One of the benefits of using ChatGPT is that it allows you to personalize your messages to individual members. By collecting information about their interests and giving history, you can tailor your communications to be more relevant and engaging. For example, if someone has donated to a specific cause in the past, you can send them updates on how their donation has made a difference. This personal touch can go a long way in building relationships and increasing donations. One example of an AI chatbot prompt to use with ChatGPT or Jarvis that helps you personalize your messages is :
2. Use Data-Driven Insights
Another advantage of using ChatGPT is that it can provide data-driven insights on which types of messages are most effective in driving donations. By analyzing past donation patterns and engagement rates, you can identify what works best for your congregation and adjust your messaging accordingly. For example, if you find that members respond well to video messages, you can create more video content to share with them.
Consistency is key when it comes to building trust and encouraging regular giving. With ChatGPT, you can now find the time to create a repetitive workflow so that you can send regular communications to your key donors. One way to do this is to send an overall vision update with progress on annual, quarterly, or monthly ministry goals that utilize funding from tithes and offerings. A great way to use ChatGPT is to build prompts that share bullet points of what’s going on in the ministry and have the AI chatbot return descriptive paragraphs that you can use in the messaging you’re assembling. ChatGPT can help with connecting the dots, making transitions that make sense, and framing it all in a way that conveys gratitude for their financial partnership in ministry. Whether it’s a weekly newsletter or monthly update, having a consistent cadence of communication will keep your church top-of-mind for members when they’re deciding where to donate.
Another “excuse” to communicate with donors is to share micro-devotionals that focus on stewardship. ChatGPT is the perfect writing partner to help you brainstorm, organize, and write these pieces for this purpose. You can ask the AI chatbot to act like a storyteller to write a short parable, or you might provide some stats on culture or key reflections you might have on consumption vs cultivation and ask it to produce an essay that shares the Biblical worldview on generosity, or you might ask it to produce some practical personal finance tips. The opportunities are endless when you have a generative AI tool like ChatGPT to assist you in writing.
Final Thoughts
Generative AI chatbots are just beginning to evolve, and in the next few years, we can expect to see incredible improvements in AI-powered writing assist tools. For instance, Jarvis is already offering over 50 different templates for all kinds of content, from video scripts to blog posts to Facebook ad copy.
In the future, non-profits and churches will also be able to use these templates for things like creating donor appreciation letters and emails. With advances in natural language processing and machine learning, AI writing assist tools are sure to become even more sophisticated, making it easier than ever for anyone to create compelling content for their target audiences.
Today I got an end-of-year giving appeal from YoungLife and I loved what I saw.
Do you know why?
Because it humanized the giving ask in a way that I could visualize the impact with any level of donation.
The lead paragraphs talk about “them” – about how much they need, how much they got, etc. That stuff is too easy to gloss over because it isn’t donor-centric in its messaging.
But the bottom half of the email helps the recipient do the most pivotal thing possible with this donation ask — it paints a very specific picture with each associated level on the giving ladder.
Everything from $300 up to $3,600 is made clear to the giving, what will happen when they give.
The other bonus thing that is going on here is that all of these giving examples have been constructed as a recurring monthly donation.
This does three specific things:
1) Breaks down the gift into a bite size piece as small as a $25 ask to make a difference.
2) Introduces a longer-term relationship than a single transction so that there’s excuse to check in and report results, educate further and inspire for deeper support in the future.
3) Monthly recurring giving will most likely continue on beyond the year ahead to increase the average lifetime value of donor.
But let’s zoom back in to what it the most important part of this example: Framing each donation ask level with tangible outcomes for the prospective donor. This is the key to a productive giving campaign.
Are you receiving any examples of good giving appeals in your inbox? Share it with us and let us know why you resonate with them!
#GivingTuesday is the day when nonprofits all over the world unite together to mark this day for generosity and extending help to various causes. However, asking for money is often easier said than done. To keep the spirit of #GivingTuesday alive, Generosity Labs listed a few giving tips for you to inspire your target donors to donate to your cause.
Tip #1: Ask donors to imagine themselves as a person in need.
When you ask your donors to put themselves in other people’s shoes, this helps them to sympathize with the woes of those in need.
Tip #2: Diversify your call to action.
Don’t just stick to a single message. Know how you can tap other sub-groups of your target audience with a different call to action. This way, you’ll be able to grow your community.
Tip #3: Raise money, not just for your church, but to #GivingTuesday.
Create a culture of giving by bringing awareness to #GivingTuesday as a whole. This embeds the importance of dedicating time to give into people’s minds.
Tip #4: Use #GivingTuesday as a launch point for your year-end strategy.
Make sure you time your campaign. With #GivingTuesday held during the end of November, this gives you an opening to launch your year-end strategy.
Tip #5: Identify projects at the church, local, and global levels.
Identify a project that is inside your church. Then, name a project that’s inside of your building, but at the same time, is also outside of your community. And then name a project that’s global. This will provide perspective and focus for donors.
Tip #6: Challenge donors to give prayerfully.
Inspire your donors to give from the heart and to give what they believe the Lord wants them to give. This often makes each donation more meaningful and fulfilling.
Tip #7: Encourage small donation amounts.
No need for people to give huge amounts of cash, a little often goes a long way.
Download the free eBook that we have created for you with these 10 Tips for #GivingTuesday – we have also included great examples of Giving Tuesday campaigns that have been successful in the eBook!
Tip #8: Partner with other like-minded organizations.
As people often say, “The more the merrier.” This is the perfect time to join the overall NGO community in recognizing a day that celebrates the act of giving.
Tip #9: Take advantage of the increased generosity of Americans.
With the increase in giving year over year since 2015, charitable giving has been on the rise and this is the perfect time to encourage people to continue, or begin giving.
Tip #10: Make Giving Tuesday a platform for first time donors.
If this will be the first time for some of your donors to give, feel free to inspire them to participate during Giving Tuesday.
We hope some of these Giving Tuesday tips will help you to inspire your target donors to give. If you’d like to know how you can cultivate a culture of generosity, please check out GenerosityLabs.org to discover more best practices.
In a society where we reach for the plastic to pay for the $2 cup of coffee, it’s safe to say there isn’t much cash for the church offering plate. Has your organization or church joined thousands of others and offered your attendees an easier way to partner with your ministry?
Check out the options below, and give your supporters the easiest option for donating.
5 Alternative Payment Methods for Your Donors
Apple Pay
Apply Pay provides church organizations a secure way to accept donations from within their app and website. Similar to using ApplyPay to buy goods and services, users can easily donate.
Amazon Pay
Churches and other charitable organizations that register with Amazon Pay have the option to allow donations by voice using Alexa devices and directly on your website using a “Donate with Amazon” button.
