Generosity Labs | Church Giving, Stewardship, Fundraising

In today’s podcast episode of Generosity Labs, our host Kenny Jahng will talk about the giving statistics of 2019. As we are already halfway through the year 2019, Kenny will share the numbers about tithing and anything that involves giving to churches and non-profit organizations.

For today’s episode of the Generosity Labs Podcast, Kenny Jahng shares how people can forgetful when summertime comes. He will discuss key points to be considered for the churches and nonprofit organizations for checking up during summer.

Tune in to this the most recent episode of our Generosity Labs with Kenny Jahng. In this episode, Kenny will share 8 points from an article at Barna entitled, What Motivates Christians to Give. 

Article:

https://www.barna.com/research/motivations-for-generosity/ 

For today’s episode of the Generosity Labs Podcast, Kenny Jahng shares tithing stats within America from an article that he ran across. He talks about tithing and the data that they have from self-surveys regarding tithing. Kenny also talks about the church messaging, marketing and strategy and how it could be better with a few small changes.

Link to article referenced:

https://healthresearchfunding.org/21-tithing-statistics/

Tune in to today’s quick episode of Generosity Labs with Kenny Jahng. Kenny discusses an article he found on REACHRIGHT that was 37 statistics that you need to know for 2019. Kenny focuses on three of those points related to tithing through digital giving to share his opinions on this topic.

In today’s episode of Generosity Labs, Kenny Jahng gives you his tip of the day regarding the art of engagement. To build a culture of giving across your community, you should focus on three main levels of increasing engagement. He goes through the three levels and discusses each so that you better understand how to increase engagement in your community.

Did you know that 41% of regular church attendees give to church consistently?

That’s less than half of your congregation. Alarming isn’t it?

Listen as Kenny Jahng discusses the State of the Plate of generosity amongst churches far and wide and how church leaders can bring solution to your weekly giving.

TRANSCRIPTION

Hi there, this is Kenny Jahng with the Generosity Labs Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. One of the things that we have been getting questions about recently around here is the actual demand or the question really is do people really want to give outside of the offering envelope in terms of cash or cheque. Because one of the biggest rants that I've been having around here, Generosity Labs is that churches are stuck in the Stone Age, don't understand that envelopes and cash are just not relevant anymore to most of the peoples that walk in their doors. And so I just want to refer back to an important,  I guess landmark industry report that comes out on a periodic basis. It is the State of the Plate. And today I wanted to go through Brian Kluth's work there, where they surveyed almost 1600 pastors, church leaders and lead people across the country. 1,596 people to be exact. And the survey asked these pastors, leaders and lay people's from churches of all sizes and the types of churches varied as well. And one of the things that, the whole point of the report is to report on their church giving patterns and practices and I think we can learn a lot from just looking at some of the data that has come out of the State of the Plate report. I think the next one is going to be administered too. The latest report that we have is coming out at the end of 2016, but I think if you wanted to name this, it's really the reality, the church giving is the name of the theme or the takeaway, right? It's basically a way to Paul, to the church. Here's a infographic that we produced in cooperation with a title State of the Plate.

And It's what to call out some numbers that just struck me as we built this infographic. First one is 59 percent, so the majority of churches out there, if you are sitting in a church or you're a church team or staff, 59 percent chances are you're one of them. 59 percent of churches report declining or flat line giving. That's in contrast with another study. I think it was by Giving Rocket at one point said 84 percent of churches are at or below budget. That means only 16 percent of churches have any sort of financial margin to do ministry beyond what they're planning. This report here also says at 20 percent experienced giving decline of five percent or more. And I think they looked at five percent as being significant, right? So if you're giving year after year is declining at a rate of five percent or more, it's something to be concerned about if you're not able to turn that pattern around, something's going on with your giving behavior and that's pointing to something deeper in the culture or DNA of your church, so that's a gloomy outlook to begin with. Almost 60 percent of churches are declining or flat lines and 20 percent are actually saying, Whoa, we're going downhill. We're not just maintaining what we have, we're actually going downhill. That means that you know, in 10 years you're going to have a major issue, If you're not doing anything here in five years and even in two years, 10 percent less money in the staff budget, in the ministry budget, in the outreach budget, and the missions budget that is something to take seriously right now.

Now let's look at what's happening on a Sunday, regular attendance, and we've all been talking about this fo

Today's episode is different from our usual interviews.

We sat down with Jason Altman, Regional Vice President of Enterprise Holdings, to talk about how the company moves corporate social responsibility forward to the community.

Jason shares his unique experiences and examples of how their organization is involved in doing social good.

Check out the episode below.

CONTACT: [email protected]

TRANSCRIPTION:

Kenny: Hey, welcome back, friends. This is Kenny Jahng, host of Generosity Labs podcast, where we talk about stewardship, giving and non-profit funding for churches as well as ministries. One of the things that we typically do is talk to pastors and other church leaders. Today, I'm excited because we're going to pivot a little bit on the conversation. I brought on today as a guest, Jason Altman from Enterprise Holdings, an organization in the marketplace so, that we can get a look on the inside of how corporate America and the marketplace is really looking at social good about volunteerism and other things related. So, welcome to the show today, Jason. Great to have you here today.

