Monday, June 1, 2015

Six behaviors that de-motivate giving


Last week I talked about what to do if your giving is in trouble.  This week I want to expand on that in a specific way.  Here are six behaviors that churches often practice with the hopes of increasing giving, but actually de-motivate giving. These all come from the Survival level of the pyramid (see last weeks blog).  Typically, these are used when things are getting tough.  We develop a sense of panic and we are afraid, so we employee these to respond for our survival needs.  Because these seem to address the pressing need of the moment they are very attractive.   It feels as if we can just get these things right, then some how the budget problem or crisis will be resolved.  The reality is that these will never motivate people to be long-term, healthy givers.


1.     Budgets numbers. 
Budgets are useful tools for a church.  They serve as a way of expressing vision and goals in tangible ways.  No church should operate without a careful and well-planned budget.  So why are budget numbers not a good tool to motivate giving?  In short, numbers don’t tell stories; they are not exciting.  Most folks in your church do not want to provide a lot of input into the budgeting process.  Most of these folks do not care how much the electric bill is expected to be each month.  Sharing the numbers can create awareness with a budget, which is not a bad thing, but it will not create a lot of excitement for giving.

2.     Equal monthly division of annual budgets. 
Many churches print in their bulleting a line that says something to the effect “Week needs…$XXXX”.  The idea is to take the annual budget and divide it by 52 and post that number in the bulletin or newsletter.  Additionally, a church will also post last week’s offering on the next line and below that, post the amount above or below budget that offering was.   The number indicating 1/52 of the annual budget is an almost useless number.  A church almost never receives exactly 1/52 of its annual budget on any given Sunday.  Most people are paid on a 2 week cycle so half the time the offering will be well below the “weekly need” which is discouraging, and half the time the offerings will be well above the “weekly need”, which may create a sense that generous giving is not necessary.  Additionally, giving varies month to month.  No month will receive exactly 8.33% of the annual budget because giving is fluid.  Typically, giving at the first of the year is low, as folks are paying off Christmas bills and grows toward Easter.  After Easter giving begins to decline and bottoms out during summer vacation season.  It begins to increase in the fall and tends to grow until sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Understand a graph of your giving over the course of the year will look like a two hump camel.  Don’t expect to have a steady income.

3.     Bills.
In the classic film “The Sound of Music” there is a song that praises “a few of my favorite things”, and after listening to that song a number of times, I have never heard “paying bills” as one of the favorite things.  People are not motivated to give generously because the church has an electric bill.  The only time most people are motivated by paying bills is if they will be able to walk away from the debt.  No one lists the weekly or monthly bill paying moment as the high point of the week.  While paying bills is an important thing to do, it is not a motivational thing.  I have heard offering meditations and even sermons in which the speaker says something in reference to the offering “it is time for us to pay the bills”.  Remember that the word “offering” is essentially a word about worshipful giving to God.  When something as holy as an offering is reduced to paying the bills, it takes us from something grand and high to something plain and even boring. 

4.     Guilt.
Guilt trips are almost always short trips and generally are not taken a second time.  One of the least effectively ways to try to motivate people to give is to attempt to guilt people into giving. 
“Have you done your part?”
“Those who have gone before have done so much, what have you done?”
“Many of you will spend more on Sunday dinner than you put in the offering plate?”
“What have you done to support this church?”

As young teenagers, our parents may have guilt-tripped us into cleaning our room, but none of us were ever guilt-tripped into being neat.  We may have been guilt -tripped into writing a thank you note to Aunt Ethel for the underwear she sent at Christmas, but we weren’t guilt-tripped into have a heart of gratitude.  Guilt as a manipulation for giving fails to motivate people to have a generous heart.  It can never reach the real center of our will and will never effect long-term change toward generosity.

5.     Crisis moments and emergency appeals.
Emergencies happen; they are by nature unexpected and unpredictable.  At times they require special giving.  But if they come often it leads to the opinion that resources are not being managed well and that long range planning is not being done.  We also need to be a little narrower in what we call an emergency.  A tornado hitting our town is an emergency.  The AC breaking down should not be an emergency.  The second law of thermodynamics tells me that it will break and I should plan for that event.  A rainy day fund is not a luxury; it is a prudent preventative.    An ongoing pattern of crisis appeals will cause church members to doubt the wisdom of its leadership and will teach people not to give generously consistently, but to wait for the next crisis.

6.     Power giving.
“If you give, you get your way.”  We would never in a million years say this out loud or publicly, but we communicate this in many different ways.  If giving volume (amount), rather than faithfulness (sacrifice) is part of the consideration in the selection of leadership, we can inadvertently communicate this message.  If we are more apt to have a follow-up call with a wealthy visitor than a poorer one, this attitude has a foothold.  Because we live in a culture of consumerism and preference for wealth this sinful attitude is very subtle and we will have to be diligent to guard against it.

Take time to do an evaluation and see if you are attempting to motivate giving using these practices and consider doing away with them or revising them to help motivate your people to give with a joyful and generous heart.

Next week, six tools that can actually help motivate giving and develop generous hearts.

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