In this episode of the Generosity Labs Podcast, we sit down with Jacob Paulkovitz, the Executive and Financial Assistant at Hope Fellowship in Texas. Hope Fellowship is a growing church in the North Dallas area.
You can listen, subscribe or watch my interview with Jacob Paulkovitz below.
The Generosity Labs Podcast is part of a new resource hub for pastors, providing free resources and information about digital giving. You can find more free resources here. A full transcription is below
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TRANSCRIPTION
KENNY: Greetings to everyone in podcastland today. Generosity and giving as it relates to the church is one of the biggest and most important conversations that we can have across faith communities today. That’s why we’ve got a special treat. Today, we have Jacob Paulkovitz. So glad to have you on the show, Jacob.
JACOB: Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you for inviting me on.
KENNY: So, Jacob, you are the Executive and Financial Assistant at Hope Fellowship in Texas. You just have this part and passion for really advancing the Gospel and others in that ministry. So, let’s get straight to it. Tell us a little bit about what your role is at that church and tell us a little bit about the church community. If we visited on a Sunday and we took a look around the seats, what would we see? What kind of community do you guys have?
JACOB: Sure. Absolutely. Again, thank you for having me and I appreciate to share this opportunity. I am, as you said, the executive and finance assistant here at Hope Fellowship. My job is to handle partly the finances, expense management, typical backend office stuff. But, then, also to kind of encourage new processes, new systems into the church, incorporating that ideas of new technologies that come into this world. How can we use that to advance the Gospel whether that is through just a new customer management or we look at membership management systems or potentially we could do that as well with the technology. That’s what I do for our church. Hope Fellowship is a multi-site church here in Dallas, Fort Worth area. We have three locations, right now. We run about 6500 on a weekend across those campuses. We are in the North Dallas area. It’s a very growing and booming area especially for younger families. Our typical age range is early adult, 25-35. That’s our kind of core range. Of course, it’s spread all over. Young families, of course. Kids is a big portion of our attendance as well. If you come on a typical weekend, that’s our demographic set you’ll see and that expands in all of our campuses. But, I hope you could still feel that it is warm and inviting. We are definitely very volunteer-driven on a weekend to all of our activities. We really push that whole idea just opening up to anybody, just giving them a handshake and a welcome.
KENNY: Nice. At what point did your organization or your church step into digital giving whether be mobile or text-giving?
JACOB: Sure. So, I’d classify digital giving, if that includes online giving.
KENNY: Sure.
JACOB: We started way back in 2005. It does kind of, some of those early adopters of church management systems are just introducing it around that time, maybe a few years prior, but we kind of caught on in 2005 and 2006. Just the online giving world for a little bit. It developed for us. We got a good portion of our giving gone through that. I came onboard on 2011. That’s also around the time, we really just stepped back and said, “How are people giving? What are new ways that we can offer people giving that really meet the need of the individual?” We all know that culture changes. It used to be that people carried around cash or checkbooks and that’s not the case anymore. So, we are now to the point, ‘Okay what’s the easiest way for them to give?’ So, going into 2012, we started looking at those things. We knew that kiosk giving had been around for a little bit. We weren’t a hundred percent sure on that, weighing the benefits of it. But them, we started getting introduced to the idea, ‘Okay, we’re grasping this idea of a small computer in our pockets every single day. How can we leverage that?’ Of course, we see all this stores and companies putting their apps out there, buying stuff in Amazon, Apple store or whatever that may be. They’re buying stuff on their phones so why can’t they give on their phone? So, going into 2014 and 2015, we started introducing a text-to-give platform force.
We used Kindrid, which is a very good and robust system for digital giving. It also includes text and you can also do an online feature for them. We started introducing that and man, right when we introduced it, we just saw the congregation really embrace it. Not that it’s our primary way of giving, it was not just 1 or 2 people using it. We had hundreds of people using it every single week. It wasn’t just people transferring their checkbook and their cash into doing it in a digital way while it’s good to because it saves us from the backend having from having to go and count all that and enter it into the system. But, it also just makes it easier for them and consistent with their giving. Because like you and me, we don’t carry cash and check every single day. Most of that your congregation probably does not. But, now that we can offer them a way to put their credit card information in and then, they could easily give when they want to, where they want to. It’s really caught on whether online giving or through a text-to-give platform.
KENNY: Now, for text-to-give, I think it’s about 2 years since you adopted it, right, in that timeline? Do you have any sense of what percentage of your giving or donations come through texting, text-to-give?
JACOB: Yes, we just kind of passed 10% of our weekly giving as coming through a texting platform. And then, to go along with that, about 60-65% come from online. And so, what I found really, really encouraging when we did adopt text-to-give — again, we weren’t just transferring people over — we saw a consistent number of people that were new givers. There are first timers and we send out first time giver email every week to say, “Hey, thanks so much giving. Do you have any questions? Please, let us know.” When we look over at the report who that went to and we see where they gave from whether it’s online, check, cash. We see this note of Kindrid, a lot. ‘Wow, they’re really giving through Kindrid’. We’re really offering that opportunity for someone else to engage in giving. And actually, really embrace that whole idea of generosity to the church and hopefully, they feel a little bit more connected to the church because of that.
KENNY: There’s a lot of people though that were making these decisions in churches and teams. There is always some obstacles or some voices that are playing in their heads saying “Look, it’s hard to go to from system where you’re receiving checks, taking a 100% of the collection and then to a point where you need to reconcile the fact that now, you’re going to give away a certain percentage to bank and merchant fees. Has that been an issue internally, in terms of your discussion, at all? What would say to churches that’s one of the biggest struggles, the obstacles before they get to the actual text or online giving solutions?
JACOB: Definitely a valid concern. I think people should look into that when they’re looking at the different platforms. There a lot of great platforms out there and they’re pricing a little bit different. But, really weigh in on what those costs really mean. Okay, so, I’m going to incur a few additional dollars and fees, but yet my giving is going to go up, much more than what those fees are.
KENNY: Have do you guys seen that? When you went from offline giving to online giving and then you adopted text-to-give, your overall giving superseded the incremental fees that you guys collected, right?
