Churches typically experience dips in giving during the summer months. This year, the uncertainties surrounding the Coronavirus have created a new set of challenges. While 64% of churches saw an increase in online giving between January and April, they’re still keeping a close eye on the budget that pays their staff and funds their mission.
Increasing giving is crucial at times like these, and one way to ignite consistent generosity is by promoting recurring gifts. All it takes is a minute to set up and schedule a recurring gift that’s automatically deducted from a credit card or bank account. People choose the amount and frequency of the gift, and can manage these from their giving account.
By signing up for recurring gifts, people will never miss a donation. Plus, recurring donors are 75% more likely to make additional one-time gifts during the year. If you’re ready to see the needle move in the right direction, here are 6 tips to ignite your recurring giving program.
1. Make it easy to start using recurring giving
Before you start encouraging recurring gifts, evaluate your current recurring giving options to make sure that it’s easy to set up. The set up process must be straightforward and simple. People won’t join if it’s too complicated or if they don’t know it’s there.
FellowshipOne Giving makes it easy to see the recurring giving option when making a one-time donation, and to remind people that it’s there. Here’s what that looks like.
Whether giving online, in-app, or via text, you can enable a recurring gift option on your giving form. As people submit their one-time gift, they can check a box if recurring gifts are right for them.
You can also prompt givers to turn a one-time gift into a recurring gift after they’ve given. You configure how many times the person gives before seeing this option whether it’s each donation or after multiple gifts.
If you don’t currently have access to features like these, switch to FellowshipOne Giving!
2. Educate your donors on how to set up recurring gifts
Even with your recurring giving options front and center, share the steps to sign up. Include video tutorials and written instructions in your emails, on social media, and on your website. With FellowshipOne Giving, it’s already a user-friendly experience to set up recurring gifts, but the additional information will help guide those that are still on the fence about joining.
3. Highlight the impact of recurring gifts
While people may know what recurring giving is, and how to sign up for it, they may not understand how consistent gifts matter in the real world. Remember, people want to make an impact during moments when those in their community are suffering. Help them see how they can automate what’s important to them as they want to give regularly
During the offering moment, share the stories of how the church has used recurring gifts to help plan ahead during the pandemic. Also, share what your church’s plans are for future recurring gifts to help get people back on their feet.
4. Create tiers for recurring giving
Committing to recurring gifts right now can be intimidating for some people because of job uncertainty and economic concerns. One way to make people comfortable about recurring gifts is to create tiers to help them get started. Make the first gift on the tier approachable like $5 once a month. The next tier could be $10 a month, and so on. Don’t forget to celebrate donors as they move up the tiers!
5. Include reminders about recurring giving in your thank you messages
Remind givers how to sign up for recurring gifts when sending thank you emails. Many in your congregation already give on a consistent basis, but they do miss gifts occasionally due to vacations, illness, family engagements, work, and natural disasters. Here are two email templates to help craft your message.
You can utilize these templates or build your own workflows in FellowshipOne GO to make sure you don’t miss a beat whenever someone gives through FellowshipOne Giving. This makes it easy for you to create and automate personalized messages for your givers that let them know their contributions make a difference and how to simplify things for themselves with recurring giving.
6. Keep recurring giving in the conversation
Recurring giving isn’t a one-off campaign. It should be on the list of giving solutions you share routinely with your congregation. Whether people are attending a service, watching your live stream, or listening to the recording on a church app, continue to spread the word about recurring gifts and cultivate consistent generosity.
Check out FellowshipOne Giving’s recurring giving features by scheduling a free, no-obligation demo or call 1-844-459-8525 and talk with one of our church consultants.
