MINDEN, Nev., May 1, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Kingdom Ventures, Inc. (OTCBB:KDMV), a rapidly growing church development company, announced today that it is now accepting applications from companies wishing to join its Christian Merchants program. The company encourages all companies interested in targeting the country's 400,000 churches and their 150-plus million members, collectively controlling hundreds of billions of dollars annually, to apply for approval in the program. Interested companies should contact the Christian Merchants Approval Department at (800) 839-2506.
Kingdom Ventures announced on Friday that it is launching its Christian Merchants initiative to create the ultimate Christian affinity group program in the U.S.
Ninty-two percent of Americans embrace Christianity. Almost two-thirds of Americans consider religion to be very important in their lives. There are over 400,000 protestant churches alone. This network of churches, and their millions of active members, could represent a great opportunity for Christian merchants. Christian retailing is a $6 billion industry, but this number includes only the religious and inspirational products sold. It does not take into account the hundreds of billions of dollars Christians spend on everyday goods and services.
"Our Christian Merchants initiative aims at providing approved companies with easy access to millions of Christians. To facilitate this, we have launched our Christian Merchants initiative, our private-label program for churches and participating approved companies," said Gene Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Ventures, Inc.
"Even though some companies such as Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), K-Mart (OTC:KMRTQ), Target (NYSE:TGT) and Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) have successfully entered the Christian market, they have done that with Christian products. Our Christian Merchants initiative goes far beyond that. Our goal is to get millions of Christians to redirect their everyday purchases to support the merchants that are part of the Christian Merchants network. Each participating company will need to extend a discount to church members. A major portion of these discounts will be donated back to the church. In other words, Christian consumers can support their favorite church without spending any additional money. They can increase the church's positive influence in their community just by redirecting their everyday purchases. And, they might even pocket a qualified tax deduction for their purchase, i.e., donation," explained Jackson.
Companies wanting to participate in the program will be subject to a quick review and approval process to determine their suitability as Christian merchants. Kingdom Ventures is already in the process of pre-qualifying and pre-approving merchants the company believes meet the criteria and would benefit from having access to Kingdom's network of churches.
"This is a way to make a difference in a positive way. Personally, I would feel much better buying clothes, gas or computers, knowing that they help increase the church's positive influence in our communities. In fact, the items purchased could remind us of our relationship with God," said Jackson.
The Christian Merchants initiative could become a powerful new profit center for Kingdom Ventures as well. Even though the participation in the program is free for companies, churches and people alike, Kingdom Ventures will charge a small fee for each purchase for administering and developing the program.
Kingdom Ventures 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 centers. The company helps churches focus on their core mission -- reaching people for God -- by focusing on its core business: helping churches and their people grow.
There are approximately 400,000 Protestant churches in the U.S. alone. Ninty-four percent of them have fewer than 1,000 active members, and therefore limited financial resources to effectively manage the business side of their operations. Christian organizations' total budgets are measured in billions of dollars. Eighty-nine percent of American households give to charities an average of $1,600-plus a year, and religious organizations receive 60% of it. In addition, religious and inspirational products are selling at a pace of $5.6 billion annually (source: Christian Retailing Magazine).
Within less than three years, Kingdom Ventures has built a distribution network for Christian products, consisting of 2,100-plus retail stores; 1,200 Christian bookstores and 900 gift stores. It has also established strong business relationships with hundreds of Christian organizations and performed over 750 fundraising events -- helping churches and other Christian organizations grow.
For more information on Kingdom Ventures, visit http://www.kdmvcorp.com. To sign up for shareholder alerts, visit http://www.kdmvcorp.com/ir_shareholderalerts.htm.
All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are "forward-looking statements." The forward-looking statements, including statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenues and earnings, and all other forward-looking statements (i.e., future operational results and sales) are subject to assumptions and beliefs based on current information known to the company and factors that are subject to uncertainties, risk and other influences, which are outside the company's control, and may yield results differing materially from those anticipated.