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Many common questions about Love INC are answered
here. If you do not find the answer to your question, please contact
our office and we'd be glad to assist you.
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General Inquiries
What is Love INC?
Why does our community need Love INC?
How does Love INC work?
Who owns Love INC?
What is a Love INC "partner church"?
How long has Love INC been around?
Where is your office?
I'd like to receive your newsletter
I'd like a copy of your Annual Report
Our Services
Who Can Receive Help?
Kinds of help
Any charge for help?
Church requirement?
Confidentiality
Calling on behalf of someone else
Love INC elsewhere in Montana?
When is the office open?
Our Partner Churches
Becoming a Love
INC Partner Church
Who is my church's Love INC Contact Person?
Is Love INC the ministry of a particular church?
Is my church a Love INC Partner Church?
Our Support
How is Love INC supported?
I have an old car someone could use. How do I donate it?
Are donations to Love INC tax deductible?
General Inquiries
Love INC, short for
Love In
the Name of Christ, is a strategy to help churches
(and their members) help people. It is a network of church
volunteers that connects them to neighbors with needs. It is a
cooperative effort between churches and service agencies to provide
effective help for the disadvantaged. It is a vehicle to bring
church congregations collectively and individually into the helping
services arena. more info
Four main reasons: (1) existing resources
are inadequate to meet the level of needs, (2) church volunteers and
material resources frequently are underutilized in meeting needs
without a networking organization like Love INC, (3) many helping
services are duplicated unnecessarily without a Love INC - agencies
and churches would be covering the same ground, doing the same
thing, (4) agencies and church staff seldom communicate directly
with each other when seeking to meet needs.
Love INC operates as a resource center or
clearinghouse by offering no direct or on-site services. All
requests are referred to the sources of help (agencies, churches,
etc.). Love INC does not provide direct service to persons in
need; we analyze requests and refer them to those who can
help. Requests are received by phone. Requests are
screened for manageability, specificity and legitimacy. People
are referred to the most appropriate source of help. Love INC
extends an invitation for spiritual help (through a local church) to
the person needing help. more
info
Love INC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. It is governed by a Board of
Directors selected by and from partner
churches. The partner churches also supply individuals who
work as volunteers in the ministry. Love INC is a ministry of
the partner churches, but it is not "owned" by any
organization.
A partner church participates in the Love INC
ministry through providing volunteers to help people in need,
maintaining an inventory of talents and skills that volunteers can
provide, potentially offering a member to serve on the Love INC
Board, helping staff the Love INC office and supporting Love INC
through prayers and some type of financial commitment (decided upon
by the church). Partner churches actively support
the Love INC mission
and agree with its statement
of faith. more
info
Love INC began to form in Gallatin County in 1994. The Clearinghouse
opened to receive requests for help in
mid-1995. Nationally, Love INC affiliates have been in
existence since 1977. Refer to our history
for more details.
Our office is located in Bozeman, Montana. For
contact information, click
here.
We send an informative newsletter to supporters,
agencies and interested parties, on a quarterly
basis. Contact our office and
request to be put on our mailing list. We'd love to share the
good reports with you!
Our Services
 | Who can receive help from Love
INC ? |
We serve Gallatin County residents in need. If
you are a resident and we have the resources and you are in need of
help, we will work hard to meet your request. (Montana State
University students who meet our normal qualification guidelines are
eligible for help, too.)
We seek to offer help to meet physical, emotional
and spiritual needs. Most of our assistance comes in the form of
direct service. Services can range from personal help with
budgeting to companionship to reading to a visually impaired person to
shoveling snow from a sidewalk to obtaining discounted materials and
providing minor home repairs. We offer a wide variety of goods
and services; please see our services guide.
| Do you charge for your services? |
No. Love INC is a faith-based, non-profit
organization. All services are provided by church
volunteers. Goods and financial help are provided by church
volunteers and/or church congregations. Love INC partners with 41
churches in Gallatin County (Bozeman, Belgrade, Manhattan,
Gallatin Gateway, Three Forks) to provide help to neighbors in need.
You do not have to go to a church to receive service
from Love INC. Although we have found faithful worship of Christ
and obedience to Him to be necessary for all of life, we do not
require you nor pressure you to go to a church to receive help from
us. We may, as a part of our desire to offer help, ask you if
you would like us to pray for you.