JACOB: Absolutely. I can’t give a percentage or how much or a tenfold or whatever, but it definitely was worth those small percentage points that you’re giving as a bank fee. We’re making now new donors or increased giving. ‘Cause if you’re going to think about it, if somebody gave — let’s create a scenario here — if someone gave weekly a hundred dollars cash. Yes, you get 400 dollars at the end of the month from that person. There’s no bank fee that have to go along with that or credit card processing fee. Let’s say, they miss a week because they’re sick or they’re on vacation. That’s only $300. We miss a hundred dollars there. But, if you offer that text-to-give platform or just an online giving platform, they can still give, whenever, wherever. And so, it’s a little bit more probable that they’re going to give a hundred dollars or four hundred dollars each week. Especially, if you can get them to scheduled giving where it automatically just charges their card or their bank once a week for a hundred dollars, then, I won’t say it’s cheap but again, it’s it’s a much higher probability. They’re going to give every single week from here or now whether they’re in the congregation or not.
KENNY: Right. So, does the text giving solution allow you to setup recurring giving as well?
JACOB: Absolutely. So, when you setup your text giving for the first time, it brings you to a screen. Of course, you put your credit card information in. It also offers an e-check option, if you want your banking information in a which is little bit cheaper if you want to look at that as a pricey point. So, they can put that information in and put a little bit other information in there. Then, you could give. So, at the very last option we ask, “Hey, do you want to set this up as a one-time giving or upon a monthly, weekly, or however.” There’s a lot of different options that can set that up as. They can do it that time or if they wanted to go back in, they can easily go back into that account and set it up. That’s how my wife and I do it. That’s how many others do it so, it’s a very convenient feature.
KENNY: Now, if you’re talking to a lot of people here that are considering digital giving for the first time, what’s the one thing that you would give as a piece of advice that they should be looking out for or they should actually really be concerned about or pay attention to as they transition in digital giving?
JACOB: I will definitely just tell them to look at all their features. And definitely, from a backend side, I work on the backend side with the finances and the reconciling, see how whatever platform you’re looking at and you’re interested, see how it does adopt and integrate with whether it would be your church management system or your accounting software. What were the accounting and reconciliation process kind of look like? Yes, we kind of look at that when we went in to Kindrid or online giving.
KENNY: What backend system are you using?
JACOB: For our church management, we use FellowshipOne, which does have a direct integration with Kindrid. Kindrid has a direct integration with it. So, it’s not that we have to go and record all of our donation from Kindrid and it just immediately posts to FellowshipOne which again makes the reconciliation process really easy. And also, when we send out giving statements,if someone gave by online half the month, or by text half a month or half the year, it’s all on one statements. We don’t have to send out multiple statements. Definitely, put that it into consideration when you’re looking at the platform that you want to use. That’s about it. And, overall, a lot of them are very church-minded they understand that and they are willing to offer those features.
KENNY: Thank you so much for sharing some of that nitty gritty and the overall experience. That’s really encouraging to hear more churches taking on digital giving like yours. Let’s finish off with a lightning round of questions if you’re ready?
JACOB: You got it. Let’s go.
KENNY: So, the first one is everyone’s building a list, as we go through and enter the new year. Can you share one resource that people should be putting on a top of their list, whether it’s a good book, a website, a conference, a resource they need to be looking for?
JACOB: I encourage anyone that’s on staff of a church to definitely have something that feeds into them whether that be — again, I’m working in the finance world — if you want a little bit more finance driven or just leadership driven. And so I look to a few different things as far as leadership training, and that’s Global Leadership Summit. I’m blanking on the name.
KENNY: Willowcreek, right?
JACOB: Thank you. We’ve just had jumped onboard going to some of their conferences the last two years. It’s very encouraging; very enlightening. That can open up to multiple different books that some of the speakers that they have. Another website that I look at is Leadership Network. They offer a lot of sessions and collaborations with other churches across United States that might be of similar size or similar obstacles that you may have. They can put you guys together in a room and kind of talk through some of those things. But also, they just put out some very good reports on the church and the status of the church and then also maybe pointing in the right direction on what you need to be looking at as the next steps. We’ve been a part of that going in a month or so to look at a little bit more multi-site strategies again and so, just really looking forward to that as well.
KENNY: What’s one big thing that you’re looking forward to 2017 regarding the church?
JACOB: It’s just the opportunity for growth in our area, not just in getting more people in the door, which is more seats and chairs means more people having the opportunity to hear the Gospel. But, we ultimately want people to grow in their faith. We ultimately want them to grow in their generosity, whether that it’s in their time, in their money, just in their everyday, just showing goodwill to others. Hopefully, we kind of get to see that in our community that we can make a little bit more of impact and share. I’m definitely more excited about that. I’m also kind of a techie guy. I’d like to see what new technology can come available and how the church can use it and just see what some of those developers come up with, whether a brand new developer that’s very small, just making a name for themselves or some of those bigger player names. What do they incorporate in their current existing platforms that can benefit us.
KENNY: Love that future forward posture. Where are you getting your inspiration and education about giving and donor development these days?
JACOB: I mentioned a few of those a little bit more on the leadership side. Leadership Network offers some tools as far as giving. And also, out of those platform that we use, we use Kindrid, FellwoshipOne, they typically will offer some insights to, “Hey, start maybe looking at this. These are the trends that we’ve seen. Are you seeing the same trends?” They help keep you on track and see how your giving is increasing compared to others your size. So many, many churches, they have that data available, too, and see other churches are using it. Not every churches are the same, so, we understand how the church is gonna have the same results. But, it’s at least something to compare it, too. So, definitely look at those other platforms. The last one is connecting with other churches, whether that it is in your geographic area. Just see how those churches are doing. Connect with their business managers or their pastors and said ‘Hey, what are you guys using? how effective is it or is it effective?’ And, they’re probably having the same demographic in their seats every week. If they’re seeing a high digital giving experience where most of the donors are giving that way and you’ve not seen that, maybe you can start to evaluate what is it they’re doing different that may help you. I think that’s a really good way to go. We have at least 3-4 churches that I talk to. Probably on a monthly basis so just to say how is it going but then, also sharing different ideas.
KENNY: So, good. Thank you so much for those insights Jacob. Thank you for being with us on the show today.
JACOB: Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you so much, Kenny.
KENNY: And thank you to our audience for listening into our conversation on digital giving and the church. Hope this episode has been beneficial and really been useful for you. Do me a favor, like and review this podcast episode today. It really helps us get the word out to more church leaders across the country on such an important issue that’s facing the future of the church. Well, that’s a wrap. I’m Kenny Jahng from Generosity Labs. ‘Til next time. Check out our website at www.generositylabs.org. Remember, learning to give from the heart is when you really start.
