A few years ago, Rob Ketterling (our lead pastor) and I had a discussion about year-end giving. Our previous year’s December giving was our strongest ever, but we asked the questions: How could we do year-end giving better? How could we raise even more resources to impact the world? How could we fuel the vision faster?

The bottom line for River Valley Church was that our year-end giving was really good, but we wanted it to become great!

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins shares that one of the biggest and most difficult steps is taking a good company, organization or team to that next level. Most people enjoy good. Most people feel somewhat successful with good. Often, good draws recognition from others. On the other hand, great requires new thinking.

Great puts more pressure on the leaders. True, great often requires more work and additional learning, but it can also mean greater effectiveness, greater impact and greater strides toward fulfilling a big vision.

This realization led us to make several strategic moves:

We passionately desire to do our best to fulfill the Great Commission, and we firmly believe the Church has amazing potential!

• Our biggest move was to start our year-end giving focus in October. We realized the traditional route of waiting until early December was not the most effective.
• We researched several great parachurch ministries and nonprofits. We found we could learn some amazing and practical insights from them, because they already had well-thought-out plans and strategies in place to maximize their year-end giving. We became determined to learn from others.
• We began intentionally thanking our church and key donors for their giving. We utilize handwritten thank you cards, videos, print pieces and emails, in addition to weekend platform recognition. Our pastoral and leadership teams are active in helping us in this effort.
• Beginning in mid-October through November, we communicate “impact updates.” We become more focused on sharing the exciting results of changed lives. People want to see and hear the impact their giving is making, so we utilize compelling high-quality video stories to show the results of their giving.
• We save four or five exciting projects (think: orphans, child sponsorship, Teen Challenge, expanded kids space, etc.) for the fourth quarter. We fund missionaries and missions all year, but we always hold a few key projects for year-end presentation. There are many other ministries and nonprofits reaching out to our church members with exciting and heart-touching opportunities. We want our people to know their local church has exciting and heart-touching opportunities too!
• Our emails and social media posts all include links for quick and easy giving. So simple, yet important! Speed of access and ease of giving continue to become more important.
• Every year, the second weekend of November is Miracle Offering Weekend at River Valley. We dedicate the entire weekend services to Global Missions, local church expansion (new campuses, new church plants), and future Christian leaders. We announce it for three weeks leading up to the date. It’s the one time each year we call people forward to give their tithes and Kingdom Builders offerings. We explain to our guests what’s happening so they won’t feel uncomfortable. Miracle Offering weekend is high passion, high challenge, high “heart,” and high engagement. Our offering total on this weekend is often five times what is typical.
• We also plan a Share the Goal Day. This day speaks specifically of our “beyond the tithe” giving (Kingdom Builders). We have an annual goal we share with the church in January, but in early November we share our goal for the last two months. We have found our church responds positively to a target that is tied to vision and need. We give a very specific goal of what needs to be raised over the final eight weeks of the year.

Increasing year-end giving is something most pastors and ministry leaders desire to do well, but we must always keep the “why” front and center. The “why” is not larger budgets and savings accounts, giving recognition, or finishing the year in the black. It’s that we want to reach more people faster, we care about the community and the world, we passionately desire to do our best to fulfill the Great Commission, and we firmly believe the Church has amazing potential!

When pastors and leaders have the “why” firmly planted in their hearts, they can lead with authenticity and strength. We teach obedient giving (tithe) first and generous giving second. When the right thing is driving the “why,” these will never be at odds with each other.

Seeing how our church has responded over the last few years has been truly amazing. Our heart to reach the community and world has increased. Unity is strong. People are so excited that we are changing the world together! 

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2018 edition of Influence magazine.