Intelligent Church Giving

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HELPING LEADERS BECOME BETTER STEWARDS. Presented by: RSI Stewardship Intelligent Church Giving

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“Intelligent Church Giving” Presented by: RSI Stewardship

Transcript of Intelligent Church Giving

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H E L P I N G L E A D E R S B E C O M E B E T T E R S T E W A R D S .

Presented by: RSI Stewardship

Intelligent Church Giving

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HAIL MARY OR HOLY MOLY: THERE’S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY TO FUND MINISTRY 4

Many church leaders have realized that data and technology provide new ways of thinking about how they can overcome their increasing financial challenges.

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

MAKING SENSE OF MARKETPLACE MUMBO JUMBO 6

Data and technology provide church leaders with new ways of thinking about how to overcome financial challenges or fund growing ministry opportunities. Consequently, there are a lot of new concepts and topics being discussed across ministry circles.

Before you write off the ideas as “marketplace mumbo-jumbo,” let’s consider a few reasons why they might be applicable to your ministry.

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

THE SECRET TO REACHING OUT — WITHOUT BURNING OUT 8

Data and technology have made it easier than ever to reach more people and raise more money.

This isn’t about adding another thing to your plate; it’s about identifying ways you can work smarter, not harder. It’s about improving how you reach out so that you never burn out.

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

HOW 2 CHURCHES USE DATA AND TECHNOLOGY TO REACH MORE AND RAISE MORE 10

Funding ministry is likely the most complex part of your role as a church leader. Changing attitudes around giving and involvement don’t help; tithing and weekly attendance is no longer considered normal. These shifts are making it harder and harder for you to fully fund your vision.

It can seem impossible.

Yet, many church leaders are beginning to learn that working smarter, not harder, is the way to discover your path to developing a culture of stewardship in your church.

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO GUESS ANYMORE 12

Where do many new report-writing tools fall short? More importantly, is there a better way to analyze the information you have to finally start gaining traction towards your ultimate vision?

Those are the two questions we’re working together to help church leaders answer.

By Joel Mikell and Curt Swindoll

Table of ContentsWHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT GIVING CAN KILL YOUR MINISTRY POTENTIAL … 14

Every church leader recognizes that there are times when we must adapt the way we do ministry. While the message stays the same, the methods change. New challenges have led us to identify new approaches, such as contemporary services, small groups, multisite churches and online campuses.

Unfortunately, when it comes to giving, we’re not always so quick to adapt or adjust our ways of thinking.

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

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Hail Mary or holy molyThere’s got to be a better way to fund ministry

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

Most senior pastors or executive leaders approach church giving by looking for a Hail Mary or settling for a holy moly. We depend on someone to save us at the last

minute — or, we accept managed decline.

But what if there were a better way?

Thankfully, there is.

Intelligent Church Giving

Many church leaders have realized that data and technology provide new ways of thinking about how they can overcome their increasing financial challenges.

New challenges require a better way to fund ministry.

Today’s ministry leaders face a new series of challenges when it comes to church giving. If we want to identify a better way to fund ministry, let’s agree on a few things:

Church giving is declining while overall charitable giving is increasing. According to a recent report by the Atlas of Giving, overall charitable giving increased by 4.6 percent in 2014, but church giving declined by 1.6 percent.

There is a remarkable change in behavior when it comes to church giving. Attitudes and giving patterns aren’t the same as they once were. Tithing is not the norm. The conditions of how people give, why people give, and when people give is changing.

The cost of ministry is increasing … and so are the needs! Ministry needs are constantly increasing, especially in a growing church. Church leaders rarely feel like they have all the resources they need.

Many church leaders are uncertain about how to solve the problem. While leaders might be aware of the challenges, no one trained them on how to overcome them. It can be difficult to discern what the right next step should be. However, leaders can either bemoan the reality, or they can commit to taking action.

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How do you cut through the clutter of all the giving opportunities and ensure you fully fund your ministry plan? Rather than preaching louder or working harder, data and technology provide a more intelligent way to cultivate generosity.

Church leaders can benefit from a more intelligent way of increasing generosity.

