How Many Church Tithes Will You Miss In 2016?
THE PREFERRED METHOD OF PAYMENT TODAY
We interact with hundreds of churches per month about digital giving…
- churches with no strategy at all
- churches with a “starter” strategy such as Paypal
- churches that have 20% or more of their congregation involved in digital giving
In all of these conversations, one thing is clear…
No one will deny checks and cash are hard to be found these days.
THE preferred medium for finances is digital, hands down.
Think about everything you and your people are using digital to pay for on a regular basis
- utility bills
- cell phone bills
- school tuition
- regular shopping (Target, Walmart, the grocery store…no one is paying with cash or checks at the register!)
- online shopping (anyone using checks or cash on Amazon or eBay?)
- medical bills (most common payment method is debit card; second is credit card)
You name it. Digital giving is the #1 method of financial transactions today. Hands down!
Now the question to ask yourself is this…
Have you prioritized this method of payment in your giving strategy in a way that is consistent with the above?
An even bigger (and more painful) question is…
how many donations are you missing out on because you haven’t prioritized digital giving?
Keep reading, and see if you can identify….
“WE’RE DOING OKAY…I THINK”
Oftentimes churches will look at their digital strategy and say, “I think we’re doing just fine!”
…but when you really dive into the numbers, church leaders say, “Uh oh, we’re missing out on a lot donations!“
Here’s a hypothetical example:
Church leader Tom gives a breakdown of his numbers…
- 20% of our giving is currently digital
- 10% is ACH
- “I think we’re doing pretty good!”
Now this is really for a separate discussion, but ACH (Automated Clearing House, electronic financial transaction processing) isn’t even technically considered digital!
ACH is old hat.
ACH was created because digital didn’t exist! When was the last time YOU set up an ACH payment?
Here are 3 quick reasons to stop placing so much emphasis on ACH…
-
ACH is extremely difficult to set up.
Compared to using a debit or credit cards online, ACH is a dinosaur.
-
People have more reservations about ACH than ever before. No one wants their account and routing number floating around in cyberspace.
By the way, since very few people write checks anymore, who actually knows their account and routing number?
Do you know your routing number by heart? Do you think the average person does while they are swiping their cards?
-
ACH is even harder to cancel than it is to set up!
I’m pretty sure it requires an act of congress.
Back to church leader Tom. If he reports that his church brings in 20% digital and 10% ACH, that means…
- 3 out of every 10 people are engaged in digital donations.
- If you take out ACH (and you should!), it’s only 2 out of every 10.
What is church leader Tom leaving on the table? Stay with me here…
- Let’s say conservatively that 7 out of 10 people’s preferred payment method is digital. (It’s actually more like 8 or 9 out of 10….but let’s say it’s 7 out of 10).
- If only 3 out of 10 are participating in digital right now at Tom’s church…
that means that 4 out of 10 people are not participating in digital, but they SHOULD BE
- 4 out of 10 are in no man’s land!
Why aren’t they participating? Is it too hard to use? Is it lacking a regular communication strategy?
In a church with 500 attenders, that means that 200 people should be participating in digital but aren’t.
Or, to look at it another way…
If only 3 out of every 10 people at Tom’s church are tithing online,
then he’s relying on 7 out of 10 people to use checks or cash!
Now that’s a scary thought!
How much money is being left out there, really?
- In Tom’s church, 200 people SHOULD BE participating in digital, but aren’t.
- Let’s conservatively say that 1/4 of those people miss a monthly tithe because the church isn’t engaging them in digital
- 1/4 = 50 people missing their monthly offering.
- Let’s pretend that the average monthly tithe is $300.
- 50 missed tithes x $300 = $15,000 missed per month
- $15,000 missed donations x 12 months per year = $180,000.
**(Remember, there’s 200 people who should be using digital but aren’t. If 1/4 miss, that’s 50 people. If a few of them actually remember checks or cash next month, then some from the other 3/4’s will forget!).
Let that sink in for a minute.
Then, work some of the numbers for your own church.
TAKING DIGITAL SERIOUSLY
Digital is the preferred method for people in today’s society. Almost no one will dispute that.
But yet, so often a churches digital giving strategy doesn’t reflect it.
The net result for churches is they end up missing out on donations they need!
Digital Giving isn’t about having cool features. It isn’t about “reaching the young people.”
It’s about maximizing donations so you can maximize ministry.
That, quite simply, is why we created Rocket Donations.
A serious digital solution has two crucial components:
- Easy-to-use technology where people can give in LESS than a minute.
- ONGOING communication strategy (so people actually engage in digital!)
“WE CAN’T AFFORD A SERIOUS STRATEGY”
As a church leader, when you run some of the basic numbers, you quickly realize that you are potentially missing tons of tithe money each year.
But you may say, “It’s just too expensive to have a strategy.”
Did you know that it takes ONE DONATION each month of $150 to pay for an ENTIRE strategy?
Read that again.
You get one donation of $150. Take out fees. Take out hard costs. And the entire strategy is paid for.
Don’t miss out on more money for ministry in 2016!
Want to talk with a Rocket Donations specialist to learn more?
Call 502-489-4800, or schedule a 15-minute demo at a time convenient for your schedule here.
