Making Online Giving a Success

A few years ago, the concept of online giving was a bit of a stretch for most churches. Large operations and non-profit organizations were using it, but many believed it too worldly for the church. It was not until disasters such as the 2004 Tsunami that hit Thailand and Hurricane Katrina in the U.S., that online giving proved itself invaluable to churches and secular organizations alike. It provided a quick and secure method for people to give aid directly to those affected by disaster, and it gave those handling the rescue efforts quick access to the donations they so desperately needed. Since then, online giving has caught on. The question now is not if churches should use online giving, but how can they make it successful? The answer is an online giving strategy.

Strategy Step One - Choose the Proper System to Support Online Giving

The first step is choosing a system that can best support your online giving. One church that has had great success in this is Granger Community Church in Granger, IN. With over 5,000 people in average attendance and millions of dollars in donations a year, the sheer volume of work presented a challenge for Granger when they first implemented their online giving; however, choosing the right system for them made all the difference. Dave Moore, Finance Director for Granger states, "Our first attempt was a link to an online giving company, but they didn't have a way to set up a schedule, so the donor had to login every time they wanted to give. A couple of years later, we began looking for a new system and we chose the Fellowship One church management software as it had an online giving component. We liked the easy integration with the website, scheduled giving, and the direct integration into Fellowship One's donor records." Systems like Fellowship One can make the transition to online giving easy and successful.

Churches on the hunt for online giving solutions need to look for easy membership maintenance, contribution processing, donor-directed scheduled payments, and automated authorization, settlement and posting directly to the database. These e-giving tools also help track and measure the success of your online giving, which is absolutely essential when implementing it. With the reports offered by a system such as Fellowship One, Granger has been easily able to track their success and see an increase from 2% to 18% of their total contributions now coming from online giving.

Strategy Step Two - Maximize the Tool

It is not enough just to offer online giving; in order for it to be truly successful, a church must learn to maximize the new tools being implemented. When a church embraces online giving, it should be ready to use this new system to the greatest extent. Why invest if you are not fully invested? The first step to maximizing an online giving tool is to think about how the church can become more web-driven. If you want to point people to online giving, then point them to your website.

When adding online giving to the church website, it is beneficial and cost-effective to reevaluate your current site and make sure it is easily navigated. This may include a new site design that not only provides a better user experience, but simplifies the website and integrates the online giving toolset. Be sure and include links to an online giving page anywhere a member might visit: online registration pages, announcement pages or anywhere else where a person might look to give financially to a church or ministry.

The final step in maximizing online giving is to work with your chosen church management software for new training and setup. Trainers can help you with all of the financial forms, web-enabled funds and sub-funds, and they can also help your staff learn to keep track of donations and progress through reporting. It is all part of a fully-supportive system's implementation.

Strategy Step Three - Promotion

Once the technical aspects are accomplished, the next step is to convince people that online giving is both easy and completely secure. The best way to reach out to the people with this information is through your leaders. If the leaders of the church use online giving, talk about online giving and promote online giving, the people will follow. Members have confidence in the church leaders; therefore, their confidence will transfer to online giving if their leaders promote it. Another way to reach people is through announcements whether online, in print, or from the pulpit. The more the people hear about online giving, the more they become accustomed to the idea. Finally, the church has to remember that online giving is most successful when done in conjunction with more traditional donation strategies such as direct mail and in-service giving or collection plates. It is not meant to take the place of traditional contributions, but rather to enhance giving by allowing your congregation to choose which method is best for them.

Strategy Step Four - Support

One vitally important, but often missed step that churches often forget when implementing a new online giving system is support. When you plan for a new system you must also plan for what to do when things do not run smoothly. Moore states, "Expect user problems, questions, issues and prepare a way to deal with them." Having reasonable expectations for issues will help churches make the transition much easier. Granger has even gone so far as to prepare help documents and offer them online for the more common concerns such as password problems and how to begin or end a giving schedule. The more the church prepares, the less likely they are to be caught off guard by an unforeseen issue.

The impact of online giving has been tremendous. A study done by the 2008 DonorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis showed that in 2007-2008, online giving increased by 39%, and with society beginning to carry debit cards more than cash, it is expected to grow even faster in the coming years. With supportive software and church management, and a solid implementation plan, any church can make online giving a successful part of their donation strategy.

Fellowship One is the leading 100% web-based Church Management Software solution, that helps dynamic churches of any size or denomination to effectively care for people, efficiently manage resources, and enable real growth. Fellowship One is used by ministries around the world ranging from new church plants to mega-sized, multi-site, churches. To learn more about Fellowship One, go to the Fellowship Technologies website.