WHO ARE YOUR GIVERS?

            Here’s a question for you: who are your givers? Do you know? I bet if I asked you that question, you would start telling me about the people that sit in your pews or who are logging on online, or have some sort of relationship with your church? Right?

            But, do you know who your people really are? If you really look at each person connected to your church, been those who are sitting in your pews regularly, or are serving on teams and committees, you’ll see that are all very different. And I don’t mean just hair color or skin color or gifts or talents.

            Too often, especially when we look at giving, we have a one size fits all mentality. And, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you need to look at some numbers, at some metrics, at indicators. Look at the last year of your giving (or six months), and look at:

• ·         How many new givers were there?
• ·         Have some givers stopped giving?
• ·         Who are continuing to give?
• ·         Do a chart to see how your gifts are concentrated. Top 1%, top 20% or.
• ·         Look at givers under $500 and givers over $500
• ·         Look at the age of your givers. I read about a trend recently that 60% or more of a church’s giving comes from givers who are 60 years old or older.
• ·         Look at the number of households giving, and the average giving per household.

 

            I know this doesn’t seem very exciting, and for many people it isn’t. But the information you can glean from this will be extremely informative. Once you’ve looked at this, you may find:

• ·         You only had two new givers all year; does this mean the congregation isn’t growing?
• ·         You had five households that stopped giving entirely. Do you know why?
• ·         Maybe, half of your giving is concentrated in a handful of people. What happens when those very few people stop giving?
• ·         A large amount of your giving is given by “older” folks. And I have to say, as one of those “older” people, it’s to be expected, but those older folks won’t be here forever. If there are no new givers; if younger folks aren’t giving, what will you do?

            Metrics may not be exciting, but it will help you determine who your givers are, and how to approach them. And, more importantly, how is the discipleship of your folks working with their giving and generosity?

 

Please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or susanranous@unyumc.org if you’d like to talk about this and how to do some work on your metrics and interpreting them.