Zelle
If your church, and donors, use a bank that connects with Zelle, the donation process can be completed using the mobile Zelle app simply by sending to a phone number or email address associated with the church’s account.
Cash App
Among the simplest forms of receiving and sending cash is Cash App. Available on both the iOS app and Google Play store, the cash App allows for simple transactions using Cash App names and connecting to any bank account.
Download the ebook we created for you with these 5 Alternative Payment Methods for Your Donors.
Google Wallet
Google Wallet allows for churches to quickly and easily accept donations on your website (mobile friendly, we hope!). Churches can sign up for a merchant account and identify as a non-profit. Once completed, a button is provided and can be added to your site.
Your attendees want to partner with you in ministry. Make it easy for them. As cell phones remain a constant companion, adopt one of these options for mobile app payments and expand your ministry’s reach.
Focusing on the stewardship of your donors is a fundraising best practice. By properly stewarding your followers and donors, you provide more opportunities for investment and create a positive experience for your givers.
Follow our steps today for assessing the activity of your givers.
10 TIPS FOR GAUGING DONOR ACTIVITY
1. Review your giving and donor actual vs. budget REGULARLY.
How often do you spend time diligently reviewing giving actuals vs. what was budgeted? Engage in this activity regularly and you’ll know whether or not you’re ahead of or behind the game.
2. Review your goals quarterly and ensure they are SMART.
The specific, measurable, attainable, what’s the R Relevant and Timely! Right? You should diligently and consistently apply these to your fundraising goals.
3. Don’t be afraid to revisit and revise your goals.
If your organization undergoes changes, which they may throughout the course of the year, revising your goals should be a part of your regular review process. It’s important not to change your goals too often, however if your goals no longer seem relevant or realistic, it may be time to revise.
4. Review your expenses regularly.
Again, the key here is REGULARLY. You should be looking at how you are doing in terms of realistic assumptions about your budget spending. So many times at the end of the year organizations, both on the marketplace and ministry side, are rushing to spend when there are line items where there’s overflow.
Download the ebook we created for you with these 10 Tips for Gauging Donor Activity.
5. Maintain and review your engagement levels during peak seasons and non-peak seasons.
Anytime is a great time to make sure that you are engaging donors. Typically you may engage during giving season but engaging during a non-peak season will help maintain consistency with donors.
6. Connect with high capacity donors differently.
This may seem like a non-starter, but in reality you should be analyzing and connecting with high capacity donors differently. Are you sharing their impact with them? If not, share it with them to increase and maintain engagement levels.
7. Assess your ROI and impact and share with your community.
What is the donor’s return on investment? Donors of all levels care about their impact. You should regularly give your community a realistic assessment of where the money is going and why its made an impact; or what type of impact would be made with additional donations. This can encourage donors without the ask.
8. Assess your messaging and gauge your donors.
As you start to focus on your communication with donors, whether it be to ask for donations, or to share their impact you should assess your messaging and pay attention to your engagement levels. From here tweak your messaging to maximize your impact.
Learn more about nonprofit giving trends and discover the demographics that are talking about generosity in your community on the Generosity Labs blog.
9. Quarterly, assess your first time donors vs. repeat donors.
Understanding the regularity of donations by categorizing your donors can allow for targeting communication. Your messaging can now be tailored for first time givers vs. repeat donors. Stay strategic and you’ll be able to make better communication decisions.
10. Compare and understand your repeat donor retention rate.
To expand further on #9, you’ve got to understand the retention rate of your donors. From here, you can better understand what motivates donors, donation and donor trends and crate additional streams of communication.
When you follow these steps to gauge the activity of your donor base, you can better communicate with and nurture your givers, finding new ways to motivate them to further invest in your worthy cause.
Get our free ebook with these 10 Tips for Gauging Donor Activity.
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Keep up with the latest on giving and generosity on the Generosity Labs podcast on iTunes, Stitcher Radio or YouTube.
In today’s podcast episode of Generosity Labs, our host Kenny Jahng will talk about the giving statistics of 2019. As we are already halfway through the year 2019, Kenny will share the numbers about tithing and anything that involves giving to churches and non-profit organizations.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Hello friends, it is Kenny Jahng here with the Generosity Labs podcast. We haven’t checked in a while, and I thought it’d be good to do a baseline checking here now, one half of the way to 2020. We basically have 25 weeks left until Christmas. Can you believe it? 25 weeks. And this is the time to start thinking about the end of year giving for your church or ministry, nonprofit, et cetera.
This is the time to start that planning because you have a countdown of 25 to 30 weeks. Actually, sorry. 25 to 26 weeks until the end of the year, the last week, the last 72 hours, the last 24 hours. You know that whole breakdown of giving that most of giving is done in queue for … Most of the queue for giving is done in December and now it’s expanding between giving Tuesday. Sometimes it’s in November, sometimes it’s December. From Giving Tuesday, which marks the beginning of the end of your giving season officially, straight till the end of the year.
The last remaining hours of December 31st is where you need to continue to push, push, push and try to help your audience and community members close that gap between their intended giving profile and what they believe that their giving history is going to look like and their actual behavior.
And so today I thought it might be a good check in to just have a dose of reality and say, “Let’s look at what else is going on out there.” And that that should frame the conversation for you and your teams internally. And one of the places I found was this nonprofit source, a website that has a whole list of statistics, not for 2019 but for this past year. And so we can take a look at giving stats and trends, not just for church, but just nonprofits in general. And also the demographics that are really talking about generosity in your community.
So the first stat right off the bat is that giving is up. Americans gave $410 billion to charities in 2017, up 5%. So we’ll have to see this year, the recession hasn’t hit yet. We don’t know what’s going to happen in Trumponomics at the end of the year, but it looks like there should be a continued either sustain or continue to have some momentum in giving.
And so here’s a couple of things. On the right-hand side of the website that I’m looking at, nonprofitsource.com, they have some charitable giving demographic stats, and I’d just love to cover some of that. Millennials, who used to be the definition of Millennials are anyone under 30 that you don’t like working with. But Millennials are now way over 30 years old. They encompass almost 26% of the population. This is a significant chunk that you need to be paying attention to.
If you’re in charge of fundraising, donor development, giving in your church, 40% of Millennials are actually enrolled in a monthly giving program. Recurring giving is not a foreign concept to this tribe, and so this is something that you really need to think about. 26% gave tribute gifts. This is something that you typically don’t see in church giving being presented as an option, but this might be something that you think about and figure how do you incorporate into that giving menu as you go March to the end of the year.