If you believe this is true, then you need to reach toward data and technology to help you make disciples and grow churches. Even if you’re not ready to agree that data and technology can help, let’s consider several ways every church could benefit:

#1: You’ll make smarter, more informed decisions. You have more information and data on your church members than ever before. But, are you using it to make data-driven decisions that validate or challenge your intuitions? Taking the time to analyze your data and the behavioral patterns of your church members can make a significant difference in the impact of your ministry.

For example, your church might be considering a capital campaign for a new facility. By taking the time to analyze your data, you might find that you can overcome the challenges you’re facing by adding another service, rather than going into debt to build a new facility.

When you take time to analyze the data and information, you can make smarter, more informed decisions rather than relying on your gut.

#2: You’ll break through the noise and clutter. Inspiring people to give is just half the equation. You must help them follow through. Technology gives you the ability to communicate and follow up with givers like never before. Segmentation and personalization allow you to connect with each church member in a way that fits their native consumption habits and giving history. Technology allows you to guide every church member in the grace of giving, whether it’s a first-time giver or a financial leader.

#3: You’ll define a holistic process that uniquely allows you to enhance your disciple-making strategies. You have access to information that can be leveraged to help people grow in generosity. Sometimes that means challenging them and providing accountability just as Paul did in several of his letters to the early church. Intelligent giving strategies allow you to maximize the information you have to lead each individual church member toward being more generous.

Take the first step toward a better wayThe days of waiting until the end of the year to “work it all out,” or

hoping for the best, won’t be enough to engage the people in your church and move them toward extravagant generosity. Why is it OK for Target and Amazon to know more about our members than we do? And why wouldn’t we want to use every available resource to advance and fund Kingdom work?

Funding your ministry can be easier. Rather than praying for a hail mary, technology allows you to confidently lead your church members in generosity in more effective ways. Instead of being so overwhelmed by the increasing financial challenges that all you can say is “Holy Moly!”, data provides a new way of thinking for how you can overcome them.

The steps toward intelligent giving strategies are simple, but they require discipline. Are you ready to leverage your data and technology to do it in a smarter way?

Joel Mikell is president and principal at RSI Stewardship. He has helped church leaders raise more than $500 million for Kingdom projects and has had the privilege of working with some of the most well-known churches and church leaders across the country. Follow him on Twitter @joelmikell, or find him on Facebook.

Derek Hazelet is senior vice president at RSI Stewardship. His unique combination of business and local church experience fuels his passion to see churches and organizations realize their full potential through the ministry of stewardship. Reach him by email, and find him on Twitter @dhazelet or LinkedIn.

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MAKING SENSE OF MARKETPLACE

MUMBOJUMBOWhat church leaders really need to know

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

Data and technology provide church leaders with new ways of thinking about how to overcome financial challenges or fund growing ministry opportunities. Consequently, there are a lot of new concepts and topics being discussed across ministry circles.Before you write off the ideas as “marketplace mumbo-jumbo,” let’s consider a few reasons why they might be applicable to your ministry.

An “inside look” at today’s church members

Understanding the value data and technology can provide starts with recognizing the mindset and motivations of the church members we’re trying to reach.

Intelligent Church Giving

The expectations of your church members have changed. In a world where Amazon [ www.fastcodesign.com/1669551/how-companies-like-amazon-use-big-data-to-make-you-love-them ] provides specific recommendations based on our shopping activity, today’s church members expect you to know their preferences, interests and ministry involvement. This is about more than adapting the format or style of a worship service — people want the churches they attend to truly know them.

Today’s church members still want to know they matter. They want to be connected to tangible impact and life change as a result of their generosity. This connection between giving and impact is a fundamental element of discipleship.

We live in a world that is noisier than ever. There are more nonprofits competing for the attention and resources of church members than ever before. We must be intentional about earning the attention and investment of church members rather than assuming it’s automatically given.

“Learn more about how you can create an easier way to fund ministry with Intelligent Church Giving by downloading our latest

resource at: www.RSIstewardship.com/IntelligentChurchGiving

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Why does this matter for ministry?Now that we’ve defined the terms, here are just a few of the benefits data

and technology provide:

Optimization — You have access to so much information on your church members. But, are you using it to make data-driven decisions that validate or challenge your intuitions? Taking the time to optimize your data is the key to working smarter, rather than harder, when it comes to solving the ministry challenges you face.

