What Really Matters When It Comes to Raising Money

Excerpt

As fundraising fashions come and go, which elements are vital and which can be varied or skipped from year to year? Congregations have successfully flouted techniques once thought essential—in-home canvassing, a published budget, the kickoff dinner, even the hallowed pledge card. Replacement approaches rise and fall: Consecration Sunday, crowdfunding, targeted giving. Has human nature changed so much, or do fundamental principles apply? Human nature has changed—at least a little. Many of the fundraising practices we inherit in Protestant churches date from the “stewardship” movement of the 1890s, refined during the boom years after World War II. Those whose lives were formed by the Great Depression and World War II responded to appeals to build, invest, fund, endow; to concepts like responsibility, the future, permanence; to routines like the every-member canvass, the unified budget, and the pledge card. The “GI generation” could be counted on to give substantially to institutionalize the

GOVERNANCE & MINISTRY

by Dan Hotchkiss

What Really Matters When It Comes to Raising Money