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Experience Life: Expansion to Abilene

A proposal for Head Pastor Clayton Walker

April 29, 2012

Written by Texas Tech Undergraduate Students:

Andrew Kreider, Finance Major

Troy Becker, Personal Financial Planning Major

Andrea Lopez, Accounting Major

Julian Rivas, Accounting Major

1. Report Overview

We are a group of Texas Tech undergraduate students and must create a proposal to help a third party. Andrea knows that you, Head Pastor Clayton Walker, would like to expand the Experience Life Church and thought that it would be a good project for us. This proposal will give you basic information about expanding your church and our recommendation for expansion.

We recommend that you expand to Abilene. The rest of this proposal gives an analysis of the reasons to expand to Abilene.

The following proposal will give a basic description of our criteria, Abilene’s demographics, our plan for expansion, an overview of the benefits of expanding, and a description of the research that we did so that you could expand to Abilene with relative ease.

The demographics section will explain why the population of Abilene is perfect for you. The expansion plan section will explain the basic process and the most vital costs you would have. In the benefits section, we will explain why expanding would be in your best interest and why Abilene is the best choice. Finally, in the research section, we discuss the type of research we did so that you know what to expect when you do your own research.

2. Criteria

This recommendation proposal used several criteria to evaluate the demographic section, the expansion section, and the benefit section.

For the Abilene Demographics section, we used the criteria of population age and religious affiliation. We did this so that you could better craft your message to resonate with the audience better.

For the Expansion Plan section, we used the criteria of costs. We did not use a criterion for the expansion process because the process is relatively the same for anywhere you move. The costs are unique to your situation, and we chose to give you a cost analysis of both the equipment you would purchase and of the locations that would be useful to you.

Finally, for the Benefits section, we used the criteria of reasons to expand and the closeness of the community. The criterion of reasons to expand was used to encourage you to expand to a new city. The criterion of community closeness was used so that you would know how quickly talk about the church would spread. The size of the city affects the community closeness. The smaller the city, the closer the community. However, the smaller the city, the smaller the following will be.

3. Abilene Demographics

One of the most important aspects we considered while writing this proposal was the demographics of Abilene. We understand that in order to have a successful church with an active congregation, you need to know your audience. This section outlines several important characteristics of Abilene so that you will be able to successfully reach out to the city and attract people to your congregation.

a) Age

Abilene has a diverse age population. The city has college students that attend Abilene Christian University, Hardin-Simmons University, or McMurray University, which brings a fresh and youthful life to the city. Abilene also has residents that have been living there for generations, which keeps the ideals and convictions of the city constant.

A constant inflow of young people along with the steady base of the longtime residents presents a good opportunity for bringing in followers of Experience Life.

The majority of Abilene’s population falls between the ages of 15 - 54 with 34% falling within the 15 – 34 age range.[i] These figures show that over a third of Abilene’s population is relatively young. We believe that this is the most important age group to approach for new members.

The residents that fall in this age group are either impressionable young people or people who have reached the age where they begin settling down and starting a family. Knowing the age distribution of Abilene will help you to gear your message and outreach to the residents more effectively.

Table I: Abilene’s Complete Age Distribution as of 2010[ii]

|Age Group |Number |Percent |

|Under 5 years |7,898 |6.69 % |

|5 to 9 years |7,956 |6.74 % |

|10 to 14 years |8,319 |7.04 % |

|15 to 19 years |10,787 |9.13 % |

|20 to 24 years |11,819 |10.01 % |

|25 to 34 years |15,817 |13.39 % |

|35 to 44 years |17,760 |15.04 % |

|45 to 54 years |13,745 |11.64 % |

|55 to 59 years |4,959 |4.20 % |

|60 to 64 years |4,349 |3.68 % |

|65 to 74 years |7,783 |6.59 % |

|75 to 84 years |5,029 |4.26 % |

|85 years and over |1,867 |1.58 % |

This chart breaks done the age distribution of Abilene. It allows you to approach potential members more effectively so that you can build a stronger congregation for your church. This chart also allows you to target a certain age group by giving you the number of people in each group. This gives you a better idea of how much advertising or outreach that you would need so that you can target a certain audience.

b) Religious Affiliation

Over 85% of the residents in Abilene who go to church are Christian. The pie chart below shows the breakdown of the major Christian sects in Abilene.

Figure 1: Percentages of Population Affiliated with a Religious Congregation[iii]

[pic]

This chart points to the large percentage of the population that is of Christian faith. We believe that with this large percentage you will have a very strong possibility of finding residents to join your congregation. Although most residents have a church they are already affiliated with, we believe that Experience Life can win over some of these members.

The strong Christian following in Abilene provides the perfect base for starting to expand your church. Abilene could benefit from a new nondenominational church. Your would add variety to the existing churches, and this would give people a new and exciting way to worship.

4. Expansion Plan

Here, we detail the process for moving to Abilene. Then we detail all foreseeable costs.

a) The Process

The process would begin once you have chosen which building you would like to expand to. From there, you would need to negotiate the terms of the leases. Such terms would include the duration of the lease, whether you pay at the beginning/end of the month, and remodeling agreements.

From there, you would then have to decide which equipment you would need to buy to take with you to the new location. The equipment you would need depends on the location. For example, if you choose 774 China Street, then you would need to buy some speakers, but you would not need an intercom system. [iv] However, some equipment would need to be purchased no matter what building you choose to expand to.