I sat down with Craig Olson of Highland Park Church in Lakeland, FL the other day to talk about digital giving.
Craig shared his congregation’s experience in, not just digital giving, but with a newly adopted text-to-give strategy.
Here are a few highlights from our discussion:
How he leads his congregation towards “offering as an act of worship”
How text-to-give provided a 10% increase in new givers
How digital giving is an imperative for the millennial generation
You can listen, subscribe or watch my interview with Craig below.
The Generosity Labs Podcast is part of a new resource hub for pastors, providing free resources and information about digital giving. You can find more free resources here.
Did you enjoy this episode? Never miss another one!
Find us on iTunes and Stitcher Radio
Subscribe on YouTube
Transcription
KENNY: Well, hey there! I’m Kenny Jahng and this is the Generosity Labs podcast where we are interviewing church leaders, across the country, innovating in areas of generosity. Today, we’re going to meet an executive pastor that has a fantastic story of how they are raising the roof in terms of giving and generosity for their community. And, I’m excited to get to it today. We have Craig who is the Executive Pastor of Highland Park Church in Florida. Great place to be. And after a career in sales, Craig had a history of helping startups innovate and get off the ground. Craig joined the staff at Lakeland in 2015, married to wife Barb for over 36 years, three grown children. And, we are glad to have him as a resource, here. Welcome to the show today, Craig.
CRAIG: Thanks Kenny. It’s good to be with you.
KENNY: I gave a little bit of some background. But, tell us a little bit about the Craig story, how you got into this ministry in particular, and why don’t you give us a picture or a snapshot of what Highland Park looks like on a typical Sunday?
CRAIG: Okay. I’d be happy to. Our lead pastor, Brett Rickey and I have been friends for about 15 years. He actually planted the church in Oklahoma, back in 2000. Shortly, after he started that church, we started to attend because our daughters met in the fourth grade, so we got to be family friends. Brett moved down here to Lakeland to become the lead pastor at Highland Park church in 2009 and we kept in touch, you know, talking about college football, you know, whatever our common interest were at that time. And, he called me up and said his executive pastor was retiring and he was looking for somebody to come and help him. We’ve had a history of being in ministry together, as well as a being good friends. So, long story short, we moved down here April of last year, and joined him and his staff. Highland Park Church is a fairly large church in our area. We ran about 2300 in attendance on a given weekend. We have a Celebrate Recovery Service on Friday night. We have a Saturday night service. We have three services on Sunday morning. Our mission is to lead people to love God and to love others. And, so we’re thrilled to be here and excited about what God has in store for Highland Park Church.
KENNY: So, busy weekend for your teams in Lakeland, Friday, Saturday, Sunday Services.
CRAIG: Absolutely!
KENNY: We’re going to talk about a little bit about the giving story at your church. But, you guys, have already been ahead of the curve, I think. Previous to adopting some of the new technologies recently, you already have online giving available for your people, right?
CRAIG: That’s correct. For a number of years, we’ve had giving kiosks in the lobby of our main sanctuary, and also in our family ministries building across the street. And, people were using that for a number of years where they would swipe their credit card or give online through our web page. And, we probably saw 35 to 40% of our giving come through those portals. So, it wasn’t anything really new to people, however, we’ve started to encounter some issues with that particular platform because it ran over Windows XP. And, so we have some security issues as well. So, we’re looking for a better solution. One of the things we wanted to add was the ability for our members and our attendees to give by text.
KENNY: Now, can you tell us a little about the typical age range of the people that attend on a Sunday?
CRAIG: Well, it’s a wide range. We have a very vibrant middle school, youth ministry, kids ministry. We have a strong Millennial and Gen X, really, attendance.
KENNY: You got a wide section of people and families
CRAIG: We have folks — we are a 62-year-old congregation — that attend that were there in the very first service.
KENNY: It’s incredible though that with that type of demographics, you still got 30-40% of digital giving participation. What do you do with those people? Do you have an offering plate that you hand out or even passed in the aisle or a kiosk offering from the back? How does that work?
CRAIG: We want to give people plenty of opportunities to give and not everybody wants to give online. My wife, for example, she feels better writing a check, still. So, we pass a basket down the aisle at every service, and so people have the opportunity to give that way as well.
KENNY: Got you. A lot of churches have just the kiosk in the back or a place or drop a check, etc. That’s an active part of the liturgy on a Sunday morning. And, is there any sense of, if 30%, 50%, at what point do you stop passing the offering basket? Have you guys thought about that? That’s something that I had a recent conversation with another church pastor. They have about 70% of giving that is online, at this point. The question is when does that become obsolete?
CRAIG: You know, I don’t know that it ever does? We were in startup churches where we’ve had bubble gum buckets at the front of the stage and have people get up out of your chair and come and drop their offering in that bucket. The bottomline is that it’s really not a function of how you do it but it’s just that you do it. I mean, giving is an act of worship. We want people to feel comfortable giving in any way, shape or form that they are comfortable in doing.
KENNY: What I’ve loved about the story of your church is that you guys adopted text giving recently. When did that happen?
CRAIG: I think we started it in January/February time frame of this year.
KENNY: So, you have a little bit of time now.
CRAIG: Absolutely, yes.
KENNY: When it first was introduced, was it a quiet rollout? Was it a big splashy rollout? How did you notify people that that’s an option?
CRAIG: Well, we thought was important because it was a new way of giving. It was important for us not to just tell them but actually show them how simple it was to set up text giving on their smartphone. So, during the services, one weekend, we took 5 minutes during the announcement and the offering time in which incidentally we feel it’s just as important as worship or the sermon because if it’s not, then we shouldn’t be doing it. It leads people to an active worship. We took five minutes. And we have our tech team set up the video to where I kind of walkthrough. I have my smartphone in my hand. And they could see on the screen while we were walking through, how simple it was to set up initially the ability to give by text. And, we had people that hold their phones out, right there. Because they can use it anywhere whether they are using a digital version of the Bible or tweeting during the service or whatever. So, it’s not a big deal in our church for people have their phones out. They just followed along. Many people had set up as I was walking them through it.
