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January 7, 2009
What churches can learn from Wikipedia
Wikipedia met its goal to raise $6.2 million dollars. Most of the total amount raised was in the last six months of the year and nearly one-third was raised over eight days in early December. (Yes, as in a few weeks ago Decemeber...the December that was right smack dab in the middle of this big problem we're calling a recession.)
So what can churches learn from Wikipedia?
1. Wikipedia involves people in its work. The contemporary Church model is designed to fund a small group of staff members to do the work "on behalf of" the membership.
Wikipedia finds its appeal in "user generated content." That means the "user" is generating content that other "users" will find helpful and will...for lack of a better word...use.
Church leaders tend to cut the church member out of the creative planning and decision making process. Often, church leaders just want members who will say "yes" to whatever they have determined is right.
The people in your pews want to be more involved in EVERY aspect of your church's ministry. They want a say in EVERY level of decision making. And we know that the more involved people are in this part of the process, the more ownership they feel which results in high levels of satisfaction and commitment.
2. Wikipedia depends on small donations from large groups of people. Churches thrive off the faithful giving of a few.
In the article (see link above), it mentions that 125k people contributed to the goal of $6.2 million. That's an average donation of $49.60 per person. Let's take just the 50,000 people who contributed during an eight day rush in December to make up the remaining $2 million needed. That small group alone averaged only $40 per person.
What does all this mean? Stop looking for the big windfall. Start expanding your focus on growing stewards across a broader section of your membership. The problem is that we've hitched our funding models in churches on only 10-20% of our membership. That's dangerous and financially unstable.
3. Wikidpedia's founder made a personal appeal to its community. Church leaders have bought into the myth that it's membership won't tolerate straight-talk about contributions.
Imagine this, your Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. You get a memo end of November that says you are one-third away from your annual goal. What do you do?
We know what Jimmy did. He went to his audience and asked for their support. And they gave it to them.
Pastor, if you're like most of your peers, you were trained to cut expenses, pray and hope for the best. None of that is inherently bad. But it's missing an important element. People give based on felt and perceived need. And the people who are most "plugged in" to what you're doing are statistically most likely to "kick in" a little extra when times are tough. (And no one was going to argue that times were tough in December...and not much as changed in the first few days of the new year either.)
My guess is that fear left a lot of dollars on the table in churches all across the country. What that means is that there is ministry that needs to be done but won't be because the funding won't be there.
I'm thrilled for Wikipedia. I only wish the headlines read that churches were as successful funding their ministry budgets too. Our work is of eternal importance.
Posted by bstroup at January 7, 2009 3:46 PM
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