We suggest that you advertise before you have set up the facility in Abilene. This way, you would have a following once you opened your church. Word would then spread about the church, and you would no longer need to spend money on advertising.

b) Cost of Expansion

If you expand to Abilene, you would either have to move equipment to Abilene or purchase equipment once you get there. We made the assumption that you would purchase the equipment if you decide to move to Abilene. We did this because we thought you would continue to need the equipment you already have here.

Table II provides some of the basic cost of equipment that you would have to purchase if you expand.

Table II: Cost of Purchases

|Item | Cost per Item |

| Chairs [v] | $ 46.40 |

| Speaker (Pair) [vi] | $ 99.98 |

| Microphones[vii] | $ 79.99 |

| Projector [viii] | $ 359.99 |

| Computers [ix] | $ 599.99 |

| Guitar [x] | $ 1,399.99 |

| Acoustic Guitar[xi] | $ 699.00 |

| Bass Guitar [xii] | $ 599.99 |

| Drum Set [xiii] | $ 649.99 |

| Keyboard [xiv] | $ 399.00 |

| Amp [xv] | $ 299.99 |

| Total Cost | $ 5,234.31 |

Note: This table only deals with the major costs. Minor costs, such as pencils, have been excluded because it would be impractical to list all possible minor costs.

These are the basic items that you would have to buy no matter which location you choose. Note that all of these costs are on a per-item basis. Thus, your total cost would increase if you buy more than one chair.

Additional costs could include advertising and utility costs. However, these costs are dependent on many variables that could not be forecasted accurately. An example of one of these variables is time. The utility costs are affected by the following variables: air conditioning, computer usage, water usage, etc.

Table III shows the four locations that we found.

Table III: Cost of Renting in Abilene

|Location |Size |Type |Cost/Square Feet/Year |Total Costs Per Year |

|774 China St.[xvi] |9,960 sf |Office |$4.22/sf/yr | $ 41,832.00 |

|4135 N First Street[xvii] |4,860 sf |Retail |$4.95/sf/yr | $ 24,057.00 |

|3112 S. 27th[xviii] |8,000 sf |Retail |$5.03/sf/yr | $ 40,240.00 |

|4438 S Clack[xix] |3,480 sf |Retail |$12.00/sf/yr | $ 41,760.00 |

The first location is recommended the most because it has a large single room that could be used for the main sermon and many small rooms that could be used for small group discussion.

The second building could also be used effectively. It has a very large main area because it used to be a store. However, there is very little room for small group discussion.

The last two buildings are presented only for price comparison. Please note, the 4438 S Clark building has an extremely high rental cost. This is due to the location being in the middle of town, right across the street from the mall.

5. Benefits of Expansion

This section will talk about the benefits of expansion and why Abilene should be the preferred location so that you can have a clear understanding of why you should choose to expand Experience Life Church to Abilene.

a) More Members/Followers Spreading the Message

Expanding Experience Life to Abilene would mean expanding the number of Experience Life Church members. More members and followers of Experience Life Church would make for a stronger Experience Life Church and would bring in more support for the church. Experience Life Church would gain more members by starting in Abilene. Each week more and more people would bring new members to Experience Life.

When there are more members/followers in the church, there are more people to help spread the word of God to more people. Spreading the message is the main reason why Experience Life should expand to Abilene. The easiest way to spread the word is to have more and more people join Experience Life.

b) Expanding to Abilene Over Other Cities

There are many possible places to move, but moving to Abilene was one of the better. In Abilene there is a strong Christian following. That means that there are many people that could be looking to change their church. With Experience Life coming to Abilene this would provide a new church to start attending.

The size of Abilene will also help expand the church. Abilene is a large enough city to expand to, but small enough to have the feel of a close community. Thus, people could be close enough to each other to talk about something as personal as religion. This would help spread the news that Experience Life is a new great place to attend church, which would lead to more people attending.

6. Research Done

This section explains the research we did and the time we spent on the research. This will give you an idea of what you would need to do when you actually expand.

a) Type of Research Done and Time Spent

First, we brainstormed as a group about what type of information you would need when you would expand. Then we created an outline using those ideas and came up with two sections, the research section and the plan section. Over the course of the project, we changed the name of the Research section to the Abilene Demographic section. We then added the Benefits section later on.

We used Google to do most of our research and find most of our information. Once we found suitable databases, we did a refined search over the information we put into the outline. The total time that his took was around four hours. We also spent time contacting your organization for specific information about what you need when you expand. This took about two hours.

7. Conclusion

This section will conclude this recommendation proposal by restating what we have recommended for Experience Life church so that you can have a clear understanding of what our recommendation is.

We recommend that Experience Life church should expand to Abilene because of the advantages the city of Abilene has over other locations. We used the criteria of cost, age demographics, and type of community to make our decision. Abilene offers lower costs than other cities along with a strong Christian community ranging across all ages. These facts lead us to believe that Abilene would be the best place for Experience Life to expand.

As stated in the report there are certain places in Abilene that would be ideal for Experience Life to start up. We hope this proposal has given you the information you need to make the decision to expand Experience Life Church to Abilene. Thank you for taking the time to read our proposal, and please feel free to contact us if there are any more questions.

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[i] : A Data Base of City Statistics. Accessed 4/12/12

[ii] : A Data Base of City Statistics. Accessed 4/12/12

[iii] : A Data Base of City Statistics. Accessed 4/12/12

[iv] City Feet: A Commercial Real Estate Data Base. Accessed: 4/15/12.

[v] C&H Distributors: A Business Office Supplier. Accessed 4/18/12 ................
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