Are you ready for some football? Say goodbye to your husbands, wives; football season has arrived! Have you ever watched a football game and seen players raise four fingers in the air at the start of the 4th quarter? The players are reminding themselves that they have one last quarter to...
Are you running behind budget? I have had great success using come-from-behind strategies that use Labor Day to bring additional dollars to the plate. The following is taken from my seasonal playbook, Recovering Your Lost Offerings. Here is a brief plan of action for a Labor Day offering: Finalize the offering...
“Leaders must ask themselves: How can generosity be taught?”1. That is a quote from Barna’s new study on the state of giving, entitled The Giving Landscape: Who Drives Generosity – And Why. I will review their findings in this edition of the Coach, entitled The Coach’s Review of the Latest...
I want to share with you how a Labor Day offering plan can help close your giving gap. First, you might be surprised that I would contend you could see an increase in giving on Labor Day. Three-day weekends are typically tough on offerings. Yet, with a good plan of...
Have you ever heard someone say, "We are delaying having kids until we can afford it?" How much is that? According to a recent study, it costs between $12,800 to $14,790 every year.1 The same study showed that the more kids you have, the more the cost. Multiply that over...
A few years ago, a client emailed me this note… “I’m thinking about starting up a stewardship committee of our Vestry/Board. So, here’s my question: if you had a board or stewardship committee, what would you task them with and how would you use them? My concern is that a lot...
“We hope to increase our budget from 800K to $1 million.” That was what a person told me their pastor stated a few years ago at a congregational meeting. Hope? The saying, “hope is not a strategy,” first came to my mind. When churches use the word hope it is...
I’ve been helping churches increase giving and givers for over twenty years. In my time as a Minister of Stewardship, I have observed that one of the major reasons churches experience financial difficulties is, in part, a lack of planning. I have a saying, I call them Brooks Mantras, that...
Who doesn't like to be first? We always want to be first, from winning a race, match, or game to standing in line. First place is the place everyone wants to be in. Yet sometimes, we willingly forego being first. We do this because first place is not just the place...
When I work with a client for a significant giving initiative, I start by asking the Pastor to write out the vision behind whatever we are raising money for. Technically, this is called a Vision Case Statement. I want a broad overview of what we are raising money for on...
