MINDEN, Nev., April 14, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Kingdom Ventures, Inc., (OTCBB:KDMV), a rapidly growing church development company, announced today its goals for UCAN -- Undercover Angels Network. UCAN is a private label community program for churches that enables young disadvantaged individuals or single parents to receive a free car by performing 100 hours of service to their local church. The program has been created, administered and managed by Kingdom Ventures, a publicly traded church development company.
"The initial response to UCAN from churches has been overwhelming. It appears that there is a strong need for private label programs like UCAN. Most churches do not have the resources to develop, manage and administer complex community outreach programs. Even if churches had members who would be willing to donate their old cars for good purposes, and even if they had members who would really need those cars, churches might not be able to bring these two parties together. This is exactly why we created UCAN. Our goal is to find 100,000 vehicles for young disadvantaged people by the end of 2006," said Gene Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Ventures, Inc.
For more information on the UCAN program and how your church can launch it, visit the UCAN section of the Kingdom Ventures web site at http://www.kdmvcorp.com/ucan/default.htm.
This is how the UCAN program works: Most churches have members with vehicles they no longer need or want. Through UCAN, they can donate the car to their local church, receiving a qualified tax deduction on their donation. The church will then donate the car to a young disadvantaged individual or a single parent with no means of transportation. The church issues a "Service Pledge Agreement" requiring the recipient to perform church services to earn the car. The recipient must attain milestones in order to keep the car. The title of the car is transferred to the recipient when all requirements are met.
"Everybody wins. The donator will receive a tax deduction for his donation. The church will receive 100 hours of work and can use it for various tasks, including delivering meals to the elderly, driving people to church, running errands, picking up dry-cleaning, or anything else the church or its members need. We will administer and manage the private label UCAN program for the churches, at no initial charge, to make it as easy as possible for them to execute the program. The disadvantaged individual will get means of transportation, and learn responsibility by having to perform services and work off the 'note'. And, Kingdom Ventures establishes valuable relationships with churches, who may later choose to take advantage of our other services, including church technology, church financing and fundraising initiatives," said Jackson.
Only six percent of the country's churches have more than 1,000 members. The remaining 94% rarely have the time or money to manage this type of community outreach program. This is why Kingdom Ventures created UCAN. It is a private label community program for smaller churches, completely administered and managed by Kingdom Ventures.
"We will provide the church with material they can use to inform their members about their new program, including a description they can include in their church newsletter, a sermon and a brochure describing the program. The material will help churches solicit members for unused or unwanted cars. They can use it to inform the disadvantaged members of the church, or the community, about the launch of their own UCAN program. And, utilizing our state-of-the-art peer-to-peer system called KingdomNet, churches can even access necessary IRS forms, applications and customizable service pledge agreements. Everything is private labeled -- Kingdom Ventures operates in the background, making the program as easy for the churches to manage as possible," described Jackson.
After a recipient of a donated car completes his/her service pledge to the church, he/she will receive the title to the car. They may also receive various donated, prepaid car maintenance-related services ranging from insurance and warranties to oil changes and gas purchases.
Kingdom Ventures focuses on helping churches and their members grow. There are approximately 400,000 Protestant churches in the U.S. alone. 94% 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. 89% of American households give to charities an average of over $1,600 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+ 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.
Kingdom Ventures helps faith-based organizations streamline their operations, raise additional money through various fund-raising activities or 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 to grow.
Kingdom Ventures is a publicly traded company. Its stock trades on the OTCBB under the ticker symbol KDMV. Last week, Alpha Analytics, an independent research firm, initiated coverage on Kingdom Ventures. Alpha Analytics issued Kingdom Ventures' stock its highest rating, "Attractive" / "Buy", giving it $5.13 and $9.15 price targets for 2003 and 2004, respectively. The company's stock is currently trading at $0.50.
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.