46% donated to crowdfunding campaigns. Now, this is interesting. Giving Tuesday, which has had momentum every single year, it has continued to grow. Giving Tuesday follows Cyber Monday, Cyber Monday follows Black Friday, Black Friday follows Thanksgiving. And so 15% of Millennials actually gave on Giving Tuesday. You’ll find that on the other demographics here, Gen Xers, 14% gave on Giving Tuesday. Baby boomers, 15% gave on Giving Tuesday.
So that’s something even the population after that, actually this study doesn’t have how much of the greatest generation has given on Giving Tuesday, but 15% of the population for the bulk of the people in your pews have given on Giving Tuesday. This is why Giving Tuesday is so important in any fundraising campaigns for the end of the year.
Now, this is interesting. Now Millennials are giving through social media. 16% gave through Facebook’s fundraising tool, which evidently has removed all fees so that you get 100% of the fees … Sorry, 100% of the donation given online. Facebook is covering the rest and they’re going to add fuel to the fire this year by giving you more options for that. You got to remember Instagram has also added a sticker for giving as well. So social media is something that you guys should be thinking about. Now, 55% attended fundraising events. I don’t think many churches have fundraising events for giving, whether it is the end of the year or not.
This is something, again, another tactic that you should put into the consideration set, because this is something that other charities, other places where they depend on patrons, are actually doing. This is a behavior that they are used to and it’s something that you as, I guess, a church … that is looking to really disciple your people into having giving behavior to support the local church and the ministry. This is something that you should look into for sure. Fundraising events.
Now, 11% of the total U.S. giving comes from Millennials, while 25% of the population, 26% of the population are Millennials. So there is a way to go to proportionally match how many people are in the room, but you need to focus on this. Now, this is really interesting. 84% of Millennials gave to charity, donating an annual average of $481 a year, $481 a year, across 3.3 organizations.
This generation is thinking of giving in terms of a portfolio. They are not taking one affinity group and putting all their eggs in one basket. They’re trying to make the best decision to steward their disposable income and they’re spreading it out over several organizations. Millennials are active on their phones and they respond best to text messages and social media, but rarely check personal email and voicemails.
Are you using text to give? Are you using online and mobile app giving? These are things that this generation absolutely requires and so many churches have not stepped up to offer those options. Gen Xers, 20% of the population, so the Gen Xers are actually smaller than the Millennials that are stepping up. And 49% of the 50% of them, pretty much half of them, have enrolled in some sort of recurring giving. They are a lot more trusting, I guess, or they’ve put into motion that recurring giving behavior.
Whereas if you remember, 40% of millennial donors are in recurring giving programs. So that’s an interesting change. Again, 14% of gen Xers gave on Giving Tuesday, 19% have used the Facebook fundraising tools. If you think that these older generations are not used to giving through Facebook, look at baby boomers, actually more. 21% give through Facebook fundraising tools, 21%. So one in five, more than one in five actually. And so if you’re thinking older populations and saying, “Hey, technology and all this brouhaha about social media is not working.” Well, I’ll tell you, these stats prove you wrong.
Now, traditional old school, 58% attended fundraising events in the boomer category and 56 in the gen Xers. So these populations are used to fundraising events, benefits, galas, fundraisers. They really want to participate and be a part of something instead of just … I was going to say write a check, but it’s really give on their mobile phone, whether it be Venmo or online giving or text to give, et cetera.
So these are statistics that I think you really, really have to think about. Now, boomers are the ones that give a lot more money than Millennials. 72% of boomers give to charity. That means the majority of them have some sort of charitable behavior and they’re donating an average of $1,212 across 4.5 organizations. That’s a lot. These baby boomers are really thinking about where they’re giving and they’re giving across a portfolio more than all the others.
So this is something that you have to think about. How do you become part of that 4.5? and how do you increase the giving from 1200 a year, even earlier? So the greatest generation, which is only about 11.8% of the population, these are aging donors. 30% of the donors aged 75 or more, so that they’ve given online in the past 12 months. And on average give 25% more frequently than younger generations.
Again, we write off the 75-plus category typically, especially when I’m speaking to groups and crowds. I was just at a conference in Florida where the majority of the church leaders there said that their congregations were 60 and over, maybe 70 and older for many of them. And they were all poo-pooing the idea that we could use social media technology, online giving, mobile app giving for that demographic.
And yet here, the greatest generation, which is that older population, 30% of donors age 75%, so they’ve given online in the past 12 months. They’ve given online and they give even more. So you want to make it as easy as possible for them to give online if they’re going to. 88% of them, 88% of the greatest generation donates an average of 1367. 1,367, and they give to even more organizations, 6.2 organizations. And they represent over a quarter of all giving in the United States.
Now, this is a flip to the Millennials. Millennials had about 25% of the population. They had about 11, 12% of giving here. The greatest generation is about 11.8% of the population, 12% and they’re giving a quarter of all U.S. giving. Now, they prefer voicemails and direct mail. Obviously, they’re not huge on email and they typically will text, but they are likely to give through mail campaigns and in-person things.
And so that’s an overview of just nonprofit giving. In terms of actual church giving, we can talk about travel giving churches very specifically, and in this study, they’ve defined giving to religion defined specifically as congregations, denominations, ministry societies, religious media. And obviously, you probably have known that this category of giving, religious giving, is the single largest category of charitable giving for Americans. We’ll see how long that stays put like that, but that is something that you have to think of.
Now, here’s a very interesting statistic that just amazes me because there are people in churches that still have not embraced online giving or credit card giving, in particular. And yet, 49% of all churches, 49% of all church-giving transactions are made with a card. Almost half of all giving to a church across the country is made with a credit card. And eight out of 10 people who give to churches have zero credit card debt.
All those Dave Ramsey people that are worried that you’re sinking your people into deeper debt and misery. This is an interesting statistic, 80% of the people who actually give to churches have zero credit card debt. They are managing their finances well and giving by credit card, then for eight out of 10 of them is scot-free. They’re actually probably getting some mileage or points or some other benefit. It’s a win-win and it actually helps them probably give larger on an individual basis. 60% are willing to give to churches digitally.
And let’s look at some other stats here. This is really interesting. During the Great Depression, the average Christian gave 3.3% of their annual income, and today it’s about 2.5% of the income. So if you’re trying to figure out for your congregation how much giving you should be, just to have a baseline, figure out in general an average. And you can get this demographics for your zip codes, all this demographic information is the average income for zip codes, et cetera. And then you can figure out what the average income is multiplied by your congregation number, and multiply by 2.5% and see where you are. Obviously that’s much lower than it should be and it could be, but this is a starting point where you should have a baseline.
So now, if you look at those that actually give regularly, not just recurring giving, but regularly, 70% of Americans say that they tithe regularly. And so this is something that if your congregation is less than 20% are giving regularly, then this is something that you really need to talk about internally to figure out how you can change, not just their behavior, but their thinking through teaching.
