How to Make Up a Snowed Out Offering
Did weather cause you to lose out on a week of offerings? After a slow start on January 1st the last thing you need is a snowed out weekend. Every time this happens your offering takes a hit!
The last thing you need, two Sundays into the New Year, is to fall behind on giving.
A few years ago on a Saturday morning I logged onto Facebook and the first thing I saw was a picture of the backyard of a worship pastor whose church contracts me to help them with giving. His picture showing five inches on his back porch with snow still coming down told me if we didn’t do something the offering would suffer this weekend. So…
We put a plan in place to capture the offering even though attendance was going to be spotty.
Do you have a plan on how to make up a weather impacted offering? Let me give you some key thoughts on how you can make up for a weather impacted weekend.
First, build out a robust online giving page and encourage member’s to sign up for automated giving. One of my long time clients took in their normal offering on January 1st. How? Because 81% of what was given was given electronically. We have worked hard to move towards this type of giving percentage for exactly like snow or holiday weekends. I have all my clients push for automated giving sign ups in January so that rain, sleet or snow members offerings show up.
For the best in online service check out my sponsor https://www.onlinegiving.org
Send an email out encouraging people to give using your online portal. I like to do this either the day before or on Sunday afternoon. A short email appeal with multiple clickable links to your giving page will help you make up for the loss of offerings due to weather.
By the way you can still send out an email today encouraging people to give! I can help you with that if you contact me.
Use your Social Media platform to announce services changes AND provide a link to your online giving site. This is an easy way to keep the offering in front of your people. What do you think your members are doing while they sit by the fireplace? They are looking at Social Media! So, be where they are with a positive message about giving.
The picture to the right is how we positioned the appeal in one of my client’s churches a few years ago.
Use the USPS! You know the old saying, “Neither rain, sleet or snow will stop the U.S. mail.” You can send out a direct mail letter either before or after encouraging people to faithfully give. Include in the letter links to your online giving page AND a self-addressed stamped envelope making it easy for them to send you their offering.
Check out the picture on the left for an example of how to do this.
The above strategy works! A few years ago a church that typically brings in $35K a Sunday reached out to me as a blizzard was heading their way. We put a plan in place over the weekend that resulted in their taking in over $35K! The same strategy can and will work for you.
Do you have a plan for making up a weather impacted weekend?
Don’t let the weather keep you from being fully funded this year!
Mark Brooks – The Stewardship Coach