KENNY: Yeah. I was talking to a seminary student recently, he said that one of the things that they noticing when they’re going to preach or teach is not to be distracted by seeing tons of people having their heads bent down on their phones during service.
CRAIG: Absolutely.
KENNY: You guys really had intentional time during the announcement time. What was the type of results did you see in terms of that? Was there any push back? Was there positive results in terms of adoption? Do you have any sense of the giving go up or down?
CRAIG: Absolutely. Probably, the first month we saw an increase in our digital giving. But, more importantly, we had about 10% of increase in new givers.
KENNY: Wow.
CRAIG: People that had never given before in Highland Park Church started to give on a regular basis and using this new portal of text giving.
KENNY: You are actually creating a giving experience for the first timer people. It’s important. Right? Giving is part of our spiritual discipline.
CRAIG: Absolutely.
KENNY: What service are you actually using to implement the text giving?
CRAIG: We partnered with Kindrid. We found out about them because we look to other large churches that are doing things that are maybe a little bit ahead of us. Some of those examples would be Life Church, Craig Groeschel’s church, Saddleback Church, Willowcreek. We glean a lot of leadership and just ideas on how to do ministry from those who are a few sets ahead of us. That’s how we found out about Kindrid as we talk with them. There are other benefits. One is a secure platform as well as integrated with our church management software. We actually save time in our finance department. We went from having to manually enter in all of those digital transactions to one that just exported or imported into our church management software.
KENNY: Which church management system are you guys on?
CRAIG: We use ACS.
KENNY: So, it’s fully integrated system. So, if someone gives via text that shows up in their giving profile in the backend.
CRAIG: Exactly.
KENNY: Perfect. That sounds great. Is the church offering is the only area that you guys are exploring to use the service or is there other applications for this in church life?
CRAIG: People give for a variety of reasons. We’re a very missions oriented church, too. We have a school in Rwanda, and we support many different ministries here locally as well as globally. So, people want to give to that and they do in a regular basis. So, it’s very simple for them to put in the amount. They put in MISSIONS, right next to their amount and send the tect and it goes toward missions. Doing the same thing when they want to send their kid to camp. You know, Kindrid, gives us the ability to set up keywords that they can use to give to specific things.
KENNY: Can you tell me a little bit more about this? There’s keywords that you can actually define in a custom level?
CRAIG: Absolutely. We probably have 8 or so, right now. Whether it’s missions or in Rwanda or when they want to give specifically to that school, HP-YOUTH which is what we use to designated to our youth ministry. If they want to give to camp, they can put YOUTH CAMP, if they want to put kids, they can put KIDS CAMP. They just use those keywords along with the amount that they give and it goes directly to that. And it does account to our tithes and offering, it counts towards those particular ministries.
KENNY: Wow. That’s interesting. And so, how are you communicating those keywords? What’s the typical scenario that those keywords are used or communicated?
CRAIG: Everytime we ask people to give to specific cause, we put up on the screen on the service what that keyword is. Let’s say, if you want to give to support missions, you can use your text-to-give option and just use the keywords MISSIONS, or whichever the keyword is. As long as we communicate it to them, then it’s not a problem.
KENNY: What are your thoughts on 2 or 5 years from now, do you think people will still be writing checks and using cash or is it gonna be via credit card swiping or is it stuff like this as text giving?
CRAIG: I really see this as kind of the way of the future. Again, we’ve had kiosks for a long time and now we use essentially giving everyone kiosk in their pocket. So, that they can give via their smartphone. I have three grown children. I ask them if we have the text-to-give option, will you give to this church? Absolutely, we would use that portal. They don’t carry cash. They don’t even have checks. And so, they give everything through digital, whether it’s through Venmo, whether transacting to other people, whatever. That’s their culture.
KENNY: Yes, it is. Venmo is how people give each other money these days. And so, the people that have adopted text giving, do you have any sense? Is it just the millennials and the young ones? Or are there people across the spectrum that are actually using this mode of giving at this point.
CRAIG: It’s across the spectrum. I was talking to a gentleman just a few weeks ago. He is my age and he has teenage children. So, he’s a little younger than I am. He stopped me and said, “Man, I need to send in a payment for youth camp, and I used Kindrid for that and it was so easy.” He got an immediate response back. “We received your payment, bla bla bla.” So, he was thrilled with it. It just makes life so much easier. When you can take away the obstacles from people in giving, then they’re going to give.
KENNY: Kindrid, their product is called Smart Giving, I think? Is that the name of it?
CRAIG: That’s the brand name they use.
KENNY: Is that the brand name they use? Are you literally communicating Kindrid and smart giving, renaming it or changing to something else highly friendly or something like that?
CRAIG: No, we use smart giving, but, typically, when we receive the offering, during our weekend service, we put a little graphic on the lower third of the screens that has a picture of the smartphone and it just says text GIVE to and then the number that they designated for us and typically, the folks that have done it before they know what to do. They don’t need to do GIVE. They just give the amount. But, for the first-timers, they can just text the word GIVE and it will respond back to them and will go through the easy set-up process so that they can do it from then on.
KENNY: The average church in America is much smaller than yours, right? And don’t necessary have all the resources. I can sense there’s probably a lot of church leaders or pastors that saying, “Nah, that’s for big churches, etc”. Can you talk about just how difficult the process within the time from start to end of the integration or set up? You know, what did that look like from a very practical basis? Did you have a committee? What was the process?
CRAIG: I was actually very shocked at how simple it was. When we contacted Kim to do this, they set us graphic for our worship folder, for our digital forms of communication. They gave us a script. They gave us everything that we really needed and so we decided to use all that in addition to the walkthrough video for rolling it out. And then, we put that in a form of an email and send it to all of our members the following week. That had it embedded the video of the walkthrough that we did on the previous weekend. They are very thorough, always helpful.
KENNY: How long did it take effect?
CRAIG: Within the day, we had it setup. It was not difficult at all. The interface ACS was very simple. Our finance director was involved with that. She would comment at how easy that was to set up so, even small churches can do it. They don’t have a large staff. It doesn’t take much time at all. I think the benefits far outway the time that it takes to get it setup. I want to encourage anybody to use it.
KENNY: Let’s take a look at some of the downsides. You know, I’m sure there has some pushback or some grumblings or something. What are some of the things that you’ve heard, or you’ve felt or even a friction in any of the process?
