July 4th is days away, and in this Coach, I will help you devise a plan to increase giving! I’m taking a break from my series on capital campaigns to focus on this issue, entitled The 4th of July Giving Coach. If you have followed me for any length of...
In my experience of working with churches of all types and sizes, special offerings work if you do them right. Let me make a case for special offerings. Why hold special offerings? First and foremost, special offerings give you the ability to recast your vision every time you hold one. And...
The following is posted at https://www.onlinegiving.org/blog and is used with permission. We're now halfway through the year, and it's time to assess the state of giving in your church. Are you meeting your budgeted needs, or are you falling behind? Based on my experience, most churches are struggling to meet...
Is your church ready for a capital campaign? Are you? The Stewardship Journal has you covered! We are in the midst of a series called Giving Away the Farm. Throughout the summer, in each edition, we will be giving away all the secrets of stewardship consultants so you can do...
“You never have to recover from a good start.” My mentor in capital campaigns, Dave Sutherland, drilled that statement into our heads on the importance of planning out a campaign. 99% of campaign mistakes could have been avoided during the planning phase of the campaign. A big part of being...
A lot longer than you think. But when I get asked this question they always mean the “public phase” of a campaign. This comes after months and sometimes years of planning. In most “public phase” campaigns, the average time is at least six months from initial planning to completion. In...
About this time every year, churches call and ask, "Is it too late to start a capital stewardship campaign?" The answer is, it depends! We joke that most of our answers are, it depends! That is because there are so many variables that go into campaign planning. As I write...
Could you run your own capital campaign? If you are staying current with the Stewardship Journal, the answer is yes! We are in the midst of a series called Giving Away the Farm, where we are giving you all the inside secrets used by stewardship consultants. Throughout the summer months...
How old is your “new” fellowship hall or your “new” children’s wing? For the typical church, putting the tag “new” in front of any building simply means it was the last structure built or renovated. For many churches, their “new” whatever was built in the last century! One of the...
In my over twenty-five years of helping churches hold capital campaigns, I have found that the majority of mistakes made happen BEFORE the campaign even starts. The goal of this paper is to help you avoid these mistakes by showing you what you need to know and do BEFORE your...
