Many nonprofit organizations, including churches, receive a great deal of their annual budgets in the form of end of year giving. Matt Steen, creator of Church Simple, considered the wisdom circulating via multiple recent articles of note regarding how best to time end of year giving appeals. According to the latest Google study, 3/4 of potential end of year donors begin researching how they will spend their year end dollars in September.
So What?
For many congregations, the annual budget appeal (aka as stewardship campaign) happens early in the fourth quarter of the year thereby limiting or excluding other appeals. There are, however, congregations who have annual budgets based on a fiscal year that does not match the calendar year as well as those who have annual budgets based on the calendar year, but conduct annual stewardship appeals during another time of the year.
- Does your local congregation clearly communicate end of year giving opportunities? If so, how? starting when?
- What percentage of your congregation’s annual operating expenses are covered by end of year gifts? In your congregation, what is the top way people designate end of year giving for causes outside of the annual budget?