We’ve been doing a lot of research recently about increasing your churches giving base. Let’s face it, money is a difficult topic to bring up in church, yet it is also one of the most talked about subjects in the Bible. Why is it that we have so much trouble talking about money in church? We want to give you some thoughts to making money a more comfortable subject in your church.
1. Do you have a vision?
Most organizations have a vision statement. This should be a concept that you are striving to reach and the means of getting there will produce trackable, measurable, results. For example, if your mission statement is “To Reach our Community,” you should be able to measure how well you are reaching your community. How many new visitors are coming to your church, how many opportunities did you offer for the community to connect with your church? Keep your vision in front of your congregation and provide systematic updates about the success in reaching the vision.
Keep the vision at the forefront of your congregations collective mind. They will be more likely to give to a vision if they ‘buy-in’ and see positive results.
2. How many opportunities to give do you provide?
I’m not talking about how many times do you pass the plate. What I am asking is how many ways do you provide for your givers to donate money? Passing the plate is becoming an out-dated process just as cash is becoming less used in the marketplace. Many people today are not carrying cash, or even their checkbooks. Do you have facilities in place to let you people give by debit card or bank withdrawal? You might be suprised at the giving increase you may see just by providing the ability to give through alternative means, i.e. online, debit card, or ACH batch process.
Nobody has ever gone into debt because they gave too much to the church. Provide options to give.
3. How are your tracking key giving metrics?
Hopefully your have a budget in place and track spending based on budgeted lines. Just as important as tracking spending is keeping an eye on key giving metrics. Are you aware of seasonal giving patterns, perhaps a large employer in your community pays on a certain schedule, are you aware of that? Tracking income is just as important as tracking expenses. Has your giving income declined this past year? Take a few weeks a calculate a per person giving amount. Take your total weekly attendance, and divide by the total deposit for that week. The outcome will be your per person giving amount. Now we know that not everyone is giving, but over a few weeks you’ll start to see a pattern and also be able to gauge the health of your giving base by tracking this number.
What was your per person giving number last month?
We are well aware that talking about giving in your church is not the highest topic on your list of sermons. We also know there is a fear of offending people and a fear that people will leave because you talked about money. They key is not that you are talking about money, but in the way you present the topic. In the next few weeks we’ll be providing ideas and illustrations to use to help increase your giving base.
For more information or to learn more about expanding your giving base, shoot me an email and we’ll send you the info complimentary.
Start taking steps today to get a handle on the giving health of your church.
