Church Executive Best Practices Forum: Fundraising & Generosity | Page 3
FUNDRAISING &
GENEROSITY
BEST
PRACTICES
FORUM
Using giving data to strengthen
your discipleship path
By Joe Park
The key to sustainable ministry funding lies
right at the heart of the mission of the church:
helping persons become fully devoted followers
of Christ. When people take their discipleship
journey seriously, certain behaviors begin to
change, such as frequency in worship, serving
on ministry teams, daily prayer, and giving of
their financial resources.
Giving and generosity are clear and measurable
indicators of discipleship. It is no surprise that churches
with an effective discipleship path tend to have substantially
higher levels of ministry funding.
So, how do we strengthen our discipleship path? And
how can giving data help us?
For years, churches have collected the data needed
to measure the effectiveness of their discipleship
paths. But getting that data into an actionable format
from their church management software (ChMS) is
often a nightmare.
A couple of years ago, a tool was created to address
this problem. MortarStone [www.mortarstone.com]
developed a web-based tool that works with ChMS to
organize the mountains of data that churches have stored
in their databases. MortarStone’s tools enable leaders of
discipleship programs, mission teams, stewardship committees, and
pastoral care to easily and directly access the information they need
while still protecting sensitive donor information.
With a growing emphasis on measuring impact, churches are realizing
it’s not enough to simply count activities and participants as the primary
measures of a successful discipleship program. Church leaders want to
know if lasting transformation is taking place. Individual generosity is,
of course, a vital indicator of spiritual growth and a key element on the
discipleship path.
With MortarStone, churches can measure growth in individual
generosity and connect it to the ministry activity that precipitated that
change. When churches understand what is working and what is not,
they can reallocate resources to programs and ministries that are driving
life change.
Here is a common example of using data to connect specific ministries
with positive changes in key discipleship indicators. An executive pastor
compared the giving patterns of people who participated in small groups
versus nonparticipants. The executive pastor discovered small group
participants gave, on average, $2,133 more per year. Based on the apparent
impact of the small group ministry on the discipleship path, the church
chose to invest $75,000 in new staffing to support small group ministries.
Assuming a similar result for future small group participants, the
church reasoned only 35 additional households were needed to cover the
investment in staffing.
churchexecutive.com
But, this example is just the tip of the iceberg
Church data can be used to track the impact of ministries such
as Financial Peace University, serving ministries, and others. Want
to know the impact of a recent mission trip? Curious about the
effectiveness of your new member class or stewardship series? Want
to know the differences in giving between your campus locations or
worship services? With MortarStone, churches can effectively organize
information and measure impact to make data-driven decisions
regarding future ministry investments.
This technology exists to take the guesswork out of measuring the
effectiveness of your discipleship path. By using increases in household
giving as evidence of the transformative work of the Holy Spirit,
churches can now make better decisions regarding programming and
resource allocation.
As people deepen their walk with Christ through worship, spiritual
growth and service, the harvest of your generosity plan grows
exponentially because you are cultivating in richer spiritual soil.
Joe Park is managing partner at Horizons Stewardship [www.horizons.net], a
national leader in guiding churches to increased funding, mission fulfillment and
transformation. Thirty-eight ministry strategists and staff