Archives For Finances

Investing In God’s Kingdom Like It’s Yours

April 27, 2011 — Leave a comment

Do you invest in God’s Kingdom like you invest in yours? Really the ideal mindset is a one kingdom mindset, where you understand everything comes from God and is God’s. But this little test might help us see if we have that singular mindset or if we really do have two kingdom’s – ours and God’s.

Many pastors and Christians have a good understanding of finances, savings, and planning for retirement.  Rightfully so, we are getting and giving a lot of good financial advice, and many of us have growing 401k or 403b accounts.  And here’s the typical approach we take with these accounts:

1.  Our investment is consistent – we invest every time we get paid.

2. Our investment is first – it normally comes directly and immediately out of the check.

3.  It is measured – we have chosen a percentage in advance that is based on a strategy.

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Boost Your Electronic Giving – Part 2

February 24, 2011 — Leave a comment

Here are suggestions six through ten to help boost your organization’s electronic giving.

6. Support It

a. When you make a big push for electronic giving, offer to have support staff available to walk people through setting up their account.

b. Do some user testing by watching people interact with all the points of your electronic process. Is it hard for them to find it on your website? Do people have trouble increasing the amount they give when they get a raise? Is it hard for people to know who to contact if they run into a problem? Do people know your site is secure? Is your electronic giving card glossy and causing ink to smear? By observing people actually use your process you can learn a lot.

c. Give biblical based reasons why people should give. Make sure you include a variety of reasons, not just the same couple of reasons over and over again. Include those reasons, the organization’s vision, and testimonies in the online giving section of the website.

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Boost Your Electronic Giving – Part 1

February 23, 2011 — Leave a comment

AG Financial Stewardship Consulting helps ministries bridge the gap to their vision by creating a movement of generosity within your organization. Part of this process involves making sure that it is simple for people to financially partner with you. Electronic giving is one effective way to develop a broad base of financial ministry supporters. Here are the first five of ten suggestions to help boost your organization’s electronic giving.

1. Have a Simple Solution

a. Make sure you have a simple, effective, secure, and easy-to-use system in place. A good system should allow people to easily track and change their giving. If they want to increase their monthly donations or start to give money to missions it should be simple.

b. Make sure your system supports and focuses on reoccurring giving.

c. If you have a service in place, ask your people what they like and dislike about it. Use that feedback to improve it.

d. If you do not offer online and on-site electronic options, then do some research on best practices in that field or let us recommend some options to you to get this established.

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