Vanco is an online giving tool that integrates with Church360° and Shepherd’s Staff. We know some churches are hesitant to get started with online giving.
If you’re skeptical about the impact of recurring donations for churches, consider the following:
With nearly thirty years of experience working with churches, Vanco knows what works for churches hoping to encourage recurring giving. These are tested approaches any church can use to boost giving.
One of the biggest reasons church initiatives fail is that they never received buy-in from church leaders. Before rolling out recurring giving for your church or launching a campaign to expand its use, your senior leadership should have gained consensus on your plan. Your leadership team should agree on every aspect of your rollout or campaign.
Within every congregation, some folks take an active role in the church’s activities. When rolling out or launching a campaign to expand recurring giving, churches should ask these folks to model the new behavior.
Once your church decides to commit to rolling out or expanding recurring giving, you’ll need to reframe the way you ask for gifts to be more specific. This means your church should ask for monthly or weekly gifts. This is perhaps the easiest change any church can make.
Many members are averse to change, but if your church explains the value of recurring giving, many will adjust. Churchgoers don’t need to remember to bring their checkbooks or wallets or give their gift electronically every week. Recurring giving only takes a few minutes to set up, and there is no need for them to manage their donations afterward.
Your eGiving platform should collect and collate the data in a way that makes record-keeping and issuing end-of-year tax documents simple.
One of the most effective ways to encourage members to sign up is by showing them exactly how easy it is to donate. The most successful of the 25,000 churches Vanco has worked with will demonstrate how quickly members can set up recurring giving.
Recurring giving for churches needs to be promoted to get new givers on board. There are several ways you can get the word out about recurring giving, including . . .
· Sending emails to promote automatic giving.
· Creating a page on your church’s website promoting eGiving.
· Promoting recurring giving through social media posts.
Creating promotional materials for recurring giving can be a bit of work, which is why we’ve created dozens of templates and samples to help.
Getting members to switch to recurring giving won’t happen overnight. That’s why churches need to be persistent. Mention the recurring giving option regularly, especially as you launch your first campaign to get churchgoers to sign up.
We saved the most important for last. Your givers make all the good work your church does possible. That’s why you need to thank them routinely. When it comes to giving thanks, it’s important to make sure you give each communication a personal touch.
Personalize your thank-you messages. This could include sending out handwritten letters to your givers quarterly.
As we mentioned earlier, setting up recurring giving is easy. Most eGiving options have a box that allows givers to make their donations recurring. To see how you can set up recurring giving for your church, request a free demo of Vanco’s eGiving options.