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November 2, 2009
3 steps to increasing your church's giving capacity
We spend a great deal of time pointing to the faithful giving of the few and trying to convince those who will never give to "think about" giving. Neither one of those objectives is off base. In fact, they are necessary. What does get overlooked is the largest population among the people in our pews who ARE NOT giving at their maximum capacity.
Why not?
1. One segment is in so much debt they can't see straight.
2. One segment is out of debt but doesn't have a habit of giving.
3. One segment has a habit of giving but not tithing.
4. One segment is faithfully tithing but has never been challenged to be generous.
We need to spend more time unlocking the giving potential of the people already present in our pews. So what are three steps to increasing your church's giving capacity:
1. Know your giving data.
Sorry. There is no way around this one. You are going to have to look at numbers and segment your population and quantify the giving habits of your membership. The information that lies in the numbers will tell you more than can imagine. Pay close attention to one, three, and five year trends. You have to establish a baseline before you can begin to measure progress.
2. Implement a plan.
There is nothing new about this step. Define what steps you will take as church leaders to cultivate encourage the practice of stewardship and cultivate a culture of generosity in your church. No plan = More of the same. (And if you're satisfied with where you and your church are today, you should save your church the trouble and fire yourself!) Those churches who consistently realize fully funded ministry budgets are also insanely specific about how they teach and encourage faithful giving.
3. Measure the results.
You will need to establish a few metrics to use as a measuring stick to determine whether or not your plan is having a sustained impact on the giving habits of your church membership. Metrics are different for every church and should be tied to the overall vision and focus of the church. Measuring progress (quantitatively) is so important because you can't manage what you don't measure.
Bottom line, increasing the giving capacity is a year-round effort, doesn't "just happen," and is vitally important to your church's ability to fulfill the unique vision and purpose God intended.
Get to work! We have a Kingdom to fund and build!
Posted by bstroup at November 2, 2009 8:22 AM
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