Developing New Avenues for Givers and New Income Streams for Churches. By Scott Pearson
OVERVIEW Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7 In August 2012 the founder of echurch was in church enjoying a great message from a visiting speaker. He was following the scripture references and taking notes using the Bible app on his smartphone. When the time came for the offering, Eliot was handed an envelope on which he wrote his debit card number and the amount he wished to give. The Pastor then exhorted the congregation to give a generous offering to bless the visiting speaker and Eliot had to write out his details for a second time. If you didn t have a check or cash it was hard to give. He came away determined to write an app for his church that would allow people to give quickly and simply using their smartphone. Eliot teamed with his friend Chris and they set up a company to build online giving solutions that would help the church connect to the daily lives of their congregation. The company is called echurch and the first app Chris and Eliot built is designed to make it simple and secure for church congregations to give whenever they are moved to do so. The software is called Pushpay and in one year has been adopted by thousands of givers and churches throughout the world. echurch s Mission Our heart at echurch is to see the church resourced by encouraging generosity. We are doing this by building innovative web based giving solutions that are revolutionizing the way congregations give. We believe that not only does giving finance evangelism but that it can become evangelism. When Christians are generous it shows what they believe about God, faith, the Bible and eternity and this seemingly selfless behaviour often draws people who do not accept the Christian faith. Eliot and Chris have a goal to see one billion dollars given through echurch on the Pushpay platform. The echurch team has surveyed over 1000 churches to assess their current giving strategies and been able to analyse the real time data from the churches that have implemented the Pushpay system. Following are some statistics on mobile phone usage, the survey questions and our six key conclusions.
SURVEY Every church surveyed had a website and 84% of churches surveyed (400 + congregation) offered online giving. Only 7% offered customised giving from a mobile phone. The statistics around mobile phone usage are almost unbelievable. 91% of people on earth have a mobile phone and 50% of phone users use mobile as their primary internet source. technology in human history. increasingly people are using their mobile phone in services and not tablets. single-handedly threatening a wide range of other product categories as it adds more weapons to its arsenal. Kieran Alger, editor of technology magazine T3 We asked churches the following questions: Most obvious outcomes: this to increase. (This is an estimate as many churches were unable to give us a breakdown.) (over 40 seconds to give) then uptake of online giving was low.
Speed is Key People want to give online but it must be fast and simple If it takes longer than 40 seconds to give, 80% of people abandon the transaction. Less than 5% of churches surveyed met this criteria. The giving experience in almost every church surveyed was almost impossible to complete on a mobile device in under three minutes. And often not at all. Pinch and zoom on phones is unacceptable. Speed is the number one requirement for an effective digital giving strategy. Simplicity of use is a clear second. It must be simple. Complexity deters generosity Amazon is one of the largest, most successful internet retailers and the jewel in their transaction processing crown is the 1-Click system that allows you to purchase any item with just one mouse click. This system reduces the friction at a critical point in the sales process and significantly increases Amazon s conversion rates. The system is so valuable that Amazon have a US patent on it that runs until 2017. Simplicity encourages spontaneous generosity. People must be able to give how and when and wherever they choose. Online giving is just one avenue for giving. Churches need to let people give in the way that is most meaningful to them. Online giving is, however, the only way for the church to receive recurring giving. It is critical that the software allows the donor the ability to set up recurring giving. Recurring tithes and offerings are the financial lifeblood of most churches and build disciplined followers of Christ by connecting their hearts with their treasure. It seems obvious that churches would facilitate giving by their congregation on a device they never leave home without.
Online Giving must be Secure over the internet. With a giving app a persons card details are recorded just once and the user can give without ever again having to disclose card details. Churches need to ensure that any software they recommend to their congregation has the highest levels of online security. Online Giving Reduces Administration Costs Integrating your digital giving with your church management database eliminates large amounts of admin time. Verified data such as email addresses, phone numbers, addresses and giving amounts are automatically captured for your database. At the end of the year (or any other period) a summarised contribution statement can be printed out by the member directly. One church of 12,000 members estimated the savings from not printing and mailing at Good Implementation is Critical If churches want to see the benefits of a good online giving system they need to have a strong strategy for implementation. This often includes first gaining the leaders understanding and then explaining to the congregation the benefits to them and the efficiencies the church will receive. It is important to measure the impact of the software after its introduction to ensure the benefits are genuinely achieved.
echurch team please email us at info@echurchgiving.com. www.echurchgiving.com We ask churches who choose to implement Pushpay to track new giver numbers and overall giving increases and to consider being a reference for Pushpay. We would love to connect you with a church in your area that uses Pushpay mobile and online giving systems.