Because giving is a spiritual discipline. Money is talked about in the Bible more than any other subject by Jesus. It’s something that Biblically you can help give structure and a Biblical worldview to help them understand how to steward their finances. And this is something that we want to build a culture of generosity, not one of obligation.
So what are the things that we can talk about? 30% of annual giving occurs in December for everybody. 10% of annual giving occurs in the last three days of the year. So we should not give up until the last, last … Almost it’s like when you’re watching Times Square and the ball drop, you should be thinking about, “How do we spur that last drop of giving?” Because people are willing to give all the way up to the last hours of the year.
77% believe everyone can make a difference by supporting causes and it’s your job to help them understand that yes, they can and this is why it’s worthy and this is where the active transformation is happening. Remember, as communicators, as stewards, as leaders, our job is to help put the donors, the givers as close as possible to the act of transformation, possible. And here’s a couple of interesting tidbits.
64% of the donation made by women. I would think that many communicators would default to the image of the men making the decision, or the breadwinner making the decision and making the assumption that the man in a dual income family makes more money than the woman. But yet, donations are made by women. And so you might want to think about how you are presenting that information. Everything down to the type of images and stock photography or real photography that you might use, the language, and even the outlets of how to make the announcements through, through which groups or which channels in your ministry.
These are the types of things that you should be thinking about, because the behavior of the decision dictates the outcome of the actual giving decisions. So here’s just a whole bunch of stats that came out of this list of aggregation of giving statistics for this past year.
Remember, we have 25 weeks left going into the end of this year. I just want to set the tone. And in the next couple of weeks, what we’ll do is we’ll go through some other ways to frame how we’re supposed to be marching forward as we count down for the end of year, for 2019. I’d love to hear your thoughts. What are some of the statistics that stood out or the things that are missing? Are there things that you would love to know more about that would help you make those business decisions in architecting those campaigns?
Whether it be short-term missions, budgetary, or end of year giving for either Giving Tuesday as the kickoff or even the actual December, you might have a Christmas campaign. Those are the types of things. Let me know what your questions are. Send them into us at Generosity Labs and we’ll actually process through them with you on another episode here at the Generosity Labs podcast.
In the meantime, please check out our website for other episodes of the podcast as well as other resources. We’d love to share our blog with you and some other things that we are going to make available in the next couple of weeks and months as downloadable resources, so that you can have the best year ever in terms of setting a culture of generosity for your church. I’m Kenny Jahng. Until next time, remember generosity begins with you.
HIGHLIGHTS:
02:22 And so today I thought it might be a good check in to just have a dose of reality and say, “Let’s look at what else is going on out there.” And that that should frame the conversation for you and your teams internally. And one of the places I found was this nonprofit source, a website that has a whole list of statistics, not for 2019 but for this past year. And so we can take a look at giving stats and trends, not just for the church, but just nonprofits in general. And also the demographics that are really talking about generosity in your community.
So the first stat right off the bat is that giving it up. Americans gave $410 billion to charities in 2017, up 5%. So we’ll have to see this year, the recession hasn’t hit yet. We don’t know what’s going to happen in Trumponomics at the end of the year, but it looks like there should be a continued either sustain or continue to have some momentum in giving.
04:28 46% donated to crowdfunding campaigns. Now, this is interesting. Giving Tuesday, which has had momentum every single year, it has continued to grow. Giving Tuesday follows Cyber Monday, Cyber Monday follows Black Friday, Black Friday follows Thanksgiving. And so 15% of Millennials actually gave on Giving Tuesday. You’ll find that on the other demographics here, Gen Xers, 14% gave on Giving Tuesday. Baby boomers, 15% gave on Giving Tuesday.
So that’s something even the population after that, actually this study doesn’t have how much of the greatest generation has given on Giving Tuesday, but 15% of the population for the bulk of the people in your pews have given on Giving Tuesday. This is why Giving Tuesday is so important in any fundraising campaigns for the end of the year.
Now, this is interesting. Now Millennials are giving through social media. 16% gave through Facebook’s fundraising tool, which evidently has removed all fees so that you get 100% of the fees … Sorry, 100% of the donation given online. Facebook is covering the rest and they’re going to add fuel to the fire this year by giving you more options for that. You got to remember Instagram has also added a sticker forgiving as well. So social media is something that you guys should be thinking about. Now, 55% attended fundraising events. I don’t think many churches have fundraising events for giving, whether it is the end of the year or not.
This is something, again, another tactic that you should put into the consideration set because this is something that other charities, other places where they depend on patrons, are actually doing. This is a behavior that they are used to and it’s something that you as, I guess, a church … that is looking to really disciple your people into having giving behavior to support the local church and the ministry. This is something that you should look into for sure. Fundraising events.
Now, 11% of the total U.S. giving comes from Millennials, while 25% of the population, 26% of the population are Millennials. So there is a way to go to proportionally match how many people are in the room, but you need to focus on this. Now, this is really interesting. 84% of Millennials gave to charity, donating an annual average of $481 a year, $481 a year, across 3.3 organizations.
09:39 So these are statistics that I think you really, really have to think about. Now, boomers are the ones that give a lot more money than Millennials. 72% of boomers give to charity. That means the majority of them have some sort of charitable behavior and they’re donating an average of $1,212 across 4.5 organizations. That’s a lot. These baby boomers are really thinking about where they’re giving and they’re giving across a portfolio more than all the others.
So this is something that you have to think about. How do you become part of that 4.5? and how do you increase the giving from 1200 a year, even earlier? So the greatest generation, which is only about 11.8% of the population, these are aging donors. 30% of the donors aged 75 or more, so that they’ve given online in the past 12 months. And on average give 25% more frequently than younger generations.
Again, we write off the 75-plus category typically, especially when I’m speaking to groups and crowds. I was just at a conference in Florida where the majority of the church leaders there said that their congregations were 60 and over, maybe 70 and older for many of them. And they were all poo-pooing the idea that we could use social media technology, online giving, mobile app giving for that demographic.
13:28 All those Dave Ramsey people that are worried that you’re sinking your people into deeper debt and misery. This is an interesting statistic, 80% of the people who actually give to churches have zero credit card debt. They are managing their finances well and giving by credit card, then for eight out of 10 of them is scot-free. They’re actually probably getting some mileage or points or some other benefit. It’s a win-win and it actually helps them probably give larger on an individual basis. 60% are willing to give to churches digitally.
