PR from May 10th:
Kingdom commerce: churchgoers and merchants go to meeting
MINDEN, Nev., May 10, 2003 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- Why just go to church, when you can attend a "state-of-the-art presentation centre"?
Kingdom Ventures Inc., after pledging to create a free Web site for every Protestant church in the United States, is recruiting retailers for its Christian Merchants program, seeking to build "the ultimate Christian affinity group."
The company, whose shares started trading last month on the lightly regulated U.S. over-the-counter bulletin board, says it has "unilaterally pre-approved" bookstore chains Borders and Barnes & Noble as Christian merchants.
This unsolicited seal of retailer righteousness has also been granted to Costco and Wal-Mart. However, Kingdom Ventures modestly declines any credit for the recent decision by the world's biggest merchandiser to stop selling racy men's magazines.
The Christian Merchants initiative is envisioned as "a direct marketing channel to tens of millions of active church members controlling hundreds of billions of dollars annually."
Retailers who join the plan promise discounts to members and can showcase their products in the Kingdom Catalog and the iExalt.com Web portal, which currently features religious books, CDs and plush bears representing Bible characters.
The company will "charge a small fee for each purchase," while "a certain percentage of all purchases made through Kingdom Ventures will be donated back to the church," it states.
"Personally, I would feel much better buying clothes, gas or computers, knowing that they help increase the church's positive influence in our country," says Gene Jackson, president and CEO of Kingdom Ventures.
"In fact, the items purchased could remind us of our relationship with God."
To advance its crusade, Kingdom Ventures promises to set up a Web site for every one of the estimated 400,000 Protestant churches in America, most of which it says have fewer than 1,000 members and no Internet presence.
Kingdom Ventures says it "helps faith-based organizations streamline their operations, raise additional money through various fund-raising activities or simply provide technological solutions that transform small and medium-sized churches into state-of-the-art presentation centres."
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Copyright (C) 2003 The Canadian Press (CP), All rights reserved
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KEYWORD: MINDEN, Nev.
SUBJECT CODE: business
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