Integration — Many churches collect data in silos. Taking the time to connect the dots is key to overcoming your financial challenges. On a macro-level, it gives you the ability to see trends within your ministry. On a micro-level, it provides tangible insights to cultivate generosity in individual church members.

Activation — Data and technology are useless unless you can use them to move people to action. Marketing automation and productivity tools allow you to develop a systematic process for implementing the things you learn from data to make a tangible impact.

Most church leaders don’t know what they have at their fingertips. Many parachurch ministries and nonprofits are embracing business intelligence best practices, marketing automation and productivity tools to increase contributions. For-profit companies have been doing this for years. Our mission has eternal significance, and the stakes are much higher.

Why wouldn’t we use the information and tools we have available to fund ministry, both now and in the future?

Joel Mikell is president at RSI Stewardship www.rsistewardship.com.Follow him on Twitter @joelmikell, or find him on Facebook www.facebook.com/joel.mikell.

Derek Hazelet is senior vice president at RSI Stewardship. Find him on Twitter@dhazelet or LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/derekhazelet.

You can try to meet these expectations manually, exhausting yourself and your staff in the process. Or, you can deploy technology and tools to equip your staff to effectively disciple and cultivate generosity among your congregation.

What church leaders really need to knowFamiliarity with key concepts and phrases is important. Here are three

terms you should know when it comes to leveraging data and technology to cultivate generosity:

#1: Business IntelligenceMore than likely, you’re already gathering data about your church

members (previous giving history, attendance/involvement, interests, etc.). However, data alone is meaningless unless you can do something with it.

In essence, business intelligence is about leveraging actionable data to drive your strategy, measure your effectiveness, and improve your efforts for accelerating generosity. It’s more than collecting data and reporting information; it’s turning data into actionable information.

#2: Marketing Automation Until now, the processes for prompting church members to give have

been manual, time-intensive activities. Marketing automation enables you to create a systematic process for cultivating generosity that isn’t dependent on a manual process. This allows you to spend less time sending emails or following up with church members, and more time doing ministry.

#3: Productivity ToolsHow are you measuring ministry effectiveness? How are you making

sure the energy you’re putting into cultivating generosity is actually moving people into deeper levels of commitment?

Productivity tools allow you to organize information and automate reports so you can see what’s happening on both a macro- and micro-level in various areas of ministry.

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Intelligent Church Giving

The secret to reaching out — without burning out By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

Simple church can feel incredibly complex at times. There are always more people to reach. There is always more ministry that can be done.

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3) Go deep and wide with new technology tools. Understanding how people are interacting with your church not only helps you understand what’s working, it helps you engage each church member effectively and uncover what’s most pressing in their lives. For example, maybe you notice a church member has stopped giving — this might be an indication of a financial strain you have the opportunity to address.

Technology allows you to bridge the gap between Sundays. If all of your communication is based on what happens on the platform, your church is being silenced by outside forces competing for attention throughout the week.

This is not about dehumanizing people or the disciple-making process. It’s about enhancing it.

As church leaders, we are responsible for the people in our church. We’re responsible for their spiritual condition. The end game is not “big data” or how much information we collect; it’s about taking what we can learn about the people we engage to make smarter ministry decisions. The end game is not using the latest tools and technologies to be “cool.” It’s about using those resources and tools to help each and every person take steps to grow as a follower of Christ.

Are you ready to reach more people and raise more money by working smarter, not harder?

Joel Mikell is president at RSI Stewardship www.rsistewardship.com.Follow him on Twitter, @joelmikell or find him on Facebook, www.facebook.com/joel.mikell

Derek Hazelet is senior vice president at RSI Stewardship. Find him on Twitter,@dhazelet or LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/derekhazelet.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the pressure or nervous about the future, you’re not alone. Research shows:• �90 percent of pastors admit they are frequently fatigued and worn out

on a weekly, or even daily, basis, and • 62 percent of senior pastors are concerned about giving.

Here’s good news: Data and technology have made it easier than ever to reach more people and raise more money. This isn’t about adding another thing to your plate; it’s about identifying ways you can work smarter, not harder. It’s about improving how you reach out so that you never burn out.

3 keys to working smarter, not harder, with data and technologyHere are three ways you can apply the principles behind intelligent

church giving to work smarter, not harder.

