Generosity Labs Podcast // 3 Data Points To Persuade You To Adopt Digital Giving in 2019

Tune in to today’s quick episode of Generosity Labs with Kenny Jahng. Kenny discusses an article he found on REACHRIGHT that was 37 statistics that you need to know for 2019. Kenny focuses on three of those points related to tithing through digital giving to share his opinions on this topic.

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey friends, this is Kenny Jahng and we are back again with another quick episode. I was surfing the web and came across this article on REACHRIGHT, 37 statistics that you need to know for 2019. 37 church statistics and it’s a really interesting round up of all different types of church that’s. And there’s a couple, three of them that I want to call out a number nine, they talk about small portion of tithers and I think it was really important to take note. They say only 10 to 25 percent of church members are tithing regularly. What does that mean? That means that the majority of people, 75 percent or more, you have an opportunity to really cultivate the discipline of tithing. This is something that I think you need to look at as a very positive opportunity in front of you. Number 10, outline something else that’s even better. Online tithing of those options boost the activity of tithing. Right? So a nonprofit source studies says that offering online tithing options, increased timing by 32%.

What does that mean? It means that the majority of people are not tithing right now that are coming to your church and one of the ways to increase them, the tithing activity is to actually just offer online tithing options. Digital giving is something that your church really needs to invest in and make as easy as possible. And, you will be rewarded for that. Basically, it’s well worth investing in online giving solutions. The next set of stats that is pointed out as in point number 15 in this article, and it basically is a little bit mind blowing, I think to a lot of people when you think about it. If you think about when people give to the church, you would think that most of the given activity happens on Sunday morning when the offering plate is passed. There’s a study here that says the single biggest day well of giving is actually not on Sunday. 67 percent of church donations happen throughout the rest of the week, Monday through Saturday.

It’s not actually on Sunday. When online digital giving options are present. That means people prefer to support and give to your church when it’s most convenient to them. And it’s not Sunday morning. It’s not by check, it’s not when the offering plate comes around. And so, it’s quite interesting to see this statistic in hard cold numbers and hopefully that will wake you up and your team to say we need to figure out how to make it as easy as possible for people to give and support the cause that they love and have affinity for. And that’s our church community. Another really interesting stat here that really supports the idea that you have to look outside of that offering plate on the one hour during Sunday morning is that 30% of the donations actually come in between the time periods of 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM.

Let me say that again. Thirty percent of donations to the church when you offer online giving is one of the options comes through 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM. People are giving online on the app mobile digital text giving. They’re doing the activity of supporting the church financially, not during the day, not on Sunday morning, but a significant portion of the people are actually rather do it in the evening or throughout the night or early in the morning. And so this really says, “hey, you need to embrace digital giving, you need to embrace online giving, you need to embrace text giving”. All of it is a must, because if you want people to give more and you want people to tithe more, these are three just sets of stats that I think you need to look at to start to really reconsider your giving and financial stewardship approach to making sure that your people have the options available to them, but also that your ministries are fully funded and supported so they can do what you’re planning to do throughout the rest of the year.

So that’s a quick roundup of a couple of stats from this great article. 37 church statistics need to know in 2019. I’d love to know your response and if you have any Aha moments listening to these statistics, it’s something that we need to really think about when we make data driven decisions usually gives us much better confidence. In terms of leaning into things that are new and uncomfortable and digital giving, mobile giving. That might be something that’s not something that you guys have embraced to dates. But we’ve turned the corner, we’ve turned the page into 2019 and here at Generosity Labs, we want to help you make those decisions and make those next steps into helping your congregation give in a way that lets your ministry flourish for the purpose of outreach, for the purpose of your community and for the purposes of exalting God and Jesus what He has in store for your community and the people that you are influencing throughout your zip code. So, my name is Kenny Jahng. This is the Generosity Labs update on the podcast. We would love for you to drop a comment on our blog. You could go to generositylabs.org or a fall on the podcast and let us know what you want to hear about in terms of helping you flourish your digital giving and a culture of generosity across your ecosystem Thanks listening, catching you next time, have a Generosity Labs.

