Between vacations, work schedules, or taking children to their sports activities, 1 – 2 times per month has become the new ‘regular’ attendance in the current church.
Traditionally, giving dips way down in the summer months. Couple this with other reasons people miss church and you have a recipe for disaster! Although most givers intend to ‘catch up’, the reality is when you only accept cheques/cash in your offering, most people simply do not give when they are not at church. Setting up recurring giving is one of the best ways to smooth out ‘seasonal dips’ in giving through the summer.
Recurring giving is perhaps the most effective way to increase giving. Statistics shows that the average recurring donor gives 42 percent more during the course of a year than those giving one-time gifts.
Here’s how it plays out in a real world scenario …
Let’s say someone gives $100 per week. You’d expect to receive $1,200 for the year, but they miss one week due to sickness, two weeks for summer vacation, a week for work travel, and a week because they forgot their checkbook.
Ugh, that’s a lot of missed giving!
- Giving via passing the plate: You’d receive $700 due to the sick days, summer vacation, work travel, and forgotten check book. If you multiplied that by 60-120 members (an average church size) you’d be missing out on per year in revenue.
- Giving an automated recurring gift: You’d receive the full $1,200. The amount the person had initially set out to give in their heart.
In the automated recurring giving scenario both the church and the giver are in a better place at the end of the year.
Your people are already familiar with it…
Since people are already familiar with recurring payments – 68% of all recurring bills are paid automatically – many of your church members would happily setup automated recurring giving to support the church they love.
The ability to accept automatic, recurring donations is also listed as the most important factor shared by financially healthy churches because the more your congregation uses automated recurring giving, the better you can budget. And the better you can budget, the better you can manage your church resources, plan ahead, and deliver ministries that meet needs long term.
Inspired & Educated Members will Respond…
When you inspire your members to grow in their faith, reach out to people and/or change, they respond! When you educate your members about the right way to live the Christian life by using the scriptures they respond!
Similarly, if you educate your members about recurring giving and the impact of “giving dips” while also inspiring them with how their giving is making an impact on the community around them, they’ll respond.
You just have to be bold enough to get in front of them!
The tools are already available…
- If you’re using Tithe.ly you can let your members know that they can setup automated recurring gifts via the mobile app, text, or through your website. All that have to do is switch the button on and set their preferred schedule. Simple as that!
- FMCIC has parternered with Rotessa – offering a flexible and cost effective way to easily setup Pre-Authorized giving through Bank-2-Bank transfers. Donors need to complete an online authorization form (the form can be downloaded and printed if they are unable to complete online).
- FMCIC has also partnered with the United Church’s PAR Program PAR BROCHURE – It has low transaction/setup fees, but can only withdraw on one date of the month. Plus it does involved the treasurer to collect VOID Cheques and submit any additions/changes at least 10 days prior to the withdrawal date.
- There are other options – you can approach your bank to setup recurring automated giving, or use services like Canada Helps or other church giving services. If you would like help assessing the various options available, please feel free to contact sandy.crozier@fmcic.ca
