Happy Independence Day! July 4th is just the start of a busy month for churches, with Vacation Bible School, youth camps and church picnics on the schedule—and it’s a great time to declare your independence from outdated, ineffective giving strategies that may be keeping people from fully supporting these and other important ministries.
So many options are available for you to offer your parish families, to make it easier for people to give – even when they have to miss Mass because of summer vacations, school sports or other personal reasons. Here are three ways to “let freedom ring” for your parish offertory this month, and every month going forward:
- Free your supporters from complex donation pages …
Nothing thwarts a generous spirit like a confusing, complicated donation process. Donors react quickly when the donation tools are difficult to use—if your donation pages are poorly laid out, require too much unnecessary information, or seem outdated and possibly not secure, many people who want to give… won’t.
The key is donor screens that are simple, secure, familiar, and fast for your supporters—they’ll feel good about giving, and about how their giving, and your ministries will gain added support. If your giving program doesn’t offer you updates, options, and innovations for simplifying the donation process, you need to think about whether it’s the best fit for your parish. - Offer people the liberty of multiple giving options …
“One size fits all” giving just doesn’t fit the way people give now. If your platform limits how people can contribute, then you are limiting how much support you’ll have for your most important church ministries.
Paperless, online giving is a given now—but what about text donations? A mobile giving app? These options offer everyone the freedom to give how they want, when they want … and your giving platform should give you the freedom to quickly adapt the donation options that make the most sense for your parish. - Let recurring giving create fireworks for your ministries …
Most of your parish families are likely using recurring payments for utility bills, mortgages and rent payments, car notes … virtually every aspect of their lives—and they expect this option to simplify their stewardship as well.
Recurring giving makes life easier for your parishioners, and also makes your offertory more consistent week after week, month after month, so you can better plan and budget for all of your ministries, all year long. For even greater impact you can highlight recurring giving in your bulletin and social media announcements, via mail and email communications with your parish, and with a prominent page on your website; your giving partner should have plenty of options readily available to you, to help you get the word out and convert your supporters to recurring donors.
Ready to declare your independence from giving processes that are holding back your offertory?
Reach out to us here for a free test-drive of ParishSOFT—an integrated suite of software solutions purpose-built for Catholic organizations by Catholics. More than 9,000 parishes and 185 arch/dioceses trust ParishSOFT to help them strengthen their offertory and all aspects of parish and diocesan operations. Let’s see how we can help you!