And let’s look at some other stats here. This is really interesting. During the Great Depression, the average Christian gave 3.3% of their annual income, and today it’s about 2.5% of the income. So if you’re trying to figure out for your congregation how much giving you should be, just to have a baseline, figure out in general an average. And you can get this demographics for your zip codes, all this demographic information is the average income for zip codes, et cetera. And then you can figure out what the average income is multiplied by your congregation number, and multiply by 2.5% and see where you are. Obviously that’s much lower than it should be and it could be, but this is a starting point where you should have a baseline.
So now, if you look at those that actually give regularly, not just recurring giving, but regularly, 70% of Americans say that they tithe regularly. And so this is something that if your congregation is less than 20% are giving regularly, then this is something that you really need to talk about internally to figure out how you can change, not just their behavior, but their thinking through teaching.
Because giving is a spiritual discipline. Money is talked about in the Bible more than any other subject by Jesus. It’s something that Biblically you can help give structure and a Biblical worldview to help them understand how to steward their finances. And this is something that we want to build a culture of generosity, not one of obligation.
So what are the things that we can talk about? 30% of annual giving occurs in December for everybody. 10% of annual giving occurs in the last three days of the year. So we should not give up until the last, last … Almost it’s like when you’re watching Times Square and the ball drop, you should be thinking about, “How do we spur that last drop of giving?” Because people are willing to give all the way up to the last hours of the year.
For today’s episode of the Generosity Labs Podcast, Kenny Jahng shares how people can be forgetful when summertime comes. He will discuss key points to be considered by churches and nonprofit organizations for check up during summer.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Hey everybody, it’s Kenny Jahng. It is summertime. Feels like it. It’s definitely heading up to almost 90 degrees here in Jersey this week. This is Kenny Jahng with Generosity Labs, and we are checking in with the podcast. Haven’t been with you lately but we are back on track. And here’s the reason that we’re checking in today is that it is summertime. We are now at a point where the back to school or end of school rush is gone. Mother’s day is gone. Father’s day is gone. We are looking at July 4th, and then it’s just the summer slump for most of the churches and nonprofits that we are talking about.
Now, you might have a vibrant schedule for the summer. But here’s one thing that I’d love to talk about today. And that’s a summer checkup. of times you hear that before you go on vacation, you should check your vehicle to make sure the tire pressure’s there, the oil, radiator. All that stuff is in good condition before you go on a big trip. And this is the same time to do this summer checkup for your donor development activities. And it’s just a couple things that I think you should put on your radar. This is a great thing to put on for either the end of June or for the rest of July. To just check-in and see how you’re doing.
And so there are a couple of things. The first thing is just where you are in terms of progress for your overall plan for the year. Are you on a budget? Are you ahead of the game? Are you behind the game? And it’s time to rejigger your plan. Right? Basically, we’ve got July, August, September, and then October, November, December. Right? Six months, two quarters to go. It’s time to get back onto the white board, and to find those smart goals, right? The specific, measurable, attainable, what’s the R? Relevant and timely. Right? Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goals regarding your fundraising plan. How are you doing that? What are you going to do to achieve that for the rest… To meet your original goals. Maybe you’ll need to revise those goals.
And then also on the spending side, how are you doing in terms of realistic assumptions about your budget spending? Because so many times at the end of the year, you’ve seen it in so many organizations, both on the marketplace and ministry side, that their line items on the budget where you have overflow. You just haven’t used them, used the dollars, and people are just racing to the end of the year, in December, to just spend out all of their budget in certain line items.
On the other side, people run out of money early, and they’re looking for funds in the fall at some point. So this is the time to revise those budget lines, because you have clarity. You actually have 50% clarity on what’s going to happen in 2019. So revising those goals and objectives in your budget is the number one thing that you should be doing in June and July.
A second one is looking at some other things that you typically don’t have time for. But you actually have the time now to pay attention to that. And so that is looking at your donor base. Both your high capacity donors, and your first time donors. And seeing what the rates are there in terms of first time donors turning into second donors, renewals, et cetera. Basically your donor retention rate, as we might call it. Trying to figure out how to get those first time donors to donate again in the second half of the year. Do you have any type of plan or campaign or excuse, honestly, to give them for them to consider contributing to the vision and the mission of your organization once again in the second half of the year?
The other part is that those high capacity donors. This is a great time to make sure that you are engaging them. You might have engaged them really heavily during the end of your giving season. You might have engaged them during the spring or even the Easter season, right? We’ve got these big days that hit the calendar. But summertime is the time that most people get forgotten. This is a great time for you to break through the clutter, and reconnect with some of your high capacity donors, and share them. How you doing? Are you on track or ahead of the game in terms of both your funding as well as your outcomes, right? All the actual objectives in terms of the activities and the ROI and the impact that you’re going to put out there.
Give them an update. Let them know how you’re doing. And give them some realistic assessments of, this is where we’re doing stuff in a strong way, and this is where we, because all these variables, we’re at a position where we might have a deficit, or we need to strengthen and shore that up. And that might be a place where donors can jump in again and participate. So cultivating those relationships, even outside of asks. Just checking in with them and seeing how they’re doing, and getting advice from their perspective is definitely something that I think you would want to start to do in the summer, because many other organizations are not. And again, it’s easy to cut through the clutter.
And the last one is looking at the rest of the year to refine it. Right? If you have story brands work that you’ve done with your organization, this is a great place for you to go back to your SB7 place mat, as we call it. And look at the core messaging. Are you still being caveman simple, as Don Miller says? Is your messaging clear? Is it something that allows people to understand that they’re the hero and that they are the ones that are able to make a difference? Are you showing them what happens if they don’t actually contribute or become a supporter or donate to the cause. What is the opportunity cost? Are you having between now, even starting in July. You’ve got six months. Do you have at least six pieces, 12 pieces? That will be biweekly. 24 pieces weekly communication that you can actually plan out right now during the summer, and start to drip, drip, drip. Send out that out to your constituents, your high capacity donors, and your general community.
Whether it be framed in terms of a financial and budgetary type of conversation, or just the ministry impact type of conversation. Is this something that you’ve started to think about now? This is a great time to work on that communications plan, set it, and forget it. At least between now and sometime in Q4, where you really should be amping up the communications regarding end of year giving, as well as Giving Tuesday, and the last week of the year. So looking at that, kind of like the smart goals. Are you doing anything on a overarching plan to relook at what you’re planned out for the last six months of the year in terms of your communications to your community. And this is the time to make those adjustments, alignments, and then put it back on track.
So those are some of the things that I would say is the summer tune up. Part of that summer tune up for a donor development or fundraising perspective that every single organization should take some time out between June and July of this year and see how you’re doing. I’d love to hear your perspective, and show me the wins or show me the deficits of where we might be able to add to the conversation, help give you some support here at Generosity Labs.
