MINDEN, Nev., May 6, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Kingdom Ventures, Inc. (OTCBB:KDMV), a rapidly growing church development company, announced today it will build web sites for the nation's 400,000+ churches at no charge. All sites will be designed by a Sprint (NYSE:FON) aggregator and hosted by YourNetPlus.com.
"This is an important issue. Unlike businesses, most small churches do not have the knowledge or resources to develop their own web sites. And yet, effective communication is an essential tool in building community participation. With our help, churches can now start posting their calendar of events, make time-sensitive announcements and administer community programs online," says Gene Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Ventures, Inc.
As part of the program, churches can also start offering Internet access to their members under churches' own brand names at prices 29% below America Online (NYSE:AOL) and 23% below MSN* (Nasdaq:MSFT).
The free web site program is a part of the company's initiative to transform the Christian community into the world's largest affinity group.
"We believe that Christians are the largest untapped affinity group in the United States. 92% of all Americans embrace a belief in God. Almost two-thirds -- well over 150 million people -- consider religion to be very important in their lives," says Jackson.
"Most companies have overlooked the Christian market. This might be because of industry statistics, which put the market size at around $6 billion. But these figures do not take into account hundreds of billions of dollars that Christians spend on everyday purchases. Our business model is based on helping churches capture a larger portion of the total spending. By simply re-directing your everyday purchases, church members could save money, but more importantly, they could help their favorite church raise money to increase its positive influence in their community. This concept of re-directing your spending could actually give a spiritual meaning to regular shopping. You would be doing good things with your money," states Jackson.
The free web site initiative enables Kingdom Ventures to establish relationships with churches and their members, a necessary first step in creating an affinity group model. After the relationship has been established, the church becomes a powerful pipeline to market various products and services. Kingdom Ventures' media properties, including Christian Times (S-Texas) and iExalt.com, one of the most visited Christian web portals, further support this model.
Kingdom Ventures is a publicly traded church development company. 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 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. 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 $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 -- helping churches and other Christian organizations grow.
For more information on the free web site initiative, call (800) 550-7893. Media interviews, contact David Zazoff at (212) 752-9445.
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.
* The price comparison is based on the standard monthly price without any discounts. These service providers have promotional programs that include free months or initial discount periods. It is therefore impossible to make exact price comparisons without knowing the length of the subscription period. Source: company websites.
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.