How to boost your church offertory and inspire generosity

Is it time to revolutionize the development program at your church? Here’s how you can move parishioners from offertory envelopes and paper checks toward a more reliable and consistent means of support online. We call it digital stewardship.
 

Step 1: Assess your current strategies

Evaluate your performance in these three key areas of digital stewardship.

1

Offertory - Make online giving your preferred method of support.

Create a report of your offertory over the last three calendar years. Include the following key stewardship stats:

1. Number of donating households
2. Households that lapsed in giving
3. Average gift size
4. Methods by which gifts were received
5. Percentage of households with active email addresses on file
6. Percentage of households with active cell phone numbers on file

Ask yourself:

• What is your overall offertory trend?
• Where are there opportunities for growth?

2

Communication - Prioritize digital communication in your outreach & stewardship strategy.

Identify your most commonly used communication methods.

Ways to reach your flock:

1. Website
2. Email marketing/e-newsletter
3. Bulletin
4. Social Media
5. Text messages

Ask yourself:

• Are you reaching the right audience?
• Do you track metrics that show whether your efforts are effective?

3

Service - Embrace a culture that emphasizes convenient tools and great service.

Gauge your level of service-mindedness.

How people interact with you:

1. Parish registration
2. Making a monetary donation
3. Event sign-ups
4. Sacramental preparation
5. Religious Education classes and other programs

Ask yourself:

• How do you engage new donors and families?
• Are your registration and payment processes easy and convenient?

Step 2: Report your findings and brainstorm ideas

Successful digital stewardship depends on securing buy-in from parish leadership. As a next step, use the results from Step 1 then report your findings to your pastor, parish leadership, and staff. Include hard data for areas of success as well as opportunities for improvement.

Next, gather your team to brainstorm specific ways you can improve. Finally, identify the digital stewardship tools and software you need to succeed.

Key digital stewardship tools

1. Modern website platform - Your website should be attractive, easy to update, and mobile-responsive.

   With eCatholic, you can easily create a beautiful, secure, and dynamic website using the most trusted website platform in the world for Catholic parishes, schools, and dioceses.

2. Online donation and payment software - Find a secure, user-friendly tool that will allow you to accept online donations and payments directly on your website.

   With ECATHOLIC ONLINE GIVING, you can accept one-time and recurring donations directly on your website. You can also drag-and-drop to create online payment forms for event registrations, Religious Education sign-ups, school tuition, and much more.

Step 3: Move your offertory to online giving

Online giving has a measurable, positive impact on overall parish giving. In order to inspire generosity and increase your overall offertory, encourage parishioners to make the transition to online giving.

Craft your message to get everyone onboard

To achieve the best adoption rate, segment your audience into the following categories, then use these suggestions to create unique messages that will appeal to each group.
 

1

Long-time supporters - Offer recognition and thanks

Your most loyal supporters generally respond well to a message that first recognizes and thanks them for their historical giving, then emphasizes the time-saving and efficiency benefits of online giving.
 

2

New donors - Encourage support of a specific project

Those who have not given before generally respond well to invitations to support specific projects with a quick, definite impact.
 

3

School families - Emphasize time-saving benefits

This unique subset of your audience will appreciate the set-it-and-forget-it perks of paying tuition online and the opportunity to save yet another trip to the school office to make a payment or drop off a form.
 

Step 4: Create a sustainable digital stewardship plan

Develop processes that help you promote digital stewardship at your parish. However, since nobody likes to constantly hear about stewardship, here are some subtle, friendly ways you can promote digital stewardship and inspire generosity.

• Conduct a Thank-a-Thon - Express gratitude for your existing donors and volunteers. While you’re at it, establish processes that ensure all new donors receive a thank you whenever a gift is made.
• Adjust the parish registration process - Refine your materials and processes to make digital the default method of support. Specifically, 1) include instructions on how to sign up for monthly recurring giving and 2) add details on how to follow the parish on social media.

• Update all existing forms and letters - The bottom of every thank-you letter should contain some version of the following:

  “Did you know that you can give safely and easily online? It saves the parish staff time, reduces the cost of postage and printing, allows for more accurate record keeping, and enables us to put even more resources into ministry.”

  Include a similar notice with all staff email signatures as well as similar recurring messages in your bulletin.

Let’s work together to boost your church offertory!

The first step to a better church offertory is the right tools of the trade. If you're ready make the switch to eCatholic, check out our online giving tools to see how they can help you inspire generosity among new and veteran parishioners alike!