you explore ways you and your family can give toward Hope for Everyone. You might have some stocks, property, or other items of that nature. Or you may have stored resources that God has blessed you with in the past that He might be calling you to give during this time. Please let us know if you need assistance with facilitating gifts of property or stock, and we would be happy to help you. You can find some initial guidance on our website at menlo.church/give. And, you can email Peter Sherman, our Director of Finance, at giving@menlo.church. He is able to assist with all such gifts.
We are asking everyone to make a three-year (36-month) commitment. The fulfillment period for your commitment will begin on Sunday, November 3, and it will culminate in October of 2027.
Hope for Everyone is about your total, radical, sacrificial generosity to God’s mission at Menlo. We believe that God calls us to action in times of hardship just as much as He does in times of abundance, and that looks different for every person. Hope for Everyone is about a heart change—one that is only accomplished by surrendering our lives completely over to God in this area of giving in order to expand the reach of the message of Jesus for decades to come.
That may mean that you are being challenged to sell things, to pick up odd jobs, or even to trust God in faith by making a commitment that you don’t quite know how to fulfill right now but that you believe God will provide for, as you seek for ways to work toward that commitment. We would like for 100% of us to be a part of Hope for Everyone so that we can all be supporting, loving, encouraging, and praying for one another through this spiritually-stretching season at Menlo Church.
Of course we would love for that to happen! However, with these types of campaigns, it is relatively normal not to reach our full goal with initial commitments. Over the next three years, if our attendance patterns continue to follow their current trajectory, we expect hundreds—if not thousands—of new people to join Menlo Church. When that happens, we will invite those people to make commitments to Hope for Everyone as well.
No matter what we commit together, we’ll continue to trust God to lead us into the next chapter of the Menlo Church story.
Because the exact details regarding some elements of the campaign are still to be determined (specifically the locations for San Mateo and Mountain View), we do not know at this time. We have not ruled out the possibility of taking on debt if desirable locations for two of our campuses require it. We are committed, however, to making those decisions with wisdom and discernment, continuing the pattern we’ve demonstrated over the past 18 months of making difficult but necessary financial decisions to operate within our means for the long-term health and benefit of Menlo.
Hope for Everyone was crafted specifically with you in mind. Hope for Everyone is a “one fund” generosity initiative. It’s different from a traditional capital campaign where you are called to give an extra gift above and beyond your normal giving, thus creating two steps for people who aren’t yet giving. Hope for Everyone is a call to sacrificial generosity for absolutely everyone who is a part of the Menlo Family. If you have never given before, this is your chance to get in the game with a committed sacrifice. We pray that you will.
Hope for Everyone is about the vision for our church and our personal discipleship in giving as followers of Jesus. We believe that the local church is one of the most compelling missions to give toward, and we would really love for you to make Menlo Church your home and join us in the Hope for Everyone initiative. If you are ready for it, this is a perfect time for you to put a stake in the ground and make this your church.
Hope for Everyone is about your total, radical, sacrificial generosity to God’s mission at Menlo. We believe that God calls us to action in times of hardship just as much as He does in times of abundance, and that looks different for every person.Hope for Everyone is about a heart change—one that is only accomplished by surrendering our lives completely over toGod in this area of giving in order to expand the reach of the message of Jesus for decades to come. That may mean that you are being challenged to sell things, to pick up odd jobs, or even to trust God in faith by making a commitment that you don’t quite know how to fulfill right now but that you believe God will provide for, as you seek for ways to work toward that commitment. We would like for 100% of us to be a part of Hope for Everyone so that we can all be supporting, loving, encouraging, and praying for one another through this spiritually-stretching season at Menlo Church.