Love INC assures confidentiality to all of the
people we serve. Love INC volunteers sign a confidentiality
agreement, stating that they will disclose no information
regarding a past or present client at any time to any unauthorized
person.
| I know someone who could use help. May I call
you and ask for help for that person? |
We have learned that it is almost always necessary for the person who needs help to personally call us to request
assistance. Well-meaning friends, family and care-givers should
encourage the person in need to call, although you are certainly
welcome to alert us about a situation or a forthcoming call. If,
however, the person in need is physically unable to speak or call us,
we will consider your referral on a case by case basis. We are
also available to you to offer advice or to help you find the
resources you need for someone in need. Please call
the office if you have further questions.
| I know someone in another Montana community who
needs help. Is there a Love INC there? |
Unfortunately, no. Gallatin County Love INC,
with its office in Bozeman, is the only Love INC in the state of
Montana (although there are over 125 Love INC affiliates nationally).
Please contact the
national headquarters for information on how to begin a
Love INC in another community.
Our office volunteers answer the phones during office
hours. If you have
left a message and you haven't heard back from us in a reasonable
amount of time, please call
again. We do seek to return calls before completion of the
next business day.
| I would rather talk to you in
person about my need, rather than over the phone. Where is your
office? |
Our method of receiving and processing requests for
help functions solely over the phone. We do not have the
facilities nor the personnel to provide face-to-face intake processing
of your request. We're confident you will find our phone workers
pleasant, caring and patient - please give us
a call.
click for
more information about Love INC services
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You may call or e-mail
the Executive Director for more information about Love INC, what it
means to be a partner church, and how to become a partner church so
that you will have materials to present to your church leaders.
Each partner church must have a person who is willing to serve as a Church
Contact Person. Generally, you will need to follow your
church's procedures for obtaining approval of a new ministry
involvement. If approved by your church, your pastor, priest or
governing body will need to make a formal request to Love INC to
become a partner church. We can provide you with supporting
materials and information, and are available for consultation or
meeting with your leaders.
Please check our current list of Love
INC Contact People.
No, Love INC is a cooperative effort of many
Christian churches. These churches have found that by networking together
through a Love INC office, they are able to more effectively meet the
needs of their neighbors in a compassionate and stewardly
manner. In Gallatin County, Love INC churches represent 22 different denominations as well as some non-denominational (community)
churches. Click here for a list
of our partner churches.
| I'm not sure if my church is involved with Love INC
- is it? |
Click here for a list
of our partner churches.
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About 99.5% of our volunteers who directly serve our
needy neighbors are members of our partner
churches. The remaining volunteers come from other
Christian churches (which subscribe to Faith Statement and view of
Scripture that Love INC uses) in Gallatin County.
Two ways. If you want to volunteer for us to
directly help someone in need, call your Church
Contact Person. You will be asked to complete a Talent
Tithe, which is an indication of the types of activities you would
like to do. If you want to serve as a part of a special
ministry project or work in our office, please contact the Executive
Director. If you would like to serve as an intake advisor
(receive phone calls from people seeking assistance) in our office,
please contact the Intake
Referral Coordinator. We appreciate our volunteers!
more volunteer info
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We receive financial support from individuals and
families who know that Love INC makes a real difference in Gallatin
County through our ministry of mobilizing church volunteers to meet
needs. In addition, our partner churches also financially
support us, since Love INC is a ministry of the local church. We
receive some donations from local businesses, too. Occasionally,
we receive a small grant that does not alter our mission or our focus.
Love INC receives no government funds. more
financial info
This is an excellent way to help someone out
significantly (usually a single mother who needs the car for
employment)! Our car donors give us a vehicle that would fetch
little in a trade-in, but can serve as an important tool for someone
in need. To start the process, call the
Love INC office. Once we receive some
basic information about your car, the process will be turned over to
our Vehicle Donations Coordinator who will guide you through the
process. Basically, your car will be assessed by one of our
volunteer mechanics to determine its suitability for our
clients. If it does not require major work, a title transfer
will be made (we do have volunteer mechanics who will do minor repairs
on donated cars) and you will be issued a letter that you can use as a
receipt for tax purposes. When donating a car, you will be asked
to verify that no safety issues or serious impairments in the car
exist that you are aware of.
Yes. Gallatin County Love INC is a 501(c)3
organization. Contributions (both cash and in-kind) are tax
deductible. more donor info
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The Love INC Model:
Love INC brings resources together so more needs can be met.
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