– Rev. Lynn Benson, Director of Legacy Giving, UMF
If you’re a math nerd like me, you might be very comfortable looking over your church’s spreadsheets, or maybe you call it cashflow or budget statements. Whatever you call it at your church, there is some form of accounting being done (at least I hope it is being done) regularly so that the leaders of the Finance team can evaluate how things are going financially. For many of the folks on that committee getting into the weeds of budgets, spreadsheets, and projections is old hat. But not for everyone. Some are swimming upstream. Thank goodness there are competent people around to help when an “up-streamer” needs it.
One way to help “up-streamers” and everyone for that matter is write a narrative (a story) every month about how the church is doing financially. In addition to reviewing the statement(s), begin telling a monthly financial story to your church leadership. In numbers your bookkeeper tells one story; your narrative explanation is another way to tell the same story.
So with WORDS, not numbers (or very few numbers) talk about how income is doing. Highlight the generosity of your congregation and explain anomalies in expenses. For example, an unexpected flood in your church basement meant that fans ran for 24 hours for days to dry it out. That unexpected problem resulted in an unanticipated increase in the electric bill. Such situations are exactly why a reserve fund is needed. Include how that fund is doing, going up or going down, as you tell the story.
Another good thing to explain is the fluctuation in giving. For a variety of reasons, people (generally) are not steady-eddy givers over the twelve months. So, when giving goes down in February there’s no need to lie down on the fainting couch. In the spring and definitely in November and December, giving will spike back up. You know this because you are comparing January this year, to January last year… February this year to February last year… December this year to December last year. Everyone else is NOT doing this, but you are, so help your leadership understand without causing their eyes to glaze over with number-filled reports.
By the way, one PROVEN way to help bring more consistency to annual giving is to make online, reoccurring giving possible. Yes, there is some expense to offering this convenience, but there’s expense in offering envelopes too. The upside to online giving is it helps folks give regularly, whether in attendance that week or not. Statistics tells us on average folks are attending 1 out of 4 Sundays. Yes, some are there every week, but some only come twice/year. Average all that out and it comes to 1 out of 4. However, if you’ve made it easy to become an online giver and encouraged online givers to make their gift a reoccurring gift, then they don’t have to think about it and it would eliminate some of those seasonal dips. My husband and I became online givers years ago and it makes our giving so easy and convenient AND the church receives our monthly gift without fail.
A good story helps us see/understand what we might otherwise miss. What about it? What story does your church’s budget tell and how could you tell it so that everyone better understands it? Could you begin offering a monthly or quarterly article in your church’s newsletter to help not only the finance team “see” what’s happening financially, but also everyone who receives the newsletter. Tell that story, to the glory of God, for great things God has done!