This is the type of thing that we’d love to dive down deeper if this is something you’d like to hear about. So let me know what part of this interests you? Is it the smart goals? Is it how do we communicate more effectively with high capacity donors in our community? Is it the communications plan? I just had recently, someone just flagged that they wanted to hear a little bit more about the serving. We talked about building a testimonial engine for your audience and your community to help build authority that you have in relation to your own community.
And there was a great question that came up that says, you know, I can see how the net promoter score surveys are done for the marketplace, for secular businesses, for profit businesses. But how do you phrase it for nonprofit, for ministries, and churches? That was a great question that came up recently, and we shared some concrete examples in response.
All of this, all these resources that we’re trying to pull together for Generosity Labs, are for you.
So selfishly I’m asking you, reach out to me. Drop us a note on the website. Visit our website, our blog. Share the podcast with others. But more importantly, let us know what are the types of resources and information topics that you would love to hear more about? Are there specific leaders in the industry? Are there organizations that you are seeing do these things well, and you’d love to hear more behind the scenes stories about their approaches, about their philosophies, and even the tactics and resources that they’re using specifically. Let me know. I’d love to hear that so we can make this resource an even better one for you.
So that said, hope you’re doing well with your summer checkup. We’ll check in with you again soon here on the Generosity Labs podcast as we’re revving back up again here at generositylabs.org. I’m Kenny Jahng, I’ll check you out next time. And remember, generosity begins with you.
HIGHLIGHTS:
03:13 The first thing is just where you are in terms of progress for your overall plan for the year. Are you on a budget? Are you ahead of the game? Are you behind the game? And it’s time to rejigger your plan. Right? Basically, we’ve got July, August, September, and then October, November, December. Right? Six months, two quarters to go. It’s time to get back onto the whiteboard, and to find those smart goals, right? The specific, measurable, attainable, what’s the R? Relevant and timely. Right? Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goals regarding your fundraising plan. How are you doing that? What are you going to do to achieve that for the rest… To meet your original goals. Maybe you’ll need to revise those goals.
04:06 A second one is looking at some other things that you typically don’t have time for. But you actually have the time now to pay attention to that. And so that is looking at your donor base. Both your high capacity donors and your first-time donors. And see what the rates are there in terms of first-time donors turning into second donors, renewals, et cetera. Basically, your donor retention rate, as we might call it. Trying to figure out how to get those first-time donors to donate again in the second half of the year. Do you have any type of plan or campaign or excuse, honestly, to give them for them to consider contributing to the vision and the mission of your organization once again in the second half of the year?
06:25 And the last one is looking at the rest of the year to refine it. Right? If you have story brands work that you’ve done with your organization, this is a great place for you to go back to your SB7 placemat, as we call it. And look at the core messaging. Are you still being caveman simple, as Don Miller says? Is your messaging clear? Is it something that allows people to understand that they’re the hero and that they are the ones that are able to make a difference? Are you showing them what happens if they don’t actually contribute or become a supporter or donate to the cause? What does the opportunity cost? Are you having between now, even starting in July. You’ve got six months. Do you have at least six pieces, 12 pieces? That will be biweekly. 24 pieces weekly communication that you can actually plan out right now during the summer, and start to drip, drip, drip. Send out that out to your constituents, your high capacity donors, and your general community.
Tune in to this the most recent episode of our Generosity Labs with Kenny Jahng. In this episode, Kenny will share 8 points from an article at Barna entitled, What Motivates Christians to Give.
It’s generosity time. It’s time for the Generosity Labs podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Wanting to share this study that I found out over at Barna. It was actually titles what motivates Christians to give, and it was released around Giving Tuesday of this past year, which is the Tuesday after Cyber Monday, Monday after, what’s it, what is it after Thanksgiving and Black Friday. And so the question, what motivates Christians to give us a great one? And as we go into 2019, there’s a bunch of questions that I’d love to challenge you as you go to church this Sunday. Are you demonstrating the answers to these questions of what motivates Christians to give? So they had one, they have this great article you should read the whole thing of the name of the article again is What Motivates Christians to Give. It’s in their culture and media section over at Barna and there’s one question in particular. I first got involved with a cause because, and then they do all these splits between practicing Christians and all US adults. And practicing Christian Christian is just to let you know they define it in this article as somebody that’s self identified as Christian who says their faith is very important in their lives and have attended a worship service in the past month.
Nonpracticing Christians are self identified Christians who do not qualify as practicing. So, we’re looking at Christians and adult behavior. The question is I got, I first got involved with the cause because I first got involved with a cause because fill in the blank. And so, I want to go down this list. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight factors. Eight, fill in the blanks. And here’s the question I’ll challenge you with is, on Sunday when you go to church, can somebody who sits there in the pew for the first time or for the 10th time or the hundredth time? Can they say yes to any or even half of these questions? So, the first question, the first answer is I felt I could make a difference. So in your church services, in your church communications, in your storytelling, are you demonstrating that any individual that gets involved with tithing, with their offerings, with donations, with volunteering, that are you making a space for them to actually make a difference?
Or are you just asking them to fund your mission and you’ll go off and do a turnkey? A second one is I heard or saw a story that moved me. Storytelling examples, case studies, testimonials, are you publishing these things on a regular basis? Are you asking people to share their experience as they volunteer, as they give, as they fund your ministry? Number three, I felt an overwhelming sense of purpose. And an overwhelming sense of purpose, so this really comes down to clarity of vision casting, sharing what your mission is for the ministry. Has that been done in a credible way and authentic way so that sound feels that there’s this overwhelming sense of purpose in this place when they visit you for that hour on Sunday. Next one is, someone I know personally wasn’t very involved in this cause. And so that’s where you need to take advantage of those volunteers that you have already, those committed even staffers and are they sharing about their involvement?
Are they sharing their excitement? Are they sharing what their passion i?s and the reason why they are onboard with the mission, with those people around them. Those people that are active are your referral engine. They are the people that you need to rely on and equip, not just instruct. You need to equip them in better sharing. Exactly what they’re doing, why they’re doing, and how other people could get involved. Giving is obviously one of those things. And people don’t give unless they have this sense of cause and that they see others doing it at the same time. And so here’s the next one. I love this one. I first got involved with the cause because I accepted a personal challenge to get involved. Are you afraid of the money topic? Are you not going to the actual call to action, but just stopping, just shy of it because you feel guilty or you just don’t feel it’s right not to personally challenge people to get involved with funding your mission, whether it be a small campaign, whether it be the big picture, whether it be as a part of their own spiritual discipline because how you behave with your money is a reflection of your heart in their understanding of God’s love and generosity.
