3 Secrets to Fund Your Church's Vision
By Kristen Alexander
3 Secrets to Fund Your Church's Vision
Author: Kristen Calicott
Read Time: 3 minutes
Pastor Bryan couldn't believe it. After reviewing his church's financial reports, he made an incredible discovery.
In the morning, he would be able to let the board know they had raised enough money to start building their dream church facility!
How did the Pastor and his team accomplish their goal?
The Reward of Wise Stewardship
Pastor Bryan and his church met their fundraising goals because of one main decision: they put strategic and experienced people in place to manage the church's finances.
While the church was low on funds, they were hesitant to put money into hiring professional help--and rightly so. It would take a huge leap of faith to invest in a team to help the church grow. But after much prayer, the board decided it may be wise to move forward with expert financial help.
In the long run, the return was huge as having the right financial team led to a considerable increase in their finances.
Now, Pastor Bryan and his board could reap the reward of good stewardship and move forward with building their new facility!
Here are 3 of the secrets his financial team knew that helped them accomplish the church's vision:
1. Open a church bank account
Financial accountability for churches is so important in this day and age. Congregants and donors want to know what they are giving towards and what's happening with that money. The first step to proper financial accountability is to open a dedicated bank account for the church. Ensure that it is in no way linked to a personal account of anyone in the organization to protect your members and the organization itself.
2. Create a budget
The next step is to establish a budget. Budgeting allocates all of the money you expect to make for the year and, based on prior-year finances or estimates from quotes, what you plan on putting that money toward, such as utilities or missions.
These budgets are usually presented to the board for approval, taking the pressure off of any individual and letting many great minds come together to analyze and make changes or catch mistakes that may have occurred.
You can then use this budget to complete church audits throughout the year, checking estimations against what actually occurred. This helps to catch any issues with best practices and make notes for the following year if any unforeseen problems could have been handled better.
More reading: How a Budget Protects Your Church
3. Build and establish trust
Being direct and transparent with the church's finances is the best way to build trust with your congregation. You can do this by having strong accountability and management in place that provides good stewardship over the church's funds.
Implementing policies and procedures from the beginning is paramount to stop issues before they begin.
These policies include, but are not limited to:
- Collecting Tithes & Offerings
- Pastor's Salary and Pay Agreement
- Reimbursements
- Credit Card Use and Best Practices
- Internal Allocation of Funds
- Making Deposits
- Benevolence
These policies and procedures protect the church and the people handling any resource that belongs to the organization.
We would love to give you FREE Chart of Accounts for your church! Call us at 877-494-4655 to claim yours or click the link below to schedule a call.
%schedule-a-call-cta%
The Benefits of Building Trust
Building trust with your congregation has many benefits, such as better relationships between church leadership and members and encouraging greater giving above and beyond regular tithes and offerings. If the church is transparent about its goals and spending, it gives members a sense of ownership when those goals are reached. They feel that they are a part of that achievement, and they become more inspired to contribute to those goals regularly. This could be financially or by encouraging them to volunteer in events that help move towards those dreams.
Put your team together
Like Pastor Bryan, do you have a dream of having a building for your church? Or maybe you have another project God's given you a vision for. Having a well-equipped team in place will help you accomplish your funding goals. Bringing on a ministry-minded bookkeeper, like the ones we have at StartCHURCH, is a great place to start.
Here are some of the benefits: According to best practices, they'll categorize your income and expenses to help you catch issues before becoming a recurring problem, provide strong accountability, and get financial reports together for banks and board meetings.
Ultimately, you'll be able to answer the hard questions with your board, come up with solutions, and meet your financial goals.
Get established in your Bookkeeping journey with team members who manage church financials every day. Please reach out to 877-494-4655 or visit the link below to connect with us on your schedule.
Plus: don’t forget to give us a call to claim your FREE Chart of Accounts to benefit your church!
%bookkeeping-cta%