This post was last updated on March 31st, 2021 at 10:37 am.
Here is the second part to the 2 part series for Communication and Church Donations. If you haven’t read the first part you may want to read it first. 🙂
4. Clear communication also dispels the other person’s syndrome. The old story of — why should I donate to the same cause because someone else will step up? Some clear factual information can dispel this during presentations. Let’s use two scenarios:
A. Say the goal is $20,000 for some water wells and the congregational room has 125 people listening to the presenter. That boils down to about $160.00 per person if everyone gives or $320.00 per married family. Most people listening to the presentation can take a very quick conscientious inventory of the goal, approximately how many people, and figure out the amount per person. Many, if not more, of these observations will determine if they give or not.
B. What if the presenter, without giving confidential details, gave clear information about the percentage of people (IE 65%) that gave last year, the average amount of the donation ($250.00) along with the information above in scenario 1? With that information the family’s amount quickly climbs to about $493.00, instead of $320.00. Knowing these additional facts inform potential donors a lot about what’s needed for the cause.
When the average donations are less than what’s needed per family, it really shows that everyone has to pull together to help. This information helps dispel the other person syndrome quickly.
5. a.) The lack of commitment may not be present because the maturity hasn’t grown to the point where the person is comfortable making the commitment. The person hasn’t moved from the ‘Maybe I will become a (…) when I grow up’, to an action of laying out the specific steps that they need to execute. In churches, one example is pledging. Even though a pledge is not legally binding and your circumstances could change, a commitment shows maturity. Another reason is that a commitment may be because the person doesn’t have that personal connection, yet.
b.) The lack of spiritual maturity is unique as it could be the amount of time the person takes with the organization. Or, it could be their own spiritual walk. The organization shouldn’t make it any harder with unclear communication.
c.) Unclear communications attribute to the lack of understanding and a clear demonstrated need to the donors. If the church can’t present a clear need for a mission to possible donors, then that is a large hurdle to overcome. A lack of understanding could be mitigated by asking yourself, would a total outsider understand my message if I presented it to them? Would the literature, power point slides, presentation, and so on, tell the story and allow them to be personally invested in the cause? As mentioned in the points above, a person gives when they feel connected to something — the story must make that connection.
Summary:
Communication to donors are paramount to ensure they don’t lose interest, understand the goals for the donations, and what’s considered a successful campaign. Has your ministry team sat down and discussed how each mission will communicate to their donors? When was the last time the organization sent anything about the donor support missions and projects aside from the annual statement for donations? These are just some questions to start the communication conversation, as every church must take their own communication inventory.
Leave a Reply