Are you actually doing that on a personal level? Are you challenging people explicitly to get involved financially? Even, any church can do this on a week by week basis without making it an obligation fest. This next one is very important. My church cast a vision for me. I think this is the one thing that many churches completely forget about. The leadership team or the senior pastor might have something in their mind, but they’re not sharing it. They’re not articulating it. In fact, what we say is that there’s usually something called vision leak in most organizations and that you need to repeat it and make sure everyone is indoctrinated with the vision that you have for the community, once at least every six to eight weeks. Because of a variety of factors, one, people are not coming to church every week anymore.
They’re catching it every other week, every three weeks, you know, once a month. That’s the new norm. And second there is visually, there’s just so much messaging they’re bombarded with. They’re busy with their lives more than ever for them to understand and hold onto what you are trying to instill in their lives and practice as a ministry gets lost. And so just that practical effect of visionlink is something that you need to figure out how to do it in a intentional, almost scheduled where every six, eight weeks within your ministry somehow. It can be from the pulpit that can be from outside of the pulpit, but can someone can so and say, “yes, my church actually cast a vision for me”. The next one is, I was given or assigned a specific task to do. Micro commitments are one of the best ways of getting people involved.
It doesn’t need to be financial commitment at the beginning either. Usually it’s a commitment of time, of volunteering of some other type of talents before you actually asked them to give a treasure. So, giving or specific tasks or assignments, some projects involving people in the ministry. And the activation of putting their faith into action is usually a great way to start that process of opening up the stewardship conversations and letting them dedicate all their lives holy, not just their schedule, their time, their mind and their heart, but also part of their wallet too, to financially support the mission. And the last one here is, I took a foreign trip and saw the need firsthand, mission trips. There’s pros and cons of mission trips. There’s a big debate whether or not short term mission trips are actually doing any good or even harm, but you don’t need to take a foreign trip.
You might do an open house. You might actually take one or two at a time and let them invite them to visit your ministry outreach, where the acts of transformation are happening in your ministry to witness that firsthand. The whole point here is they saw the need firsthand not reported, not in a slideshow, not in a slick video. It needs to be something that they see physically, tactically in person, embodied, so that they actually see the need firsthand and go back and start to consider it and integrated into their faith life. And so these are really interesting things. Obviously the ones at the beginning of the list are the most impactful. The first, I first got involved with the cause because of these first three I would say I felt that can make a difference. I heard or saw something that moved me or I felt an overwhelming sense of purpose are three things that you can start to do with your messaging, with your communication, with intentionality in your worship and the stories that you tell in your sermons, in your offering time.
You know, the little offering scripts that you might be using in your announcements and also reporting of all the great things that your ministries are doing inside your building and outside your building. I challenge you to take a look at this article. There’s a lot more to it than just this one survey question, but as we break this down, this is my question too, are the majority of the people that walk into your building on Sunday this coming Sunday, are they going to walk away and they say, “I felt I could make a difference and part of this community”? Or, “I saw or heard something that moved me today in terms of wanting to get involved” or, “I felt an overwhelming sense of purpose in this place or this community for everything that they’re doing in terms of mercy and justice and outreach and life change”.
Can you say yes? Is that something that the majority of people will on an exit survey, you know, on a volunteer basis they will volunteer to say yes to those questions without being prompted by you without being coached, without being reminded. That is one should be one of your top messaging and communications goals going forward to see what type of artifacts, what type of storytelling, what type of conversation pieces, what type of messaging that we can integrate into their whole experience when they come into our building on Sunday so that they leave and they say yes to every single one of those statements.
So, I would love to know your thoughts. Leave your comments below and share this with friends and see what they think. It’s great. I think conversations started to say, “hey, is this is a different way of doing a checkpoint in ministry and I’d love to hear your feedback and what you think about using this as a litmus test as to see if you’re on track”. I’d love to hear that in the comments below, or reach out to me directly or join our Facebook page for Generosity Labs and comment there as well. I’m Kenny Jahng for Generosity Labs. Go to our website, generositylabs.org. Check out the blog, check out the rest of the podcast issues, and I’d love to reach out and connect with you further in any of those places. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you here next time at the generosity labs podcast.
HIGHLIGHTS:
03:16 So, the first question, the first answer is I felt I could make a difference. So in your church services, in your church communications, in your storytelling, are you demonstrating that any individual that gets involved with tithing, with their offerings, with donations, with volunteering, that are you making a space for them to actually make a difference?
Or are you just asking them to fund your mission and you’ll go off and do a turnkey?
03:50 Storytelling examples, case studies, testimonials, are you publishing these things on a regular basis? Are you asking people to share their experience as they volunteer, as they give, as they fund your ministry?
04:06 Number three, I felt an overwhelming sense of purpose. And an overwhelming sense of purpose, so this really comes down to clarity of vision casting, sharing what your mission is for the ministry.
04:31 Next one is, someone I know personally wasn’t very involved in this cause. And so that’s where you need to take advantage of those volunteers that you have already, those committed even staffers and are they sharing about their involvement?
05:28 And so here’s the next one. I love this one. I first got involved with the cause because I accepted a personal challenge to get involved.
06:31 This next one is very important. My church cast a vision for me. I think this is the one thing that many churches completely forget about. The leadership team or the senior pastor might have something in their mind, but they’re not sharing it.
07:17 And second there is visually, there’s just so much messaging they’re bombarded with. They’re busy with their lives more than ever for them to understand and hold onto what you are trying to instill in their lives and practice as a ministry gets lost.
07:59 The next one is, I was given or assigned a specific task to do. Micro commitments are one of the best ways of getting people involved.
It doesn’t need to be financial commitment at the beginning either.
08:54 And the last one here is, I took a foreign trip and saw the need firsthand, mission trips. There’s pros and cons of mission trips. There’s a big debate whether or not short term mission trips are actually doing any good or even harm, but you don’t need to take a foreign trip.
For today’s episode of the Generosity Labs Podcast, Kenny Jahng shares tithing stats within America from an article that he ran across. He talks about tithing and the data that they have from self-surveys regarding tithing. Kenny also talks about the church messaging, marketing and strategy and how it could be better with a few small changes.
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey there, Kenny Jahng here from Generosity Labs. Find out more details about generosity and giving resources for the church at our website, www.generositylabs.org.
And we are here with another episode of the podcast today. I just want to jump online and I found this interesting article that came across my desk, 21 fascinating tithing statistics and I just wanted to share a couple of them with you, but actually now that I think about it, most of them don’t even matter. There’s a whole great article. What is tithing? Tithing is defined for those people who don’t go to church, you know, they think it’s 10 percent today, that conversation and that definition has been loosened up. There’s Biblical support for it, all this kind of stuff. But when it comes down to it, there’s a couple of things. One, everyone thinks that you need to increase the giving by bringing more people into the church. And you look at the number one type of statistic that they listed here, only three to five percent of Americans who give to their local church do so through regular tithing.
