GIVING COMMUNICATION

                        WHAT IS YOUR CHURCH'S GIVING EXPERIENCE?

 

            For the past three weeks, we’ve talked about effective giving communication, including revisiting the mission of the church, thanking people and looking at your people.

            Here’s a list to go through, looking at the list and comparing it with your church’s giving experience:

1.    Is your giving page easy to find, easy to use and easy to understand? Someone who isn’t familiar with it should be able to find it and use it with only a couple of clicks.

2.    Remind people about giving. Many may have every intention of giving (online or in person) and then forget. Announce it in person, announce it in the chats online. And that leads us to the next one.

3.    Include the various ways to give. Remember, giving is an act of worship so give them that opportunity to worship. Would you deprive them of singing, reading scripture, or hearing the message? Of course not! Don’t deprive them of the opportunity to be generous. Talk about online giving and how to do it (click, text, QR codes, etc.) Talk about checks and mail (some will still want to do this).

4.    Educate and encourage your givers about the why. Why should they give? What happens when they give? Are lives changed? Are disciples made? Or…? What is the story that will encourage them to want to give?

5.    Personalize your thank yous. Use their name. Don’t just rely on computer-generated letters/statements.

6.    Update your giving page, your articles, your website, your stories. If the story about lives changed is over a couple of years old, does that mean no lives have been changed since? Does it mean that telling the story isn’t important? Or?

7.    Talk about recurring giving (online giving set up so it happens regularly).

What does your giving experience look like?

 

 

            If you wish more information on anything you’ve been reading about, please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or sranousacctg@twcny.rr.com. I’d be happy to help.

 

                                           GIVING COMMUNICATION

                             ANTICIPATING BUT BEING SENSITIVE

 

            For the past two weeks, we’ve talked about effective giving communication, which started with revisiting the mission of the church, and thanking people.

            There are a couple of other thoughts that I wanted to share.

·         Anticipate that many people can afford to give. Of course, there are some that are struggling and cannot give, but there are many that can. Don’t assume that everyone is in the same position. If you’ve done any reading around giving and how it happens, you’ll see the statistic that many churches actually have an increase in giving during a crisis. Perhaps you’ve experienced this yourself! The other idea that I want to bring up here is that we often focus on people giving from their current income, which is fine; but many people may have assets from which they can give. This may be what we are ignoring, to our detriment and to the detriment of our people. I will share a thought about planned giving in a couple of weeks.

·         Have you identified who your major givers are? Have you talked to them? What are their reasons for their generosity? What motivates them to give? Are there particular interests that they have or particular needs in your church/context that you could talk to them about?

·         Although my top thought above was about anticipating that people can give, we also have to be sensitive. Noone should fall through the cracks. Many years ago, I talked to someone that I knew slightly from the church. I hadn’t seen them in service for a while and said I had missed seeing them. They indicated that they had had a family setback and had been forced to cut their giving in half. Noone noticed. When no one noticed, they felt that they weren’t important. Of course, someone feeling overlooked doesn’t want to be asked to give. How do we avoid overlooking people? Exclude from your request for financial giving families that you KNOW are suffering from financial difficulties. There may be other ways they can be benevolent.

It continues to be a lot of work, but the benefits will continue to pay off! For the next couple of weeks, I will continue to spend time on how some of this could work and things that we could be doing to change our stewardship focus and our discipleship focus.

 

 

 

            If you wish more information on anything you’ve been reading about, please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or sranousacctg@twcny.rr.com. I’d be happy to help.

 

                                                GIVING COMMUNICATION

                                               THANKING YOUR GIVERS

 

            Last week we started talking about effective giving communication, which started with revisiting the mission of the church. When our focus is on money, we (and our hearers) are uncomfortable. I get giving is money, but generosity is more.

Talking about what your church is doing and how givers can help is far more effective than just asking for enough money to pay the bills.

But we can’t take people for granted. Thank people. We’re asking them to be generous; we need to be grateful as well. Go out of your way to make them feel appreciated.

I think givers are often lucky if there’s a brief paragraph from the finance chair in the bulletin or the newsletter thanking “everyone that gave.” Even the giving statements are essentially receipts and not thankful. Most giving statement shave lots of space. You know that white space on the piece of paper? The statement contains the dates and amounts of gifts; it gives the giver the total. But what if we also talked about how their generosity made a difference. What happened because they gave to the church? What lives were changed? What was the impact? Tell the stories. It’s not going to cost any extra postage to write a few lines telling the story and another line or two thanking people.

Do you remember the last thank you note you received? Was it handwritten? Were you happy to receive it? I don’t know about you but when I receive a thank you note, it means a lot. I probably didn’t give to get it; but it’s wonderful to receive. This could be a task for pastors, or for Finance team members or other leaders in the church. It doesn’t mean telling everyone how much the person gave. We’re thanking them for their gift. It’s that gift, coupled with other gifts, that is making the difference.

·         Thank them

·         Tell them what has been accomplished because of their generosity

·         Sign your name

 

It continues to be a lot of work, but the benefits will continue to pay off! For the next couple of weeks, I will continue to spend time on how some of this could work and things that we could be doing to change our stewardship focus and our discipleship focus.

 

 

 

            If you wish more information on anything you’ve been reading about, please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or sranousacctg@twcny.rr.com. I’d be happy to help.