HIGHLIGHTS:

01:21 number nine, they talk about small portion of tithers and I think it was really important to take note. They say only 10 to 25 percent of church members are tithing regularly. What does that mean? That means that the majority of people, 75 percent or more, you have an opportunity to really cultivate the discipline of tithing.

01:49 Number 10, outline something else that’s even better. Online tithing of those options boost the activity of tithing. Right? So a nonprofit source studies says that offering online tithing options, increased timing by 32%.

What does that mean? It means that the majority of people are not tithing right now that are coming to your church and one of the ways to increase them, the tithing activity is to actually just offer online tithing options.

03:07 number 15 in this article, and it basically is a little bit mind blowing, I think to a lot of people when you think about it. If you think about when people give to the church, you would think that most of the given activity happens on Sunday morning when the offering plate is passed. There’s a study here that says the single biggest day well of giving is actually not on Sunday. 67 percent of church donations happen throughout the rest of the week, Monday through Saturday.

03:42 And that’s our church community. Another really interesting stat here that really supports the idea that you have to look outside of that offering plate on the one hour during Sunday morning is that 30% of the donations actually come in between the time periods of 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM.

Relationship Building Automation Tip

Relationship Building Automation Tip

Kenny Jahng from GenerosityLabs has your Generosity Tip of the Day!

It’s regarding the A.R.T. of Engagement  — when you want to build a culture of giving across your community, you want to focus on the three main drivers of increasing gauge right that’s just a remind you it’s a for Authority or for Relevance and Trust,

One of the things that you can do very easily to help build trust is with this tip that I am sharing with you today.  Now, it’s my birthday this week — happy birthday to me! But one of the things that you’ll notice is that there’s a very small set of relationships out there that do take advantage of that in today’s day and age.

You’ll get a birthday card from your dentist or lawyer or real estate agent or from your car dealer — and sure enough I open my inbox today and I get a happy birthday message from a car dealer.

It a very simple message — they know it doesn’t need to be spammy; there’s no call to action; it is a complete relationship play.  And they know that they are a car dealer and they’re not my friend or relative etcetera right so it’s a simple message that’s clean and just takes advantage of the fact that they have my information in the database.

It says, “we noticed that today is your special day so in commemoration of this occasion we want to send along our best wishes and thank you for your past business May the next year bring great joy to you and your loved ones happy birthday.”

See, very simple, right? It’s something that gives you an excuse to reach out and build that relationship over time.

All you need to do is sit down and write 6, 10, a dozen different variations of happy birthday messages. Some can be humorous, some to be straightforward, it is something that you can insert some fun links into, maybe a YouTube video, etc.

Basically anytime someone in the database has a birthday, that triggers the email to get sent out and sometimes you can send it one day early or on the day.  But you have personalization done for the next 6 years, 10 years, etc. You can have a decade’s worth of happy birthday messages that don’t repeat, are varied and you can do that all in one shot.  Just sit down and write half a dozen to a dozen different versions and then schedule them in your email system.

Each and every organization should be taking advantage of this. But there’s very few I’ve met — only maybe two churches there taking advantage of birthdays. And birthdays are easy to collect from your people! It’s one of those fields of information in a database that most people are comfortable sharing– their birthday.

And the best practice is if you collect a piece of information yous hould use it. If you collect a piece of information and don’t use it you’re wasting your time and energy; it is not respectful of the audience that you collecting from;  and in you introduce friction to the relationship that you have with them. So collect only the information you’re going to use and birthday should be one of them at some point in the beginning of the relationship.

And then you build the automation that simply sends out an email message to them on their birthday. It could be the day before saying, Hi I want to be the first to wish you happy birthday this week!

Let me know what you think about this automation idea and if you have any other ideas on how to use marketing automation to the benefit of increasing the relevance and trust in your relationship with your people in your community. I always want to discover, learn, and brainstorm about other ways to use technology to scale personal relationships,

That’s it for today’s tip.Thank you for listening and watching here at GenerosityLabs.Org.