1) Make better decisions by balancing intuition with information. If making more disciples is the end game and discipleship is a life-long process, then effective ministry requires a long-game approach. It’s about equipping and sustaining comprehensive ministry.

While there will always be an element of faith involved, we must get past “going with our gut” when it comes to the ministry decisions we make.

In the same way a car dashboard helps us monitor if our car is operating correctly, there are indicators to help us measure ministry effectiveness and make better decisions along the way. For us to play the long game, we have to have feedback mechanisms and tools that help us measure if things are on the right track. Your car dashboard helps you monitor things that help you reach your destination. As church leaders, we can use data as indicators to measure disciple-making strategies and improve ministry effectiveness.

2) Accelerate discipleship through automation. Leading people into a deeper relationship with Christ requires us to help them take the next step. Our ability to respond to indicators of spiritual growth (participating, volunteering, giving) in measurable ways is essential for helping people grow. Unfortunately, manual processes aren’t easily replicable or scalable. What happens when the person you rely on to follow up with church members forgets or isn’t around anymore?

Fortunately, automated communication gives us confidence that we are effectively engaging church members in relevant and personal ways. It gives us a chance to communicate with every church member without relying on manual processes.

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Learn what they did — and what you should do next

Funding ministry is likely the most complex part of your role as a church leader. Changing attitudes around giving and involvement don’t help; tithing and weekly attendance is no longer considered normal. These shifts are making it harder and harder for you to fully fund your vision.

It can seem impossible.

Yet, many church leaders are beginning to learn that working smarter, not harder, is the way to discover your path to developing a culture of stewardship in your church.

Intelligent Church Giving

HOW 2 CHURCHES USE DATA AND TECHNOLOGY TO REACH

MORE AND RAISE MORE

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

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Dana Lawson — Chief Financial Officer, Cornerstone ChurchCornerstone Church has experienced tremendous growth over the past

several years. Like many growing churches, it was looking for ways to fund the new opportunities that were emerging because of the rapid growth.

The leadership team tried a variety of approaches before deciding to use data to drive their decision-making. What they found completely transformed their strategy.

“It wasn’t until we started digging below the top-line numbers that we realized the answers we were looking for were right in front of us,” Lawson recalls. “We just didn’t have a way to surface them until we started mining the data.”

Cornerstone’s leadership uncovered the insights they needed to make more informed ministry decisions. They learned which giving segments were growing, which ones were not, and why. They even discovered hundreds of givers who don’t even live in the same state, yet are connected through their TV broadcasts and online presence. With this detailed information, they were able to refine their thinking and shift their planning, which resulted in not just growth in giving but also expanded ministry opportunities.

“We assumed we were doing all the right things in the right ways, but quickly realized how important it is to challenge or validate our assumptions with objective information,” Lawson points out. “Analyzing data gave us the clarity and confidence we needed to improve ministry funding and ensure it keeps pace with our rapid growth.”

Are you ready to reach more — and raise more?Your church has the ability to apply the principles behind Intelligent

Church Giving just like Long Hollow and Cornerstone have done. Take an even deeper look into how data and technology have helped churches reach more people — and raise more money — by downloading our latest resource at www.RSIstewardship.com/ICGinAction.

Joel Mikell is president at RSI Stewardship www.rsistewardship.com.Follow him on Twitter, @joelmikell or find him on Facebook, www.facebook.com/joel.mikell

Derek Hazelet is senior vice president at RSI Stewardship. Find him on Twitter,@dhazelet or LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/derekhazelet.

You can’t overcome the looming challenges you face by doing things the same way you’ve always done them. But, here’s the good news: Data and technology provide a new way to guide how you engage members, cultivate generosity and grow your church. These new tools in your toolbox will actually increase your opportunity for personal interactions and support your desire to disciple more effectively.

Intelligent church giving in actionHere are two church leaders who have discovered that doing things

differently is exactly what was needed to improve ministry funding and Kingdom impact.

Lance Taylor — Executive Pastor, Long Hollow Baptist ChurchLong Hollow Baptist Church has experienced tremendous growth over

the past decade, reaching as many as 7,500 people on a Sunday and making a worldwide impact, including funding orphanages on three continents.

As the church grew, the leadership realized that greater complexity required better systems. “You can’t communicate in a church of 5,000 the same way you do in a church of 2,500,” Taylor says. “We knew we had to become better at targeting our communication efforts if we wanted to help each individual grow and challenge them to take the next step in their spiritual journey.”

