3 Things to Do at Christmas

Merry Christmas!  As we are contemplating the coming of our Savior and the celebration of His birth, we also want to be part of the communal celebration.  So many folks who may not be regular attendees choose this time of year to go to Mass and to reconnect with their parish.  What a wonderful time to welcome people to the parish community.

Here are 3 simple ideas for "last minute tactics" to help welcome everyone to church and provide them an opportunity to make a contribution:


1.   Update Electronic Communications : Welcome everyone with a message of Hope and Love
                 Make sure you have updated the parish website and calendars with Mass times. Use your headline feature in your Faith in Action website to add the notification to all pages on the site.  Send an e-newsletter encouraging parishioners to bring friends and family to Mass.   More importantly, make sure you also are updating content to welcome everyone whether or not they have been to Mass recently.  Also make Online Giving available from every page.

2.  Remind people about the option to give online: 
                  Update Online Giving with special collections and even consider a special cause for the community as a separate collection.   This is also a time to remind people in bulletins and also through announcements at Mass that they can give online.  It's a convenient option for everyone.

3.  Add special collection envelopes to pews or at church entrances:
                  Make it convenient for anyone to pick up an envelope and make a donation to the church.  You can also invite people to make prayer requests or special intentions by writing them on the envelope or placing a note in the envelope rather than money.  Be creative.  Give people a chance to participate.

Wishing everyone a blessed holiday.  Merry Christmas

Survey Says: Gifts Increase when Parishioners use Online Giving

We created Online Giving to be a simple solution that provides stability and an increase in contributions for collections. Our Sunday Visitor recently polled 144 donors from a single parish who switched from using envelopes to Online Giving for their offertory. The results were promising and illustrate the clear benefits to using this electronic service.

Within this six-month span, the average giver increased their gift by 49%.

Over half of the donors at the parish chose a credit card, and their donations increased by 62% over their envelope gifts. The credit card option is often the most enticing to donors and the parish as it allows for more flexibility in giving and there are no additional costs. Cards also allow the donor to accrue card benefits like miles, points, or other rewards. 

Data shows that credit card users consistently give more than those who use their bank accounts to give electronically.

45% of parish donors used ACH and their donations increased by 32% over their envelope gifts. Considering both credit card and ACH contributions combined, this amounted to an overall increase of around $60,000. That’s an average increase of $415 per donor.

How has Online Giving impacted your parish?

New study results: Online plus direct contributions are best

I was very interested to read the 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report that was released recently from Target Analytics.   While this research is focused on fundraising of all types,  I think it applies to parish contributions.

Several points in the summary of findings are what we would expect:

• Online-acquired donors are significantly younger and tend to have higher household incomes that mail-acquired donors.
• Online-acquired donors tend to give much larger gifts than mail-acquired donors.

But here was one of the big points to note:

• Robust direct mail programs drive up the retention and long-term value of new donors acquired online. Without the ability to become multi-channel givers by renewing their support via direct mail, this group of donors would be worth far less. Other than monthly recurring giving programs, established direct mail programs area the best method for gaining repeat gifts from online-acquired donors.

 This next chart shows that while there is a significant percentage of online donations there is still a far greater percentage of donations from mail:

 

  So why do I think this is pertinent to parishes?  

          1.  Online giving attracts a younger and likely more affluent group of people.  While our data indicate that every age group uses Online Giving,  this is still our best way to engage younger people to contribute financially to our parishes.

          2.   We should continue to emphasize envelopes.  Think of them as ongoing direct mail.  Parishioners may want to use both Online Giving and Envelopes for various reasons. And if the parish has other projects then mail is a very effective medium. 

This is all kind of analytical -  in the end we must engage our parishioner base in our parish by focusing on our formation and by accomplishing our mission as Church.  At a more superficial level,  we do need to make the best use of the tools available to us.  This is also good stewardship!

Tell me how your parish makes use of electronic services, envelopes and direct mail...