Monitor Giving Trends

As a leader of your church, it is essential you have a strong understanding on the giving trends of your church. Even if you don’t want to see who is giving how much, there are some helpful reports that you can tell you if giving is changing, healthy, or has risks:

• What percentage of your organization is being funded by a just a few people – What is the ratio of the largest donors versus the smaller donors? How does this compare to the ratio of their dollars. I ask this because what if one of your largest donors said today that this was the last time they would donate to you, are you going to have to close your doors?
• Monthly giving breakdown – Know how much giving typically drops in your slow months and giving increases in the biggest months and then monitor to see if you are coming in above or below what was expected
• Online Giving Growth – Is your church successfully communicating your online giving options and recurring giving?
• Retention – Number of people who have giving in previous years, but not in the current year
• New Givers – Number of people who gave for the first time in the current year

Homework: Review your data and see if you can identify several giving health metrics that you and your church leaders can review regularly to monitor giving trends. Don’t have this kind of data? Start a free trial of Aplos and check out how you get more insight on your giving.