That is kind of crazy when you actually survey people, obviously self reported tithing numbers go up. Number six, when surveyed, 17% of Americans state that they regularly tithe. So 17% say that they tithe regularly, only three to five percent give regular tithing to their church and they’re not even sure what they mean by tithing. They’re just saying regular giving to the church. And so that is kind of interesting. Obviously, you know, the average donations who attended us Protestant churches about $17 a week, which I think is kind of fascinating, that’s really tiny, right? Like you would think that it will be much higher than that, but the average person, if they’re only giving, $17 a week and if you assume that they go every single week, which we know is not the case, the average church goer is only going every other week, every three weeks, every four weeks.
But if they were there every single week, that would only mean $884 per person per year. And we know that’s not the case. And so, that’s really, really concerned some people. Right here at number 13, 17% of American families have reduced the amount that they give to the local church in some way. 7% have dropped regular giving by 20 percent or more. 20% or more. So one of these things that I think is really interesting is that I think that you have the emphasis on the wrong thing, that you have people sitting in your pews and literally the majority of them are not giving regularly. The majority of them are not tithing, even the ones that are giving regular or giving less. And if you listen to our last episode there are some questions that Dan Reiland from 12Stone church actually posted that I would challenge people to do a challenge, sit in the pews the Sunday and try to say yes for every single one of the top responses that people gave for when they give to a cause.
And I would say for the majority of churches, they are not doing a good job at all. In fact, they’re failing to have those answers say yes, yes, yes by anybody who attends the church. And for the most part it’s an easy fix in terms of your messaging, your marketing, and also some strategic, I guess a change in how you’re actually doing your ministry that doesn’t need to have huge overhauls in what you do in terms of your operations, your workflows, your ministries, your causes, all the things, the activities that you’re planning. But if you can tweak them and really think about it and reverse engineer to figure out how someone at your church is going to answer those questions with a yes instead of a no, then you’re on your way to becoming a healthy financial church. There is good news. Number 14 says, in total, about 10 million people actually do donate as tithers to the church and that those 10 million give about $50,000,000,000 annually to the Church and to other nonprofit causes, to the Church and nonprofit causes.
That means you have the ability to influence them and prioritize the church as one of their giving partners. Now 77% of those who people who did give significantly 11 to 20 percent of their income, we’re far more than the baseline of 10%, right? Seventy seven percent of time gave more than they needed to, and there’s a reason why. If you look at those churches in those communities, those leaders, they’re casting vision. They’re making the mission very concrete. They’re allowing people to see the overwhelming sense of purpose in that church every single time they come to church. And so 97% of Christians who do tithe make it their top financial priority, give to the local church. That I think is the fundamental question. How do you take the people that are already in your church, the people that are already giving and up the involvement and increase the commitment and the passion they have for the transformational work that you’re doing in ministry?
Now, there is something to be said about good habits being started from when you’re young. The number 18 says people are more likely to practice tithing when they begin the practice in their teens or early 20s and people tried to regulate typically is less debt than other demographics. This is why a financial stewardship, a debt class Dave Ramsey type of program in your church is something that probably is going to help individuals first, but then the halo effect is that you will receive the benefits as a church, as a ministry, as a community, as you get people out of debt and into a stronger financial position. So, this is one of those things that if you look at this article that there is some really dire statistics here that paint a gloomy picture, but at the same time there’s an interesting trends and interesting facts that Americans are actually giving.
They’re giving their wealth away to good causes are giving their wealth away to from family to family here. One trillion to 3 trillion in wealth will change hands every year within the Christian community, from family to family. A total income of the United States is 5.22 trillion annually, nearly half of the world’s total Christian income. That is amazing. Nearly half of the world’s total Christian income is here, right in the United States. And only three point three to five percent of those Americans who give to the local church do it regularly. So what do we need to do to change the mentality of giving regular financial support and how do we give more of it? There’s, those are the questions you need to start to reverse engineer and start to understand. It’s not about trying to figure out how to bring more people into church through church growth to get more giving families.
It’s really about what do you have in your community now that they’re just making proactive decisions, not to prioritize your church budget over other nonprofit and causes that they’re giving to each year. Now, again, number seven for Christian families making less than 20 percent a year. Eight percent of them gave at least 10% or more. And for families making a minimum of $75,000 more, the figure drops to just 1%. They’re just giving one percent in terms of their tithing to the church. So, there’s a lot to be done, but there’s a lot of opportunity so that if your church is struggling, if your church is one of the 86%, 84%, according to the rocket survey that was done several years ago, 84% of churches are at or below their budget. That means they don’t have any margin for any emergencies.
They don’t have any margin for incremental outreach or spur of the moment ad hoc things they are at or below budget. Only 16% of churches are making their budget or have margin that are raising more money than they spend. And so you got to think of it as, “Hey, there is the answer. It’s right in front of you. It is your community.” But the reason, there’s many reasons why they’re choosing not to give or prioritize your ministry in terms of their giving profile. So I just want to leave that open ended a question with a lot of these stats for this article. Hopefully that’s a conversation starter. I would love for you to comment on the blog or any way that you or anywhere that you were actually consuming this podcast, Youtube, etc. Jump into the comments, share your thoughts and ideas, and let’s start the conversation because this is a critical one as we keep on moving forward to share resources, share best practices on how to help get your church fully funded for your mission and the vision that you have for the ministry in your community.
I’m Kenny Jahng. Thank you for listening to today’s episode, generosity labs podcast. Remember generosity starts with you.
HIGHLIGHTS:
01:46 One, everyone thinks that you need to increase the giving by bringing more people into the church. And you look at the number one type of statistic that they listed here, only three to five percent of Americans who give to their local church do so through regular tithing.
02:13 Number six, when surveyed, 17% of Americans state that they regularly tithe. So 17% say that they tithe regularly, only three to five percent give regular tithing to their church and they’re not even sure what they mean by tithing. They’re just saying regular giving to the church.
03:28 number 13, 17% of American families have reduced the amount that they give to the local church in some way. 7% have dropped regular giving by 20 percent or more.
05:23 Number 14 says, in total, about 10 million people actually do donate as tithers to the church and that those 10 million give about $50,000,000,000 annually to the Church and to other nonprofit causes, to the Church and nonprofit causes
09:15 number seven for Christian families making less than 20 percent a year. Eight percent of them gave at least 10% or more. And for families making a minimum of $75,000 more, the figure drops to just 1%. They’re just giving one percent in terms of their tithing to the church.
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