Mobile giving = staff time savings
The members of your church’s administrative staff have big jobs — impossibly big jobs. Few church staffers have enough time to do all that’s on their plates. There’s not enough hours in the week, not enough energy in their tanks.
A few years back, Thom Rainer — now president of LifeWay Christian Resources — gave 12 deacons at a church he pastored a survey with a list of different pastoral duties and a spot for them to mark down what they thought the minimum time a pastor should spend on those tasks every week. When he tabulated all the results, it added up to 114 hours. That’s 19 hours a day for six days a week — enough to kill anyone.
Your pastor can’t do everything on his plate. But let’s be clear: Your staff can’t either.
Frankly, that’s good news. If your team could do everything that comes its way, God’s help would be unnecessary. The Bible reminds us over and over again to rest in the reality that “The Lord is my Helper.” (Hebrews 13:6) God is willing and able to multiply our time and empower our ministry. It’s what He does. It’s what we need.
God provides His help for overworked church leaders in a number of ways. Sometimes, it’s miraculous. He gives us a key volunteer (or volunteers) at just the right time. He gives us an important insight out of nowhere about how to be more efficient or productive.
But sometimes, God provides through technology — and it’s just as miraculous.
Take, as an example, all the time your church staff spends dealing with giving — from reconciling bank statements, to analyzing your giving, to preparing end-of-year giving statements. It adds up to many, many staff hours every week — more than those you can hire can do.
But, it doesn’t have to be like that. A strong mobile giving solution can cut both hours and stress out of your staff’s week. It can feel like a miracle.
Here are six ways it does that.
#1: All your giving in one place: While not everyone will give to your church digitally, you can expect the numbers of donations via mobile phone to steadily climb. Our virtual terminal allows you to enter cash and check donations into the same ecosystem where your online gifts go. You can even enter a check by using a check scanner to scan it.
#2: Weekly summary reports: Understanding your church’s givers can help you make the most of your relationship with them. Our own platform delivers advanced giving insights to your email inbox every Monday.
You’ll find out when during the week your congregation gave, how many new givers came on board, the average gift, and more. You’ll also get charts to go along with these stats. No need to run your own reports; the data you need will be sent to you.
#3: Annual giving statements: Few tasks are more cumbersome, time-consuming — and critical — for your staff at the end of the year than preparing giving statements. Our platform simplifies the process by putting everything you need in one place. One push of a button will generate IRS-compliant giving statements. All the giving processed through Pushpay or in the virtual terminal will be included on the statements.
#4: Create-your-own giving funds: Most churches have a variety of funds where giving goes each week — from mission funds, to building funds, to miscellaneous funds. Using our dashboard, church administrators can create and manage these funds on their own. This gives your church the flexibility of launching a new fund in minutes — just in time for your weekend services.
#5: Smart features: To maximize generosity, when givers’ credit cards expire, they get notified to change their credit card info. When givers make the same gift several times in row, they are automatically introduced to recurring giving. Automatic built-in tracking means your staff can more easily discern changes in your church’s giving patterns.
#6: Batch reconciliation: Your staff spends a lot of time each week ensuring that the donations / gifts that are made to your congregation are allocated correctly and directed to the correct source. It’s often tedious work of alternating between multiple systems. Your staff can do it in minutes through our proprietary software. With Pushpay, your giving platforms can “talk with each other.” So, no matter how people give, the info will converse seamlessly.
Your staff’s time matters. Make the most of it.
Written by the echurch content team. echurch is the principal supplier of Pushpay to churches.
