Confidentiality in giving is not about members’ or donor’s private or personal information. That’s covered under privacy acts applicable in your region or the handling of that information under those acts and laws. You should obviously be aware of them and adhere to those applicable to you. Rather, I’m referring to general information used for the purposes of analysis. How much is being given? What is the giving schedule? Who are our top givers? Without this kind of information planning is more difficult, and sometimes, depending on who the envelope secretary is, even this information is hard to get.

The Envelope Secretary

I am sometimes tempted to think of the envelope secretary dressed in black with a black satchel chained to their wrist scurrying around the church halls in the dark of midnight, assiduously guarding the secrets of the church. They are in fact fine, committed people.  Over time though, the position developed an aura of secrecy that was decidedly negative and in fact detrimental to good financial management and planning. If the envelope secretary is the only person who knows the giving patterns of the congregation, how can church leaders address any financial issues. The fact is they can’t. And that’s a problem.

J. Clif Christopher agrees, in his book, Not your parents’ offering plate, and argues that ministers should know what people are giving in the church. This builds on his belief that the minister should be involved in the fundraising of the church. “Knowing how much people give,” he says, “will help you raise more money.” Having good information when asking people for a gift is critical.

Secondly, Christopher points out the obvious: knowing what people give is vital when it comes to thanking our donors! “If we do not know how much they give, how do we know when they need to be thanked?” Being thanked is one of the top reasons people give again … and again … and then again. So this is absolutely right. The church needs to find better ways to talk about these gifts and thank the people giving them.

Regardless of the reasons holding you back from this information, it is imperative that you know what your congregation is giving. It is nice to get a friendly letter from the church secretary thanking me for my gift. But it is so much more powerful when it comes from the pastor! Or if he thanks me personally sometime when we had a private moment. Imagine!

Treasurers as a group are a tough lot, particularly those who volunteer at charitable organizations. Anyone who volunteers to attempt the delicate balancing act between expenses and revenues (with the latter usually in short supply), deserves our utmost admiration and respect. They fill a crucial role in the church and indeed, a good treasurer is worth their weight in gold. But it’s a mistake to treat the church finances as a narrowly held secret. Leaders need access to this information so they can take remedial action when giving falls off, choose leadership people who model a commitment to giving, and address giving potential.

Taking remedial action

We need a way to take remedial action when giving falls off. It is often related to a lack of vision and clarity, at which point the level of ownership in the congregation needs to be challenged and re-focused. Without accurate giving information, it is hard for church leaders to do that.

Choosing good leadership

Board assembly and constitution and whom we choose to be our organizational leaders are crucial decisions. We need leaders who will represent us in accordance with our organizational values, and who buy into our mission and our vision. Specifically, relevant to faith-based organizations, we need to choose church leadership that models giving in the church. Having a Board Policy and Procedures manual is considered an industry best practice. Many churches and organizations have one, but very few of them make any sort of overt reference to giving.

The assumption is of course that board members will give, in addition to being our ambassadors, so we need to know who our giving champions are in the church. In addition to the envelope secretary or church treasurer, church leaders need to know what is happening in the donor base of the church so they can choose leaders who model a commitment to giving.

Assessing giving potential

Earlier we pointed out that giving potential and good donor data are vital to assessing giving potential. In the absence of good data, the only recourse is to use averages of the whole, and this usually skews what the reality is and gives leaders a false sense of security.

Sometimes pastors and leaders worry that they shouldn’t know what their members give. But in fact, it will skew your preaching or relationship no more than if you know people don’t attend regularly … or aren’t involved … or are having difficulties in their lives. This is just another area of Christian discipleship that pastors need to address as leaders. Timely, accurate information is essential to good planning, particularly in the development of proactive stewardship programs that get results.

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 re-written by myself. 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, because if anything is holding you back from financial success, it is one of these myths. 

If you would like to watch my video on The Seven Myths of Church Fundraising, you can do so on my youtube channel or on the about us page of my website.