For the past several years, Long Hollow has taken steps to automate its communication strategy using technology to improve engagement. Through segmentation, Long Hollow has been able to provide specific and relevant content in a way that provides actionable insights for its team.

For example, Long Hollow strategically evaluates each age group in the church and how the messaging should be targeted. Additionally, guest attendance, new member activity, and first-time gifts automatically trigger workflows when an action is taken. These systems ensure church members aren’t slipping through the cracks by sending personal touch points to members who haven’t been involved in the church after several months.

“We realized that what we were doing would have to change if we were going to be positioned to go to the next level,” Taylor explains. “Leveraging systems and technology solutions has improved our engagement efforts, actually enhancing our discipleship strategies.”

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You can’t afford toanymoreguessWhy your report writer is no longer good enoughBy Joel Mikell and Curt Swindoll

Making important ministry decisions without insight-driven data is a known gap that has existed in almost every church we’ve worked with over the past 40 years — regardless of denomination, church size or ministry budget.

This is why church leaders are constantly wrestling with the same questions:

• How do I lead our church from where we are to where we want to be? • Will our current strategy ultimately get us where we want to go? • Are there things we should be doing that we’re not?

Report-writing tools were supposed to help solve these challenges, but it’s evident that those are limited in their application. As a result, church leaders feel like they’re swimming in a sea of information, but still thirsty for insight.

Where do these new report-writing tools fall short? More importantly, is there a better way to analyze the information you have to finally start gaining traction towards your ultimate vision?

Those are the two questions we’re working together to help church leaders answer.

Why your report writer isn’t good enoughHere are four reasons why traditional report-writing tools aren’t sufficient

for helping your church make the type of progress you know is possible: 1) The insights they provide are limited. There are three elements

of any analytics model that must be present to provide confidence in bridging the gap between your ministry today and where you intend to be one, three and five years from now:

Descriptive Analytics — Descriptive analytics provide a clear and complete picture of your efforts based on objective information. This enables you to challenge or validate the true impact of your ministry decisions in a way that wasn’t possible before.

Predictive Modeling — Predictive modeling helps you look toward the future by providing a real-time look at future results based on historical detail. This allows you to quantify the future impact and implications of

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your present decisions based on a set of proprietary algorithms that can be manipulated at every level to isolate and understand how one decision affects the overall outcome.

Prescriptive insights — Prescriptive insights put information into action by contextualizing comprehensive data modeling within your church culture to drive prioritization and accountability to ensure change actually takes place. This allows your team to focus its attention and efforts on the parts of your ministry that will take you where you want to go. It will also clearly highlight what must demonstrably change in order to produce the ministry outcomes you desire.

Traditional report writers only provide insights into one of those areas — descriptive data. But, relying solely on this information is like trying to drive a car by only looking at the rearview mirror. It’s the predictive modeling and prescriptive insights that help you know how to move forward.

Bottom line: You can’t afford to make critical decisions based on the output of any standard report writing tool.

2) It doesn’t inform other areas of ministry. You must be willing to have crucial conversations with your ministry leaders if you want to change the output of your ministry. This isn’t about who’s right or wrong. This isn’t about pointing fingers. This is about using data as a diplomat to challenge or validate your intuition about what it’s really going to take to get you where you want to go.

Bottom Line: If you want to change in the ways that will accomplish the vision God has given you, you need to make the right adjustments, at the right time, with the right people.

3) It doesn’t take into account the long-term impact of your weekly decisions. Making a tactical shift won’t be enough to overcome a trajectory that’s taking you to a different destination. You need a clear line of sight between today and the outcome you want to create.

Traditional report writers don’t project forward the future implications of today’s ministry decisions. As a result, you won’t be able to connect the dots without a multi-year approach to database analysis that removes any and all existing silos.

Bottom Line: You need to be sure you are making decisions based on a complete picture before you will be able to fully grasp the implications of the ministry decisions you make today. You can’t afford to wait.

There’s a better way… As the ministry landscape continues to evolve, we are more convinced

than ever that the challenges you face require world-class tools to ensure sustainability and growth in the future. Through Pursuant, we’ve invested more than a decade and millions of dollars perfecting a series of advanced analytics and modeling tools that have informed decision-making in hundreds of organizations, including some of the world’s leading nonprofits.