Jason: Hey, thanks Kenny. Thanks so much for having me.

Kenny: So right off the bat, let's talk about, who you are, what you do, what's your role at Enterprise Holdings? So, give us the 30-second rundown of Enterprise Holdings and your role there at the company.

Jason: Well, Enterprise Holdings provides a complete transportation solutions to large organizations right down to individuals. You probably know us best from enterprise rent-a-car or a car rental division. We've got an enterprise, national and LMO. I'm the regional vice president over central New Jersey in Staten Island. So, I've got responsibility for other stores and individuals that serve those markets.

Kenny: Nice. And, one of the things that I think people don't understand is that, you are more than just car rentals, right? As the transport systems. Why don't we just talk about that first, just for a second. What are some of the other things that you guys do? And then, also, the profile of the company itself is a little bit different. It's not a public company, right?

Jason: No, it's privately held. So your first question, when I say complete transportation solutions, we've got a leasing division, fleet services. Gosh, we've got a car-share, you know, ride share. We've got a bunch of different divisions of the organization up to and including a retail car sales. We actually sell our cars if you're in the market.

Kenny: You guys are one of the largest re-sellers of cars in the country, right? That's a little bit unknown fact. A hidden gem, basically. And then your structure, you are not a public company. You are private companies still, even though it's a behemoth of the brands that you own. It's quite amazing that you're still private.

Jason: Yeah. Privately held. One very committed family out of St Louis, Missouri.

Kenny: That's one of the things for me, my radar went off a little bit because it is one of those stories that because it's private because it's family-driven then culture and values usually come into play in a business setting. Is that something that you can share with us? What's the uniqueness of that which has helped enterprise flourish from that perspective?

Jason: Yeah. The company was certainly founded on a set of values and the larger we got becoming this behemoth, this you say, you know, ownership got concerned that we were straying from those values. So they established a set of criteria which really measures the operators against the degree to which they live and exhibit those values. And a lot of that involves supporting the communities. We serve to do good. But there's certainly operations and other things, but a great deal of it has to do with corporate social responsibility.</

Is your church ready for #GivingTuesday?

In this episode, Kenny sits down with one of the most respected leaders regarding generosity, stewardship, and giving, Chris Willard.

They talk about how to encourage not-yet givers to be regular givers and how participating in #GivingTuesday can help spark generosity and giving in the hearts of people in your church and outside of your community.

Check out their conversation below.

WEBSITES MENTIONED

Year-end giving guide by Generis.com

leadnet.org

CONTACT INFORMATION

Blog: ChrisWillard.me

HIGHLIGHTS

[00:53] I started working at Leadership Network. I am the director of generosity and initiatives. In Leadership Network, what we try to do is to put churches into groups and we try to encourage them to kind of dream big about strategies that can really help them be more effective in the church. And the area that I lead is the area of generosity and stewardship and giving.

[1:35] Most of the work I am doing is trying to work with pastors who are trying to really create a revolution of generosity and stewardship and giving in their churches.

[2:09] We are entering a season talking about #GivingTuesday. #GivingTuesday, if you haven’t heard about it before, basically, is the Tuesday that follows Black Friday.

[3:04] #GivingTuesday is the place where I have given to things that are not necessarily connected to my church or to some of the ministries that I support.

[3:21] #GivingTuesday has encouraged me to give those gifts over the years and I think it’s a genius idea.

[4:07] Last year, 2016, there was 1.56 million individual gifts. And I think the total amount of donation over 40% growth over the year and I think it raised over $168 million this past year. That’s pretty size-able.

[4:33] I think churches need to get involved in Giving Tuesdays.

[4:54] I think the church is really in a perfect position to encourage people or to leverage the whole idea of #GivingTuesday.

[6:21] You need to raise money and draw attention not to your church but for what the church stands for.

[6:48] I think it would be a great way for a church to get a not-yet giver, to give a modest gift for the very first time.

[6:59] The reason people are sometimes a little bit suspicious about giving at churches is because churches haven’t done a great job with this topic.

[7:24] You can start to say in your congregation, “Look, if you’ve never given here in our church, we will encourage you to make Giving Tuesday your very first time to kind of get involved.”

[8:41] Probably, right now, here we are, in the beginning of October, it’s a little too early to start talking to your congregation about your year-end giving strategy, but it is definitely not too early for your team to start planning.your year-end giving strategy. And, in fact? You might also be a little bit behind. Christmas is coming, Kenny. It’s going to be here before you know it and we got to get ready for that.

[9:17] As the timing, when you’re going to be talking to your congregation about year-end giving, so you’re right. Because Giving Tuesday is the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, it’s the perfect place to be the launching point for your year-end strategy. And if I could, I would encourage anybody, it’s a free download, on the Generis website, we got a free year-end giving guide. Look for the year-end giving guide. It is an awesome tool that gives you from start to finish what you need to do to put together a really effective year-end giving initiative.

[10:48] Anytime I hear a church leader say, “I am afraid if they give that money there, they won’t giv