3 Things Churches Need To Focus On For Giving Growth in 2019

3 Things Churches Need To Focus On For Giving Growth in 2019

If you ask any pastor, if they would like to see growth in giving by their congregation in 2019, I doubt many would disagree or shy away from that outcome.

If you ask most pastors what is the status of their giving with respect to their budget and actual needs, again, most would answer that their dreams for ministry are greater than the offerings and times collected via the offering plate.

Church finances

A good portion of churches “need” more funding, not just “want” more funding.

This next year, somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 churches will have to close their doors.

Lack of strategy or intent regarding finances is one of the major reasons churches are struggling.


1. Your church needs to adopt a cause.

One of the big things many churches have lost his their outward focus. Many churches do have outreach activities and support missionaries, but don’t have clarity around it and positioning it all as a core part of its identity. Every church needs to hang this shingle so it’s people can identify with this behavior or outward generosity.

2. You need to plan on sharing of stories of impact regularly.

Where did the money go? How did it help? You need to ensure there is a FLOW of stories being shared with your congregation so they connect their giving behavior with the outcomes.

3. The pastor needs to see all giving activity.

The leadership needs be fully involved with the church’s financial activity. This is because financial stewardship is a discipleship issue and without knowing and supporting financial health, a church isn’t doing its job of helping its people to fully worship through daily living.

Also, no church can maximize its impact without understanding when it can invest in ministry opportunities and when there is less or no margin available.

Those of the first three things every church needs to reconsider at the beginning of the year. Without these three fundamental approaches, it will be difficult to install a culture of generosity in the community.


Generosity Labs Podcast // What do narcissists have to do with #GivingTuesday?


Giving Tuesday is coming.


What are some preparations you’re doing?


For today’s episode, Kenny Jahng talks about an interesting article from Market Watch entitled, How to get narcissists to give money to charity.


Listen as Kenny shares his two cents on taking advantage of Giving Tuesday plus on getting Narcissists to give on this special day.


Check out the video below!



Hey friends, this is Kenny Jahng with Generosity Labs and we are on our countdown to Giving Tuesday which is November 28, 2018. For those of you who just joined us and don’t know what giving Tuesdays we have Thanksgiving and then the Friday afterwards is a coma day before, better known as actually Black Friday, right? So when you wake up from your food coma and you’d go out at 5:00 AM or 4:00 AM or now 2:00 AM or even the day before to get those Black Friday deals and then you have the weekend and then you go back to work on Monday and you actually don’t do work because it’s Cyber Monday. That’s when all the deals happen online. And you’re going to continue your Black Friday shopping craze for Christmas online at work. And now the Tuesday after Cyber Monday has been designated as Giving Tuesday.


So if you have any money left over, nonprofits around the world are banding together using this as a day to mark for generosity and giving to causes. And this is the time for your organization, whether it be a nonprofit cause driven or Christian organization like a Church to jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of Giving Tuesday. One of the things that we always say is that Giving Tuesday does not cannibalize your end of year giving campaign, but rather should be looked at as something to kick it off. Use it as an excuse to talk about giving in November as you go into the final month of the year. And one of the things that we talk about Generosity Labs is psychology as well as positioning and messaging on how to get people to give to your cause. Today, there’s an interesting article in Market Watch that has come up and I just wanted to share with you, it’s called How to get narcissists to give money to charity, which is really interesting.


Narcissist, they’re not known for their empathy, but this trait can be exploited for good. And so it was a quick and interesting article. Just wanted to share with you some of the learnings that they talked about based on a study that was held with different personalities and the relationships with charities. So, one of the most important things. This is a very short article. They do note that charitable giving has been on the rise. We’re seeing a record giving levels for nonprofits. In fact, there was a 3.9 percent increase between 2015, 2016. I know there was an increase in Giving Tuesday giving between 2016 and 2017. And there’s definitely going to be one this year between 2017 and 2018. Because, this is just something that we need to think about in terms of all communications and messaging for donor development.