CRAIG: With any kind of a change, there’s always some resistance. We used our giving kiosk,s for example, for a long time. People would walk into the lobby. As they’re walking and they’re plugging out their credit card or debit card, and they walk over and they slide it through and any kind of change to that process, creates a little bit of confusion. So, for the first couple of weeks, we would have one of our first impressions folks, standing over there by the kiosk to help people use this Smart Giving system or kiosk. We don’t even need that anymore but because people are accustomed to walking over to a stand kiosk and giving that way, we’ve kept iPads set up in the lobbies for people to give that way. Slowly but surely they’re are adopting the new system. And it really hasn’t caused much trouble, other than that. The resistance to change.
KENNY: Basically the kiosks have it removed effectively from the system?
CRAIG: Well, the old computers Windows XP kiosks were. We decided to keep a space some form of kiosks in the lobby just for those who are used to seeing something to help them navigate, okay, you can do this now on your cellphone.
KENNY: Mobile, I guess, it’s like an iPad stand that you have?
CRAIG: Correct.
KENNY: And is it just the mobile version of the the giving?
CRAIG: It’s the same version that we have interfaced with our website now. Every form of digital giving goes through Kindrid, now. We benefit in that way because it all feeds directly into our church management software. And there’s only one thing we want to interface with and that is Kindrid. That’s awesome.
KENNY: What about branding, colors, customization, what’s your sense on how much flexibility there is?
CRAIG: Very simple. We sent them our logo. We told them exactly how we wanted them to set it up and they showed us how we can change it and that’s very, the colors. There are plenty of colors to choose from, so our web portals matches exactly what our branding is.
KENNY: What would be the number one downside, number one upside of this transition of smart giving with Kindrid?
CRAIG: The downside is just the resistance to change particularly from the older generation that maybe have a concern about using their cellphone, maybe they don’t even have a smartphone but have a cellphone. You know, that’s probably the downside. The upside is that it’s all integrated in any form of digital giving and it’s simple. It’s the type of technology people or younger generation are accustomed to using now. It makes it far easier for them to give when they want to give, whether it’s at home, whether they’re sitting on the service, wherever they are, they could give. It really helped.
KENNY: Now, what I found very interesting, you know, it surprised me earlier, you said that you said it lit up brand new first time givers in your community. It’s just interesting. It’s just the change of the mode of transaction will actually call someone to take that last step to do it. I’m wondering, I guess, this is a little bit early. But, do you anticipate that you’ll raise more money to the offering plate or all the giving solutions like this at the end of this year that you anticipated earlier or is it just a change of mode of giving or is there something else going on with it?
CRAIG: No, I think it’s just the ease of giving. As a church, last year, we have document over 750 newcomers that came to our church the very first time. And so, those are the types of people that especially the younger generation, if they wanna give on impulse, right there, doing it, they can pull out their smartphone and do so. They don’t have to have their checkbook with them if they even have one. Again, we’ve talked about, not everybody carries cash anymore. It just makes easier mode for people to use to give on the spot. I think that’s critical and that’s where we’ll see our growth. You make it convenient? People will use it.
KENNY: And your preaching pastor, didn’t have any concern? Do you do your offering before or after the sermon?
CRAIG: We do it before.
KENNY: Is there any concern from your preaching pastor, you’re asking to take out their cellphones and then you go into the sermon, you know, there’s distraction. This thing is distracting. Is that a concern at all?
CRAIG: No, not at all. I am the executive pastor and I use my smartphone to follow along. He incites the Scripture and I’m pulling it up in my new version app on my smartphone. It’s very typical to see that and that’s just part of the culture to where we are. If you’re not comfortable with that then, you need to get comfortable because it’s gonna happen. You want people in the word, right? How they can get it that’s how you want to use.
KENNY: That’s awesome. Are you ready for our lightning round of questions as we close up this interview?
CRAIG: Absolutely.
KENNY: The first question is, especially as an executive pastor, you’re looking, I’m sure, at leadership development all the time of yourself and your teams. what’s a good resource that you can share with our audience today that has caught your eyes recently, whether it’s a book, a conference, a speaker, something that our audience today can partake in.
CRAIG: Coming up in August is Willowcreek’s Global Leadership Summit and last year, we were a host site for the global leadership summit and it made a world of difference just for our staff as well as anybody that considers themselves a leader of a church. So, we’re hosting that again and I want to encourage anybody to go to Willowcreek’s website and navigate through their global leadership summit site and find out where the whole site is nearest to them. It’s an awesome summit. They have probably a dozen or so, speakers. Some are ministers. Many are business leaders that are well known. I want to encourage people to do that. That’s what we’ve done. We also go through a leadership book with our pastoral staff every week. We go through a chapter. We’ve gone through the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. We’ve gone through Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels. We’re going through a book called Finishing Strong by Steve Farrar, right now. So, those types of things are available to anybody.
KENNY: Awesome. Great list of resources for anybody here to pick up if you haven’t gotten those books especially.
24:46 In terms of mentoring and leadership from afar, outside of Willowcreek, who do you have your eyes on ministries in terms of learning from and soaking from other ministries or leaders of churches in the ministry space?
CRAIG: Rick Warren at Saddleback is somebody we constantly go to. We send teams up there on a regular basis, just to get a sense of a bigger picture to think outside the box of what we typically get caught doing here in our own little world. So, that’s one. I read Dan Reiland’s blog almost daily. He is an executive pastor of 12Stone Church and that’s been a valuable resource for me, personally, as an executive pastor.
KENNY: Awesome. Great resources. Thanks for sharing it with us. The last question is, if people here today are watching or listening and want to get in touch with you, what’s the best method for them to do that?
CRAIG: I want to encourage people to e-mail me. My e-mail address is craigo@hpnaz.org
KENNY: Thank you. This is Craig Olson from Highland Park Church. It’s been a pleasure talking to you and experiencing going through that experience of converting over to text giving. Really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your experiences today.
CRAIG: Thanks Kenny, I appreciate the opportunity.
KENNY: Thank you everybody for listening. And, in this next episode of the Generosity Labs podcast, we’re going to interview another church leader that’s going through a similar transition, and I think you’ll be surprised in terms of the response and the results that they’ve gotten. I’m Kenny Jahng, host of the Generosity Labs podcast. Find out more details and resources at generositylabs.org.
