"Let Your Light Shine"

In a big office high above Chicago's North Wells Street, a picture of Jesus Christ hangs on the wall, alongside photographs of two tall businessmen: Herbert and Lewis Wells. The picture display is intended as something more than simple decoration. The two businessmen, father and son, are the proprietors of Wells Organizations Inc.--and Wells, which has raised millions of dollars, for churches since 1951, is the fastest-growing outfit of pledge promoters in the U.S.

Herbert Wells, 79, learned the fund-raising business as a partner in the pioneer firm of Ward, Wells and Dreshman, founded in Fort Worth in 1911. Son Lewis, 49, a wartime lieutenant colonel in the Air Force who had once thought of becoming a Presbyterian minister, set up his own firm in 1946, later decided to specialize in religious causes. That led to Wells Organizations.

Targets Guaranteed. For fees ranging from $2,000 (minimum) to $15,000 (for churches with more than 5,000 families), Wells puts on a thump-and-slogan campaign which usually exceeds what a church expects to raise, and guarantees (all but the smallest churches) to hit the target set.

When Wellsmen get an inquiry from a church, they swing into action like a task force. From the nearest of 28 Wells offices, a Wells representative telephones a group of church leaders an invitation to lunch. The lunch is "complimentary," and the informal job of persuasion that the Wellsman does over coffee is known as the "Complimentary Conference." Its object is to explain the "Wells Way" and to convince the churchmen that Wells does not go in for high-pressure methods, just efficiency.

Once the church is sold, and marked down as a "Wells client-church," a Wells organizer moves into town. In a typical $100,000 drive, he stays about five weeks, dividing his job into four phases:

Preparation, in the course of which the Wellsman sets up his office and gets in touch with "potential leaders" (Wells lingo for men of means). Explains one Wells executive: "Potential leaders are men who frequently have been so busy with their own affairs that they have drifted away from the church . . . Subconsciously, they have the conviction that they haven't been doing enough work for the Lord and would like to know how they can gracefully become active. We provide them with the grace and the means ..."

Organization, which takes about a week. Small group meetings indoctrinate volunteer canvassers with one key Wells principle: they must make their own pledges public, "as pace setters." "So many churches have made money a hush-hush affair," says a Wells representative. "They're nuts . . . You wouldn't ask for money without telling your own pledge any more than I would ask your name without sticking out my hand first and saying, 'I'm Joe Edwards.' "

Education,wherein the Wellsman makes liberal use of quotes from the Scriptures: "Let your light so shine before men . . ." "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." The minister announces his own pledge from the pulpit, and the canvass committee follows up with a loyalty dinner. Food is free at the dinner, and the Wells rule is that the dining room must be well away from the church so as to attract "perimeter members" who might not attend if they had to go to church.

Solicitation, which is done only by church members since Wellsmen have discovered that professional collectors are apt to arouse P.P.I.--"pocketbook protection instinct." The Wells aim: the "sacrificial gift," explained by Wellsmen as one that cannot be paid all at one time.

Signs of Success. By such methods, Wellsmen have scored some notable successes:

P: Christ Episcopal Church in Cleveland (annual budget: $78,266) raised,an extra $304,744.

P: St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Charlotte, N.C. set its sights on $150,000 but passed $275,000.

P:The First Lutheran Church, Williston, N.Dak. aimed at $200,000, and hit better than $360,000.

Wells has done well, too. Since 1951, when Wells began concentrating exclusively on church fundraising, his organization has doubled its income each year, and this year expects to triple it.

Lewis Wells's philosophy, as stated by one of his executives, is that "if you give a lot of money to your church, you're going to spend a lot of time there." Scores of U.S. churchmen, at first skeptical, have accepted his point of view. Their letters, pouring in to Wells headquarters, bring comments that range from "Man alive!" (from a Virginia Presbyterian) to "We got more . . . than we bargained for" (a Florida Lutheran). One of the letters that Wells Organizations prizes most came from the late chaplain of the U.S. Senate, the Rev. Peter (A Man Called Peter) Marshall of Washington's New York Avenue Presbyterian Church: "I believe it would do any church good to have you work with them, apart altogether from the financial results. We are still reaping spiritual byproducts of the campaign."

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