This myth concerns giving motivations, which have probably been studied more than most topics in fundraising and stewardship. Depending on who you ask, there can be as many as 40 or 50 motivations or as few as a half-dozen, all based on character and/or circumstance.  

As we saw in last week’s post (myth #2), Christian giving is based on character and driven by a commitment to faith and discipleship. In fact, Christians give most of their charitable donations to Christian charities (including churches), and approximately 30 percent of all charitable donations go to Christian charities.

Christians are very focused in their giving.

So why are our churches struggling financially? Because people do not respond in a vacuum of information, and we are failing to prepare our donors to respond.

Fundraising is not asking for money; it is preparing the donor to respond.

It is easy for leaders to overestimate what people understand about stewardship and the church. On Sunday, put the chair of the church board on one end of the pew, and on the other end, put the person who comes only to worship, enjoys it, and then disappears. There is a great gulf between what the two understand about the church, and that gulf needs to be bridged.

How do we do that?

We do that by preparing the donor to respond and giving the donor the right context to give. Contextualizing the donor to respond and what information we give them is what will generate the greatest response from our donors and members. So, what information do donors need to give? This varies depending on the type of campaign you are doing, but a few key elements need to be addressed.

Sense of Purpose and Vision

The Old Testament Prophet once said, “Where there is no vision, people perish!” This statement is probably the finest management principle ever articulated. Indeed, in the context of stewardship, there is nothing more motivational to giving than a clear sense of vision and purpose. If the vision and purpose are wobbly, you need to sort that out and get good buy-in from your membership before you can expect people to support you financially.

Much of what we must communicate to the donor is not necessarily what we are doing but why we are doing it, and this is directly related to having a clear vision.

Money is NOT your problem!

We worked with a large congregation in Toronto. They had 400 families attending but were running a consistent $30,000 annual budget deficit. Our first meeting involved some 40 people, including the board and some of the church members. The chair introduced us and explained their dire situation and the annual deficit. 

My father’s opening remark was, “Money’s not your problem,” and proceeded to point out that several of the people sitting in that meeting were professionals with remuneration well into not just six figures, but some at seven. Then he added, “there are probably a few of you who could take $30,000 out of petty cash and never miss it.” At first there was dead silence, but within minutes people were smiling and nodding because they knew he was right. Money was not the issue. Giving people a reason to give the money to the church instead of somewhere else, was the issue. We ran a visioning program with this congregation, and they raised half a million dollars.

Educating your members

A second critical piece of the pie is education. We have taken stewardship teaching off the agenda of most churches for at least a generation, which often directly impacts a church’s financial health. This trend is not unique to any one denomination or category; most denominations are struggling. You need to assume that, with only rare exceptions, people coming to church today probably have very little idea what their church is all about … and far more important, what it means to be a Christian. If giving in the church is based on the principles of Christian discipleship, and our newest members are unaware of this … asking for financial support will be difficult.

Christians will only move from giving to the church as just another charity to giving to the church sacrificially when they understand the biblical principles of stewardship, how those principles impact their value systems, and how they impact the resources God has entrusted to each of them.

Therefore, the need for the giver to give is at the heart of our discipleship, and preparation or education of the donor at this level is crucial.

The other key elements in contextualizing the donor and preparing them to respond are project clarity, a good planning process, a positive environment with creative giving opportunities, and good communication strategy with open lines of communication.

Yes, it will take time

Congregations are not homogenous wholes that think, act, and respond the same way for the same reason. Moving change or acceptance through the church or organization’s system takes time because people accept change at different rates.

Look first to the visionaries, and the rest will follow

So, how do you move an organization from point A to point B? Well, you need to start with the visionaries. In every group, the 2-3 percent on the left are visionaries who drive change. They see the future and believe it to be real. Merriam-Webster defines them as “one having unusual foresight and imagination.” They’re also described as “a person who is ahead of his or her time and has a powerful plan for change in the future.” 

Next to the visionaries are the 15-20 percent we like to call the early adopters. They quickly join the visionaries in understanding the issues and recognizing the need for change. The middle adopters, about 60 percent of the group, are slower to respond. However, if the right people on the left promote the change, if it’s seen as legitimate, and if the early adopters are supportive and on board, there is almost a snowball effect, and the change gains momentum.

“The gatekeeper’s name is Art!”

The late adopters, the next 15-20 percent, are like the group in the middle, but they need a little more time and possible information to come on board. To their right is a group called many things, but we call them the gatekeepers, a person who controls access to something or someone. Often in the church setting, this precious something is permission. At a seminar we were running, when we came to this point, a Lutheran pastor raised his hand and said, “His name is Art!”

Never underestimate the power of a gatekeeper to thwart your visionary’s plans.

The Gatekeeper said No!

One of my father’s first clients was a church in Jacksonville, Florida, that was embarking on a capital campaign to expand its ministry and was planning for the congregation’s growth. Part of the regular campaign process is securing leadership gifts from prominent individuals in the congregation. Ben and the pastor met with one of these individuals one-on-one, and during the meeting, he seemed to agree with the plan and be supportive of the campaign.

A few days later, the pastor called Ben and said, “We have a problem,” then explained that the individual they had met with a few days earlier had contacted many of his peers in the congregation and said, “We’re not doing this!” After further discussions, they decided to pull the plug on the campaign, and the project was dead. The gatekeeper or permission-giver had said no. Ultimately, the church split over the issue and started a church plant. The new congregation flourished and grew, and the old guard closed its doors a few years later.

Change takes time, and preparing the donor to respond takes time. Some people simply take longer than others to be prepared or ready to respond. If asking for money is the issue, you can do it quickly, but you may well be disappointed with the result. The secret to releasing significant resources is to surround the prospective donor with specific, pertinent information and an environment that will generate the best response.

The Seven Myths of Church Fundraising

This is a series of seven articles based on the book originally written by my father, Ben Harder, and recently rewritten by me. We came up with what we referred to as the Seven Myths of Church Fundraising. I suppose they could just as easily have been called pitfalls or misguided beliefs, but the point is, these myths are widely-held assumptions people in the church had and still have surrounding church finances and fundraising. For many churches, these assumptions became part of the church operations and, more importantly, an informal narrative of things the church should not do. 

It will be helpful to learn how to recognize and identify these pitfalls and why it’s important to move past them. If anything is holding you back from financial success, it is one of these myths. 

My video on the Seven Myths of Church Fundraising is available on my website.