In our latest episode by Generosity Labs podcast, we meet with Matt Allen.
This Tennessean is a Creative Arts Pastor at Thompson Station Church, a passionate Duke basketball fan and has a “Bluebell Ice Cream Only” policy.
In this episode, Matt talks about
His leadership role in introducing Smart-Giving
The importance of communication in transition to Smart-Giving
How they handle and publicize earmarked donations
You can listen, subscribe or watch my interview with Matt Allen below.
The Generosity Labs Podcast is part of a new resource hub for pastors, providing free resources and information about digital giving. You can find more free resources here.
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Transcription
KENNY: Hey everybody! I’m Kenny Jahng, host of the Generosity Labs podcast. Thank you for joining us today, as we travel across the country meeting with church leaders that have gotten the vision for digital giving and installing a culture of generosity in their community. Today, we’re fortunate to have a guest here today from Tennessee, Matt Allen. Welcome to the show, Matt.
MATT: Hey, thanks for having me, Kenny.
KENNY: So, Matt, let me just go over your bio. It’s fantastic. We’ve got you as a Creative Arts Pastor at Thompson Station Church, father of three girls, Baylor University Alumni in which I can forgive because you are a Duke basketball fanatic. I’m the Blue Devil myself, so, yes. We need to talk about basketball after this. Thank God, it’s not March madness during our conversation. Your self boxes include “all people are creative”, “good soundtracks matter” and “Blue Bell Icecream”. Tell me about that last one!
MATT: It’s the best icecream brand. Everybody in the country has it, so, it’s a Texas thing. I was born raised in Texas. If you’re going to buy icecream in the grocery store, it’s a brand to get.
KENNY: Once a Texan, always a Texan.
MATT: Yeah.
KENNY: So, let’s get right into it. You are at Thompson Station Church which is a little bit south of Franklin in Tennessee, a little ways off from Texas. Tell us a little bit about your role and the church there. If we were to come in your church and visit on a Sunday, what does it look like? What’s the demographics in the feel and the vibe of you church?
MATT: Sure. We’re definitely a family focused, I mean, it’s a fairly large church, you know, just kind of depending on the background that could be anywhere from 1400 to 1800 people here on a given Sunday. We’ve got three services. We’ve got one satellite campus just south of us in Columbia, Tennessee. So, those happened at the same time. There’s just a lot of great energy and you know very, you know, current worship style, relatable teaching and we’re really big on getting into serve in some way, whether you serve in the next generation or with younger ages or you’re serving alongside with adult connect groups. So, once you’re plugged into one of those teams or both, that’s really when you kind of start to feel a part of the Thompson Station Church families.
KENNY: Love seeing ministries where teams teach you to put your faith into action, right?
MATT: Yeah.
KENNY: Tell us a little bit about the role of a creative arts pastor. What do you oversee and how does your week work?
MATT: There’s a lot of things moving for every week. So, I have the privilege to be in our communications team, our worship team and our technology teams. That’s just kind of a natural fit of how we as those three areas kind of interweave and work together throughout the week. The primary responsibilities are just working with our teams for the weekend experience, you know, working with our Senior Pastor for sermon series and just kind of, just how visually we want to represent that or whether in video projects that are featured again on the weekend or just may be other ways. And, so, all the different pieces of social media and communication things to branding to help him with the website. All those things wrapped into one working with a team of staff. And our church has been raising a team of volunteers to help utilize as well to help their gifts kind of reflect the same message that we’re showing.
KENNY: That’s awesome. Never changing landscape in your role.
MATT: Yeah.
KENNY: So, that’s one of the things we’re talking about today. We’re talking about giving in the offering plate and the fact that your church is one of the churches that has taken the leap of faith and gone into online and digital mobile giving. Tell us a little bit about that. Does it happen only on your website? Does it happen in your services? What does that look like in your church?
MATT: Right, when I came on staff, we were obviously giving the traditional route, you know, via check or cash or have that made like in the traditional envelope, you know, in the services or anytime throughout the week. We still have those envelopes. We’ve adjusted them a little bit, but that’s always a method to collect giving donations from people in our community and our church. And then, we had online giving as well. so that very similar to kind of like an online banking or online any kind of donation. You got a username and password. It’s all secure. And then even you can schedule re-ocurring payments, if you just don’t want to worry about it, just like you would automate any other bill or donation you may have that you give to each month. So, those are in place in about a year ago. We actually launched. We research for a while some good partners to use for text giving and we launched probably about this time last year, just another option to give which would be text giving just because so much of our communication is done via text message. So, we just wanted to really offer that option and for me… I was actually at a conference. We were talking about it and thinking through what just a simple way. I was actually at a conference and had the opportunity to text give at that conference and it was so simple. That was one of the… I found out who the company was and set up. This is something that I want to review to see if it’s going to be a good fit for our church. It happened to be that after we talked through everything, reviewed everything. There were several other companies we looked at but we used Kindrid. And, they were the best fit for what we needed and how we wanted to roll it out.
KENNY: Got you. And I think Kindrid has their smart giving solution and that’s the name of their product/service, isn’t it?
MATT: Yeah. They call it Smart Giving. You can kind of customized it based on church if that resonates but we just want to make it clear. We always refer to it as text giving so because we do have online giving in place and we just want to be real crystal clear with our language of how we do that. So, we rolled it out about a year ago. And really, for the first couple weeks, we knew the rollout was important and we didn’t want to just mention it in the bulletin or put a flyer up on campus. We really did take time from our senior pastor in the service to say, “Hey, guys! We just want to offer another simple way for you to give and just to make… for you.”
KENNY: Wow.
MATT: So, we actually had, you know, kind of a little demo. And, we saw it from another church. Another church kind of rolled it out that way and said, “That looks good. I think that would go over well with our people.” So, while our senior pastor is you know, he get his phone and said, “I want you guys to come follow along with me. I’m going to show you how easy this is.“And, he liked the kind of joke with him and said, “If I can do this, you can do it.” Me and my non text-savvy self. Basically, if he can send a text message. You can do it. Obviously, you do need a smartphone, you couldn’t text it from a non-smartphone. We know that most of our people and most of our church, we see them try following along, you know, making notes in their smartphone or even following along with our Bible app outline. So, we were already talking that way, anyways, and we knew that there was that basically that was already part of our culture.
