How To Engage Your Givers In 60 Seconds or Less

According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, there are currently over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States. Each of these organizations has at least one thing in common: They are all working hard to engage their donor base.

Nonprofit organizations survive or die based on the engagement of their donor base, or the lack thereof. All over the country, nonprofits are getting more and more creative in their attempts to “get in front of” their givers.

The Ministry Moment

Most nonprofits are expending a lot of energy and resources to gain an audience with their givers. In their fundraising efforts, these organizations rely on direct mail, email, and relational connections which can be very hard to maintain. This however, is an area where churches have an advantage. The church has a unique moment, 52 times per year, to engage with their givers in a real and meaningful way. What is that moment? The 60-seconds prior to the offering. I like to call it, The Ministry Moment.

However, churches rarely handle this time well. They most often fail to make the most of these 52 opportunities. In many churches I visit, the offering is treated almost as an afterthought. It’s clear, in those churches, not much thought or time has gone into the planning of this opportunity.

The 60-second Ministry Moment

What if you could use this moment–this precious 60 seconds–to engage your givers, increase your everyday giving, and grow your donor base? You can!

This one-minute (or more) before the offering, has traditionally been used to say something like, "We're about to take our offering. Will the ushers please come forward."

Engaging? Exciting? I don't think so.

What Givers Want

At the most basic level, givers want three things:

1. They want to be engaged.
2. They want to know what's going on.
3. They want to know they are making a difference.

The people in your church want to give, and they want to know they’re making a difference when they do so. Are you telling them about the difference they’re making?

Those should be our objectives during that time prior to the offering. You can accomplish all of those objectives in that one minute. (Keep in mind, one minute is approximate. It can be longer, but should never exceed four minutes.)

What does your Ministry Moment look like?