How do we take advantage of the increased generosity of Americans if you’re in our country? So, back to the title of this is talking specifically about narcissists. That profile or persona of community members in your ecosystem, they too can be tapped in terms of becoming a financial supporter. And one of the most important paragraphs here, and I’ll read it out loud, it’s charitable giving, is about having empathy, recognizing and responding to the needs and emotions of other people according to the co author of this study and an associate professor of marketing. So what our room says is, this is the most important part, narcissists have difficulty with that by having empathy for other people so they’re not going to respond to those appeals that require the receiver, the audience member of the target audience to display empathy in order to open up their checkbooks.


Narcissists have a difficulty with that. So instead, asking them to imagine themselves as the person in need can help elicit a response in terms of giving. So, this is a very important thing. Narcissists have difficulty with that empathy characteristics. So asking them to imagine themselves as the person in need, can help elicit genuine concern and thus, donations. Now, this is a study by these two professors, in terms of consumer psychology behavior at the University of Cologne. They had over 1,300 people, you know, in that study, in looking at their responses to different charitable appeals. So this is just something that I want to remind you when you have a diversity of call to actions and different messaging that targets sub audiences, right? We talked about the SWAT framework of targeting, define your sub audience, figure out the win is for them. Then you can talk about different actions or activities to involve them in and the specific tactic or technology in order to elicit a call to action.


These narcissists that are a subgroup of your community can be appealed to in a way that puts them at the center of the cause, the need, and that’s when that will trigger some genuine concern on their part and then open up their pockets. So, interesting article on Market Watch, How to get narcissists to give money on charity. Would love your thoughts, leave some comments and some questions. In the meantime, check out GenerosityLabs.org. Again, send us your questions. We’re going to do a roundup Q and A episode really soon. Would love to have your question in the pile of questions that we go through, just submit it using the contact form at GenerosityLabs.org. I’m Kenny Jahng. We will continue this march to do Giving Tuesday on November 28th with more tips, more questions, and answers, more resources as we get closer to that date. Remember, generosity begins with you.


Offering Plate vs Digital Giving?

Offering Plate vs Digital Giving?

This week we visited a landmark in the town, mainline denominational church.

The architecture was historic and beautiful. As expected, almost everything inside felt like a time warp. Homage to tradition and legacy. But not much evidence of evolving and contextualization with current culture.

There’s much sadness when stepping into these ministries that seem destined to become museums as this last generation of booomers and older disappear.

One of the things that I always look for is signs of the church giving its congregation options for giving.

Well there was no mention of text to give, mobile app given, or other mobile directs option to give immediately, the service bulletin did make reference to an online donation button on their website. “YES!” at least they do take donations online.

The next step would’ve been to make it easier for people to give in the service, not on the web. Finding the donate button on the church website and going to the process of giving online was tedious. This time consuming. And unnecessarily distracting from the worship service anyone would be sitting in.

That said, this church did have a bulletin insert which featured an option for people who do give electronically. You could use that quarter page insert to place into the offering basket as a symbol of your commitment to support the church financially.

I’ve seen this in a couple of churches before. There are two perspectives on how you can look at this practice:

The first way is to knowledge the awkwardness of receiving the offering plate and having other people see you pass it along without contributing anything. While you should not be concerned about how others perceive you, especially if you are actively giving to the ministry, there is a part of you that wants to make sure no one mistakes you as a slacker in the community! You get it, right?

The second way is to think of it from a very positive participation point of view. I think it is an interesting way to physically involve everyone that is giving during the offering time in the liturgy.

There is something to be said for the physical ritual of everyone putting something into a shared plate that gets passed around to every single person that’s part of the church body and membership. There is sort of a “Book of Acts beauty” to such as shared participation activity by everyone in the community.

Personally, I might consider using some sort of simple open ended question form that captures a prayer or space for encouragement to the ministry that people can write on the card that they drop into the Offering Plate during the physical giving time via check or cash.

In the end, I am encouraged that this church is offering some sort of digital giving solution for other people.

Let me know if your church does something similar or if you have seen this in the past elsewhere.

LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW TO SHARE WHAT YOUR CHURCH enough church leaders are talking about the nuances of embracing online giving with details such as the online giving placard for the offering plate.

Transparency Regarding Credit Card Transaction Processing Fees With Donors

Transparency Regarding Credit Card Transaction Processing Fees With Donors

One of the most common comments or hesitations that I hear from church leaders regarding adopting credit card giving pertains to credit card transaction fees.

