What Do You Do When Your Church Budget Gets Tight?

We have all had weeks and months where we did everything the same and the giving didn’t meet our expectations.  I get asked a lot about what to do when income isn’t coming in as expected.  What should you do?  The majority of pastors don’t do anything or they start using guilt; neither of these options work.

You should have a proportional response.  What does this mean?

If you your church does not have cash reserves and you literally can’t make payroll, you will respond differently than a church that has two months of reserves in the bank.  A church going broke and a church going through a dip are two different things. But I believe the following should happen in any church that’s going through a rough financial time.

Do a digital giving initiative.

A digital giving initiative is where you ask people to give a RECURRING ONLINE gift.  We have studied 1,047 churches and personally coached hundreds – we can tell you with certainty that getting people to give online in a recurring fashion should be your response when giving goes down.  Why? I’ve seen it with my own eyes that it works. Our study shows that the number one way to increase giving in your church is to increase online recurring giving.

A digital giving initiate is a real solution that will work if you execute it.

Three Benefits of asking people to give recurring online gifts:

1. Your income will become predictable.

2. Your giving per family will skyrocket.

3. Your overall church giving will steadily increase.