These tools haven’t been available to church leaders in a way that is accessible and affordable. Now they are. It’s more critical than ever before if you intend to successfully sustain and grow your ministry. This is why we think it’s vital that you reassess your report writing tool as the basis of your ministry decision-making.

Joel Mikell is president at RSI Stewardship. Follow him on Twitter or find him on Facebook.

Curt Swindoll is the executive vice president for strategy at Pursuant, the parent company of RSI Stewardship. He leads Pursuant’s work with faith-based organizations and the firm’s Direct Response practice group. Follow him on Twitter.

Ready to lead with clarity and confidence like never before?Learn how you can gain actionable insights that provide a clear line of sight between today and your ultimate vision for ministy.

www.Pursuant.com/SmarterMinistry

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Intelligent Church Giving

What you don’t know about giving can kill

your ministry potential3 key moves every church leader should make

By Joel Mikell & Derek Hazelet

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Every church leader recognizes that there are times when we must adapt the way we do ministry.

While the message stays the same, the methods change. New challenges have led us to identify new approaches, such as contemporary services, small groups, multisite churches and online campuses.

Unfortunately, when it comes to giving, we’re not always so quick to adapt or adjust our ways of thinking.

If you’re like most church leaders, you want to lead your ministry to a place it has never been before. To lead with clarity and confidence, you need to be willing to take another look at the framework you’re using to make decisions, and the support systems needed to grow your church in the grace of giving.

3 key giving moves every church leader should makeHere are three key moves you can’t afford not to make based on insights

we’ve gathered from working with churches.

#1: Tell a better story about giving.

Insight: Overall charitable giving increased by 4.6% in 2014, but church giving declined by 1.6%. This is according to an annual research report by the Giving USA Foundation and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

It’s easy to assume attitudes around generosity have led to a decrease giving. But the truth is that today’s church members are just as generous as in years past.

The difference is this: there are more organizations competing for the attention and resources of your church members than ever before.

Research also tells us that people are beginning to split their charitable giving.

How do we overcome this challenge? We must give people a compelling reason to support our ministry. We must find a way to communicate the connection between the budget and ministry impact. This takes work, but it also gives us the opportunity to identify the things that inspire people to give and ultimately generate more momentum for our ministry.

#2: Validate and challenge your current baseline assumptions about giving.

Insight: There is a significant opportunity to increase generosity when considering demographic data compared to total annual gifts.

Believing that people are giving everything they can give is a false assumption a lot of church leaders make. The fact is, charitable giving has represented about 2 percent of an individual’s income for decades. One of the things we’ve helped church leaders discover is that there is significant discretionary income in their pews, which could lead to 50- to 75-percent budget growth in some cases.

As a church leader, it’s important to challenge the assumptions we have about the people in our pews. There are ways for you to leverage data to identify how much capacity is sitting in your congregation. These insights become incredibly valuable for informing your strategy and leading your church towards greater levels of commitment and generosity.

#3: Develop a strategy to drive engagement with new givers AND faithful givers.

Insight: It takes, on average, eight new givers to replace one key multi-year giver.

When you only look at top-line metrics, it’s common to think that you’re growing if the number of new givers is greater than the number of people slipping out the back door. However, our research confirms that it can take eight new givers (if not more) to replace the impact of a single person who has given over multiple years. While possible, it is extremely difficult to do.

The key, then, is to develop a strategy for driving engagement on both ends of the spectrum: from non-givers to key multi-year givers. Help them see how their faithful giving has made a difference over the years. Provide specific content that is important to them.

Knowledge + insight = wisdomKnowing this information is one thing — but it requires action. We can’t afford to sit on the sidelines related to emerging trends and

insights that directly affect our future ministry potential. Instead, we must use this information in a way that leads to “actionable

insights” that validate or challenge our assumptions and help us develop a clear strategy for moving forward.

Learn how you can begin to apply the insights to your ministry efforts by downloading our free discussion guide at RSIstewardship.com/GivingGuide.

Joel Mikell is president at RSI Stewardship. Follow him on Twitteror find him on Facebook.

Derek Hazelet is senior vice president at RSI Stewardship. Find him onTwitter or LinkedIn