The 24-Hour Offering

How was attendance last Sunday? If you are the typical church, your attendance is 85% of what it was pre-Covid. 67% of Americans reported attending church at least once a year, down from 75% before the pandemic, is what the Survey Center on American Life and the University of Chicago research found about attendance in the spring of 2022. So don’t feel bad if your attendance is down as churches across America are reporting smaller attendance than normal. When attendance is down, giving typically declines as well. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Recently, one of my clients sent me their weekly giving report after Sunday, January 1^st. For years, we have been working to increase their online giving percentage. Right before Covid hit, we were running around 35% of their 3-million-dollar budget coming by some electronic means. During the pandemic, that percentage shot up as, like many churches, they went weeks without meeting. After they fully opened back up, we now see around 65% of all giving to be in some electronic form.

Yet on January 1^st, with a near-empty house, they still managed to meet their weekly budget need. How could that be? Because 81% of all gifts came in some electronic means, with much of that coming on a day other than Sunday. Additionally, they received over $10K given on the last two days of the year because of their online giving platform. They have learned the value of the 24-hour offering.

How was your January 1^st giving? If you are going to be financially secure in the coming year, you must offer a 24-hour offering! Here are some key tips on how to do this.

• First, set up a robust and multi-option online giving system. That system should allow for all types of electronic giving.
• Make online giving easy. First, make it easy to find the giving button on your website’s home page. Then, make sure the giving page is easy to use and navigate through. The easier you make it for people to give, the more apt they will give.
• Regularly point people to your online giving page. Make sure the address to your giving portal is listed in every print piece you use. Use QR codes in printed material and have links to the giving page in email blasts. It is not enough to have online giving; you need to remind people of it and drive them to it.
• Encourage signing up for recurring giving. Two reasons you want to move members to this platform: First, it will ensure that their offering hits your offering plate despite weather or vacation. Secondly, encouraging members to set up automatic direct deposits, referred to as ACH, is the lowest percentage fee charge assuring more of your donors’ money comes to you. So, with recurring giving, you ensure the gift automatically and systematically comes to you and that you retain the largest percentage of that gift.
• May is a great time to hold a signup campaign for recurring giving. In May, right before people take off for vacations, is a great time to encourage them to put God first in their finances by signing up for recurring giving.

Using the above points helped my client have an incredible January 1^st offering. Online giving saved them financially during the pandemic. Those same tools ensured that the start of their New Year was strong. By approaching the offering as a 24/7 event, they have maintained the level of ministry and mission support needed. Have you?

A great and robust online platform can help you establish and maintain an offering plate open 24 hours a day. It can also increase the percentage of people signing up for recurring giving. It will also help increase the number of people who opt to have their gift come automatically to your proverbial “offering plate.” As a result, you’ll never have to worry about the offering on a poorly attended weekend again when you set up and operate a 24-hour offering plate!

Contact my sponsor OnlineGiving.org to find out how our platform can help you establish a 24-hour offering. To get started, contact us at (615) 206-4000 or email us at support@onlinegiving.org.