Typically the price you pay for being able to take credit cards is usually about $.35-$.50 per transaction plus somewhere around 2.9% of the actual transaction amounts.

Ask any CFO, they hate that much money leaving the church without any other options.

Today, I had a chance to visit another church in my area.

They had a woman host the announcements and offering part of the Order of Service.

This church does offer texts to give as an option, but curiously did not push it or even mention it from the stage. So that’s not the part that they are doing well.

But I did hop onto their giving page which was printed on their giving envelope available in the back of seat pockets.

There, they had a FAQ list that stuck out when I was scanning the page:

List the credit card transaction fees so donors know


The question they decided to include asked:

Will 100% of my online giving go to the church?

And then they used that opportunity to explicitly list their transaction fees for taking credit cards online.

I think this is a great tactic to help address the internal concerns that usually come up arguing that by offering online giving, you will end up giving up a significant chunk of it to fees unnecessarily.

SIDE NOTE: This base argument is a fear-based and scarcity minded approach. Experience shows that overall giving increases as soon as they pull the trigger in offering credit card based giving options. You will receive more giving incrementally than the 2.21% utilized to receive funds through that channel.


While it was great to be transparent about the transaction fee so that some supporters will proactively use other methods to maximize every penny of that goes to the church directly, I don’t believe it is then only or best counsel they can provide.

Pushing people to go to a physical check or cash methods in order to eliminate 100% of transaction fees seems odd and very shortsighted.

Instead I would reword that FAQ to contrast credit card giving versus ACH giving (giving via echeck). For this church, that’s only a 0.64% fee. Saving over 71% of potential transaction fees.

PLUS, most leaders don’t consider the cost of collecting cash and checks, sorting, counting and sending someone to physically deposit them. It doesn’t seem that you could do that for less than 0.64% of the cash & check collection amounts in most cases.

So I would also use it as an opportunity to reinforce the option of recurring. electronic giving.


Regardless, the tactic to appreciate here is how they explicitly shared the specific transaction amount credit cards would trigger.this allows them to present the options in the way that’s not guilt infused and puts the options in the hands of the giver.

Cash is Dead: 10 Alternatives Your Church Needs To Start Considering

Cash is Dead: 10 Alternatives Your Church Needs To Start Considering

If you think about it there really hasn’t been much in terms of advancements in the offering plate business model.

Most churches force attendees to pull out her wallet and look for cash, or simply remind them that they did not bring the checkbook yet again.

Consumers are moving away from cash and checks in a hurry.

Cash is no longer King.

Checks are definitely the step-child of currency today.

When was the last time you wrote a check when outside your home?

Digital peer to peer transactions are becoming the norm.

Electronic wallets like Amazon OR ApplePay offer convenience and familiarity.

It’s time that you look beyond taking MasterCard and Visa on your website. Although for thousands of churches, you need to do at least that.


  1. Credit Cards
  2. Debit Cards
  3. PayPal
  4. Venmo
  5. ApplePay
  6. Amazon Pay
  7. Android Pay
  8. Google Wallet
  9. Zelle
  10. Bitcoin


Top 7 Things Pastors Can Do To Ensure Millennials Give To The Church


Q: What’s a millennial?

A: Anyone under 35 at work you don’t like

Why is there so much so much snarkiness when it comes to an entire generation?

Did you know that they are actually the largest segment of the workforce today?

That Heisman move isn’t helping things in the workplace. The church is no different.

The big issue is, unless church leaders begin to understand how to relate to this (and the next generations coming up right behind it), the tithes & offerings received will continue to dwindle.

In the spirit of the snarkiness that exists, here is a list of things pastors should do to ensure they are convincing millennials to contribute financially to the ministry.

7 Ways Churches Can Get Millennials To Give Financially

  1. Use guilt and obligation.
  2. Tell them the ideal is 10%.
  3. Take only checks or cash.
  4. Tell them it’s for the church, not some other cause.
  5. Tell them the overall budget is none of their business.
  6. Don’t talk about money or financial health or the connection between money and spiritual health. Ever. Not in small groups. Not in personal interactions. And definitely never from the pulpit.
  7. Never disclose that Jesus would talked about money in the Bible.

What am I missing?