Download the 3 mistakes to avoid with year-end giving
Fill out the form below to schedule a demo or call our sales team at
469-564-3922
Pastors know that year-end giving is crucial to their church’s financial health. In fact, most churches receive over 30% of their annual donations in December alone! Maybe it’s the joy of Christmas that moves people to give more, while perhaps others simply want to make sure to give their final tax-deductible contributions before the end of the year.
But despite the seasonal increase in giving, many churches still struggle with three common mistakes that threaten to limit the effectiveness of their end-of-year giving campaigns.
To help churches identify and avoid these mistakes, Subsplash and Barna recently teamed up to host a live webinar, featuring Barna’s VP of Church Engagement Joe Jensen and Subsplash VP of Marketing & Communication Nick Bogardus.
Let’s take a look at the top end-of-year giving mistakes and discover how to successfully encourage generosity that makes a big impact for the Kingdom!
Misalignment is when pastors, church leaders, and congregations have different visions of what it means to give generously. How does this happen?
Simply put, people come to church with their own unique perspectives and personal opinions of what it means to be generous. Barna’s research confirms that pastors and their congregations typically have significant differences in how they view generosity. For example, when asked what drives generosity, 66% of pastors say giving is a response to Christ’s love, whereas 40% of Christians think compassion is the main factor.
“Where are we misaligned in our church when it comes to how we view generosity,” asks Barna’s Joe Jensen, a former pastor. “Pastors, we have to get honest with ourselves.’ We have to stop and ask, ‘What does the Bible tell us, and what are our people telling us about how generosity is part of this whole-life discipleship pursuit.’”
Generosity doesn’t happen by accident—it takes intentional effort by the church leadership to teach, model, and cultivate a healthy giving attitude as part of the discipleship journey.
Here are three practical steps you can take today to ensure that your pastor, church leaders, and congregation are in alignment.
Misinformation is the result of decisions being made based on past practices or assumptions rather than correct, relevant data. To fix this, churches may need to ask themselves some tough questions. For example:
The best giving platforms, like Subsplash Giving, provide you with world-class tools and support to find important information that helps you better understand your donors, save money, and make more informed decisions to encourage generosity!
Missed opportunities are strategies within your overall giving plan that aren’t being leveraged to their full potential, or sometimes not at all. In our quickly changing world, it’s wise to stop and review which parts of our strategies are working, not working, or missing altogether.
In the webinar, Joe and Nick identify the following three big giving opportunities that each church should consider.
1. Digital giving
One of the biggest barriers to expressing generosity is a lack of giving options. Today, nearly everyone carries a smartphone and has access to the internet. People are used to online banking, digital transactions, and many enjoy the convenience of monthly auto payments.
Offering a digital giving solution provides a secured and convenient way for people to give to your church. Your donors can see their donation history online, manage their accounts, and even set up recurring giving so they never miss an opportunity to give.
2. Next-generation givers
Joe explains what Barna has learned about connecting with Millennials and Gen-Xers on what it means to be generous. “They want to see money—and the giving of money—as part of a bigger journey for them,” he says. “Part of that journey is very pragmatic and practical, very embedded in real life challenges, and part of it is aspirational [or] spiritual. What they want to do is bring those things together. They don’t want a pastor to silo the spiritual pursuit of generosity and giving, and their whole life, Monday through Saturday. They want a more integrated, holistic approach.”
To effectively encourage younger generations to give, pastors need to identify practical needs that are being met by their generosity. For example, using their tithes and offerings to pay for daycare for single moms, or funding a place to stay for displaced families.
The next step is to incorporate storytelling at different times during your church services (outside of the offertory and giving moments), in your communications, and on social media that paint a picture of the real-life impact your church’s generosity is having on the community.
3. Non-givers
Why do some people not give to their churches? While there are many possible reasons, one of the major factors is a lack of trust. If someone doesn’t trust your church, they will not give to your church.
It takes time for people to trust churches enough for them to feel comfortable to give. Nick explains the trust issue facing churches, especially when it comes to new church members, saying, “Martin Luther King Jr. had a funny quote that there are three conversions in a Christian’s life: the mind, the heart, and the wallet. People tend to get settled first relationally, and then they may begin to give down the line. We’re hearing numbers from six months to 18 months.”
Understanding your donors, making generosity a part of your church culture, and instilling a giving heart as part of your discipleship process will all aid in creating a trusting relationship with your donors.
Not only has the way people give today changed, but so have the reasons why people give. For pastors, a practical place to start is by taking a look at your messaging and preaching to make sure that you’re tying generosity into your holistic discipleship approach. Taking time to align your church on what generosity looks like, why it’s important, and where it fits in their discipleship journey can unleash generosity in your church, bringing powerful results.
For example, the small congregation at Revolution Church in White House, TN was able to raise over $1,000 in a single week to help with recovery efforts for the 2020 tornado in central Tennessee. And the NorthStar Church in Kennesaw, GA launched a digital giving campaign that paid off over $6.5 million in debt, and they now give back $30,000 per month to partners in their community!
If your church would like to learn more about Subsplash Giving and how to encourage year-end giving in your church, [.blog-contact-cta]let’s chat![.blog-contact-cta]