KENNY: You planned it in a service to explicitly call it out and explain it and the senior pastor was the one that did it.
MATT: Yes. And, it was probably around the offering time and we just said, “Hey, this is just another option.” I want to say, Kenny, the first couple of times we did it, we even just said, “Just test it out and just text a dollar. So, just kind of see how this works.”
KENNY: Wow. That’s a good idea.
MATT: You know, so that there’s no… Before you type or put your normal giving, a larger gift, we said, “Let me show you this. Our Senior Pastor walks through it. This is what you do. Here’s the four steps.” We created some visuals that were really simple that just was like, TEXT this number. Text any amount to this number and you know, hit send and you’re going to get sent back the link to complete. Once you complete that link with your name and your card information, that’s all you have to do, so the next time… The first step is kind of longest step. So, as he was talking, we showed it on the video screen what it looks like with the bubbles going back and forth. Just to really give a good visual of what this looks like. And so we said, “We invite you to join with us now. You can just text a dollar just to see how this works and if it is convenient for you and if you would like to give this way, it’s just as secure as online giving and it is super easy. So, once you complete that form, the next time you want to give, all you have to do literally is text that number, dollar amount, confirm this amount, you’re done. It’s just so easy.
KENNY: So, you did it more than one Sunday. You repeated it a couple of times.
MATT: Yes. I think for 2 or 3 Sundays in a row. We mentioned it clearly and I say, “You know probably 2 out of those 3 was our senior pastor on the front or back into that, may have been somebody else as they were kind of welcoming and giving the announcement, we are so excited, we got this new avenue for you to give. So if this resonates with you and it’s easy to do that but text messaging if that’s part of your world, we’ve got you that. If not, you can completely give, if you are comfortable, traditionally, you know, through a check or cash or with online giving if you’d rather do that. So, we just left it open like that. It was very well received. Of course, you’re going to get kind of some questions around. ‘Is it secure? I don’t know’. But, that’s why we wanted to really lower the bar and say, “Hey, just test this out and you can see how this works. Just text a dollar if you want just to kind of see.”
KENNY: Right. So, those questions or concerns Are obviously expected. Is there any real push backs? No, you shouldn’t be encouraging credit card usage or pulling cell phones out in the middle of churches or radical. Nothing like that?
MATT: Yeah, No. For the most part, no. I think. We do encourage them like, “Hey, we would love for this to be connected to your debit card. We don’t want anybody to go in debt. That’s not what we were encouraging.” But, most of the time when you’re giving online or even traditionally, via check, it’s pulling from your checking account. So, we would just say, “We would encourage you to set up that same format as it is with text giving. It’s just really easy.” And, honestly, I’ve heard a lot of comments about people saying, “Hey, that was kind of fun.” You’re busy, you’ve got 3 kids. You know I’ve got 3 kids in the family. Sunday mornings can be hectic, we all know. And that’s when everything in the world can go wrong, wardrobes, everything, dog food, all that kind of stuff. And so, getting your checkbook as part of what you’re doing Sunday morning is easy to the cracks. You know, honestly for me, I don’t even carry my Bible. My physical Bible would usually be with me on a Sunday morning that followed along on my phone. So, we knew that we could see that more and more. Just as an offer of convenience to say, “You can do this. This is simple as a text and you don’t have to worry about logging into a website or anything like that. All the backend is completely secure.”
KENNY: Nice, so, now, let’s talk about your role in communications. I want to dig a little bit deeper. Where in the other places in the universe of Thompson Station Church do people ever get prompted with that call to action. Do you actually printed it in your bulletin? Do you actually mention it every week during your offering time? Does it physically, literally get mentioned that you can either give into the offering plate or text online? How does that actually manifest itself literally?
MATT: Sure. In that first season, really in the first year, and probably for the first six months, it was pretty loud and in a lot of places whether it was campus posters. We have some clean posters that are in our restrooms around the campus that just said, ‘TEXT GIVING: Now, available. Try it out and see. Here’s the number. Here’s how it works.” Just a good visual to show people how it looks like. So, that social media pushes, we have announcements slides that run before and after the services depending on what’s going on. And the Sunday Service, they roll through all of the offering and goes as well. So, that visual was always there usually during offering time unless something else maybe in its place for that week. Then, at the time we were also doing kind of some video announcements and so we would add that in as well, “Hey, text giving is now available at Thompson Station Church. It is as simple as sending a text. It’s just as secure as online banking. You know, that kind of thing. So, some of our internal people felt like they heard it a lot over and over again but that was intentional, you know. And, so, we probably back off now that it’s been in place for about a year. You may see some things kind of different seasonality. Kindrid really did great job. They will offer you tools to say, “Here’s a generic template and you can edit it.” or “Here’s a little bit towards Summer Time: Hey! Summer Time. Don’t forget. Text Giving is still available.” So, you can add that in there.
KENNY: Does your website prompt it?
MATT: Yeah, our website, last year, this time, we had a different template, so we’ve relaunched our website and kind of re-skinned it all and rebranded it and so, it still on the giving page. So if you click GIVING, it really just says, “Thanks so much. This is really what generosity means to us and it is in our culture when you give and here’s the ways you can give, 1 2 and 3.” And, so it really just spells out the traditional way, the online way and the text giving way. And even with a text giving, there’s a video. Since it’s the newest thing, there’s a quick little video that you can watch that just really explains how easy it is. That is always there, front and center we cycled that through and then the other ways that it’s probably gotten mainstage you know focus is a couple times. And this, last year, we’ve call people to give to a specific thing. There may be a local need that really rises up.
KENNY: Specific designated need.
MATT: Yes, so the cool thing is that we did is we rolled it out, gosh, for a while several months, just generic, and then, we introduced the fact that you could have associate it to a specific area. If you text your dollar amount and the word MISSIONS, this money will go specifically to this account.
KENNY: Got you.
MATT: And if you forgot to do that, you know, it will basically go to our general account but we have that time that we didn’t confuse the message around like, if I give is it always going to missions, if give it always going to the general fund to Thompson Station church. So, we’ve had some fun around just missions focus and missions conference and say, “There’s a local need, right here, guys, and what would happen if everybody in the room gave $5 to this.” I’ve got some,, if I could pull this up, we did that just as an example last Fall. Just ask people to give a small amount like $5 or $10, you know, to what was going on. Just in that one Sunday we came across, we had 156 first-time givers.
