The Quest for Generosity

Today’s churches are challenged to raise the funds necessary to develop and sustain ministries, send missionaries out into the world, and provide engaging worship services -- not to mention maintain their overhead expenses.

But with more than $250 million in charitable giving occurring in 2005, according to the Giving USA Foundation, churches are also challenged to identify and effectively prioritize the potential major gift donors that exist within their congregations, and reach them with the right message, through the right channel, at the right time.

Identifying the best major gift prospects in a church community requires a multidimensional approach that combines a congregant’s ability to give, his or her affinity and attachment to the church, as well as their propensity to make a charitable gift. To find and prioritize major gift donors, churches should:

Understand the donor’s true ability to give. A church member’s discretionary assets and income -- not gross income -- are the best measures of how much money is available for a major gift.

To understand the importance of discretionary income, consider two households within a congregation, each with $250,000 in annual income and in the same stage in life. They might have substantially different giving power and patterns depending on their tastes, attitudes and financial asset base.

For example, one household with high-end furniture and clothing, living in a costly neighborhood, and with minimal investments, would have less ability to give than a second household, which has the opposite habits and behaviors. The conclusion is intuitive, but can also be supported by data.

Identify the donor’s access to money. A congregant whose dominant assets are liquid is far more likely to make a major gift than someone whose dominant assets are non-liquid (such as a primary residence). Churches can use screening tools that segment, prioritize and target both current and prospective donors based on their true ability to donate significant funds. Churches should be able to easily find, profile and rank the wealth in their database using their prospect screening service.

Use data mining to determin affinity. Affinity indicates how likely a congregant is to give to a particular church, even if they haven’t given before. The key is combining offline and Web-based techniques to gather data on a person’s current relationship with the church. This makes it possible to understand the congregant’s current affinities, interests and passions, such as the music ministry or missions work in Africa, related to the church.

Focus on quantity and recency. When churches look at a donor’s giving or tithing history, they should go beyond total giving and largest gift amount to focus on the number of gifts and how recently they were given.

Churches can use screening tools to easily compare giving capacity with actual giving history to identify top donors. In fact, targeting programs using these tools can increase a church’s performance by 20 to 30 percent annually.

When combined with ability, this data can lead those congregants who just need a more personal approach to make a dramatic move up on the church’s giving chart. When they incorporate the donor’s affiliation with their giving history, churches will have their current attachment to the church.

Understand donor propensity. Knowing if donors have the propensity to make a major gift means churches must look at what the congregant is doing with other ministries and nonprofits. Donations to other charities, having a foundation or directed giving fund, and nonprofit board affiliations are some of the ways that churches can identify whether the member is an active philanthropist.

The final tip is for churches to use all these factors to accurately prioritize their prospects. All too often, prospect identification is focused solely on wealth, which creates false expectations that the church will be able to convert them from their current low level of donations -- or even non-donor status -- to a major gift simply because they have the resources.

The driver of philanthropy has never been money: It is affinity, attachment and propensity, combined with ability, that make the gift likely.

When these factors are combined, churches will be able to focus on the people most likely to make a gift, make that gift to their church, and be able to make the major gift needed to support its mission.

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Howard Horowitz is the vice president of professional services for Kintera Inc. Contact him at howard.horowitz@kintera.com .