KENNY: First time givers?
MATT: First time givers. That was just, they never have given to the church at all before but that was their first entry. And, so again, it was something small. It was easy. We raised around like almost $4,400 in one Sunday for that specific cause. We thought it was really successful.
KENNY: How hard or easy it is to set up a keyword for that type of campaign?
MATT: Super easy. So, a couple of key people on staff you know kind of setup the desktop against tool version of this very simple, really easy to use and so, it was very simple. What we love about Kindrid is it’s kind of dummy-proof. And, so let’s say the key word was MISSIONS. You’re telling people and say, “Text to this number, dollar amount, MISSIONS”. Well, it doesn’t matter if you put MISSIONS dollar amount or dollar amount MISSIONS or a dollar sign or not. It’s going to take it. And, if you misspelled it, it will automatically generate back to you like, “Hey, I’m not sure what this meant. Can you confirm where you want this to go?” And so, we’ll give a clear direction of what to do but the backwards pairing of that goes through your way.
KENNY: Nice, that’s really good to hear.
MATT: Yeah. We’ve been able to do that and that was one example we did last Fall. And then, the Spring, we had another specific collection that we have coming up for just some campus renovations and just some new things that need to be.. We called it, we were in this summer flex period. And so, we were renovating a lot of space that needed to happen so, we just wanted to call people say, “When you give to this, it’s going to go specifically to these renovations to move. We’re moving some of our ministry teams around in new spaces, so they just kind of have to be re-purposed and remade for the age that’s going to be needing those spaces.” So, our ways, we left traditional online, or traditional giving, available You know, we all say, you can also text give and we just kind of gave that keyword. Keyword. Text amount to FLEX. And, it’s going to go here. So, we said that in communications and letters. We said that from the platforms to say, you can give that way as well. One thing that I went back and looked at is it when the giving was over, I looked at the number and you know, still traditional gifts were the highest amount of participation in the traditional gifts, but text giving had surpassed online giving in this. So, the number of online givers was the smallest group and text givers actually surpassed them in amount of participation. Traditional gifts, then, text giving, and then online giving just for that specific kind of offering for that specific fund. I thought it’s interesting that in less than a year, text giving have already surpassed that specific call.
KENNY: That’s so interesting. I wouldn’t never have guessed that.
MATT: And again, I just think because it’s easy and we’re just telling you how. And that’s people, you know, following the directions on putting that keyword in there.
KENNY: Nice. Thank you for sharing all those insights and experiences. Are you ready for our lighting round of questions?
MATT: Sure.
KENNY: So, we got a couple of three questions. One is especially as a creative arts pastor, you’re in the thick of things, you’re always looking for inspiration, is there any podcast, book, resource, leader that you follow that you could share with our audience to help inspire them?
MATT: Yeah I mean, that’s kind of a loaded question. I mean, I love to read. I’m just not in the habit, right now. I’m actually finishing all the books that are on my shelf. One of the books in the last season that really helps bring clarity is a book that I love and is called Less Clutter and Noise by Kem Meyer. It’s just great for any person or any space that’s kind of in that communications or creative role of their church that really kind of help validate the cause of what you’re trying to do. Everybody’s got the same goal but sometimes it’s just the methodology or just the way that you’re trying to accomplish it may not be as successful as what you wanted to be. So, that’s a great read and then as far as just visually I mean I love just following other churches that are really just doing it well. Whether they’re in your area or across the country just via Instagram. Instagram is one of my social media just because it’s so visual and it’s got photos and videos and now stories a part of it. So, you can kind of get a glimpse of what other churches are doing and how they’re engaging their audience. You can just continually learn from and try to figure out how does that relate to you and your group and how can you relate to audience and just and your space and your region of how you can only do that. Just following along there is probably a lot of fun and I get a lot of great inspiration that way.
KENNY: Love that. You always want to be looking on things on Instagram as a perfect resource for that.
MATT: You know, does that belong for your group or does it not? Is it relevant or not?
KENNY: Okay, second question is dead or alive, if you could sit down and have lunch with anybody who would that be?
Wow. That was a tough one. ‘Cause I want to pick somebody like at this far-off place so I can just travel to like this you know like this castle in England and like here, you know, like, how the life was from somebody that’s completely different than me. Man, that’s tough. I may pick. Gosh, I don’t know if I could pick one person. I would pick maybe some awesome movie director like JJ Abrams or Peter Jackson like, go on location in one of the movies they film.
KENNY: Good choice.
MATT: Like you’re involved. You’re living in a different country for like seasons. And you are building this massive story that you want to be able to connect with audiences.
KENNY: Love that choice. Last one is, if anyone listening in today wants to get in touch with you directly, what’s the best way to do that? Is it Twitter, Snapchat, E-mail, snail mail, Carrier pigeon. How can they get in touch with you?
MATT: Yeah, probably the best way would be my email address which is mallen@tsclife.org. That’s probably the fastest way to catch me.
KENNY: Awesome. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today. It really is a blessing for you to share your practical experience of walking through how you guys communicate and roll out text and online giving. Thank you so much for sharing with the community.
MATT: Yeah, thanks Kenny. Thanks for having me.
KENNY: Everybody thank you so much for joining us for today’s episode. Watch out for the next one. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised about what we reveal in the next interview here on the Generosity labs podcast. Get this interview transcript audio and video downloads and more at generositylabs.org or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. Thank you so much. My name is Kenny Jahng, host of Generosity Labs Podcast. Catch you next time here. Have a good day.
It is astonishing how many churches and nonprofits are still ignoring the trends that are happening NOW in front of everyone’s eyes, not just in “the future.”
One of the most critical shifts happening right now is how we use currency (or lack thereof) and how people are using digital devices for online and mobile payments for everything, everyday. That goes for charitable giving as well. People are using online giving, text giving and mobile giving more and more each month that goes by.
If you are raising funds and ignoring digital options, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Take a look at these 5 infographics that reveal more about the opportunity you have if you just started to adopt online giving and mobile giving this year.
What is holding you back? Your assumptions? Your theology? You laziness? Let’s be honest and have a conversation about why you are choosing to be left behind.
What is holding you back? Your assumptions? Your theology? You laziness? Let’s be honest and have a conversation about why you are choosing to be left behind.
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