Developing your church or ministry fundraising to high levels is the dream of many a pastor out in the real world. Unfortunately, most do not get much farther out than their local community and some never get farther than their own front door. The method you select will largely determine how successful you will be in your endeavors. However, that does not mean that there is a one size fits all approach to your outreach program. In fact, taking that kind of mindset could be wholly detrimental to the growth of your church or ministry.
Human Nature and Holding On Too Long
It is human nature to see the success of another church or ministry and want the same thing for your organization. However, the reality is that the demographics and the psychographics of your area, organization, and people are wildly different. It may seem like you can cut and paste a certain strategy over any church or ministry but this is folly. In fact, most businesses who want to work with you sell this idea but it rarely is a reality. What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander. You can use other businesses or organizations for starting points but it is rarely recommended that you follow their success model all the way to the endpoint. Doing so may put you in an entirely different place. Moreover, that place may be out of the market completely.
Market Research and Your Church or Ministry Fundraising
Market research, which, if you have run your business for any amount of time, is what you need. You, likely, have a good gauge on what your community likes and how it would respond to pieces of marketing content. Of course, you should always test the content to see what the reality of the usage is when it is deployed but you probably have a general starting point in mind. Getting started the first hurdle. Gather information about what your target market does when exposed to your message. See how it responds to your message and make decisions after that action.
Using Metrics to Improve Your Church or Ministry Fundraising
Subsequently, you can decide how to use that information to get better. Does the message need to be changed? Was the wording working? What should you test? It all begins with hypothesis and testing. A smart person once said, “you can test out of a recession.” It is true. But, the counter to that is that you have to be willing to accept what the market tells you when you get feedback. One of the biggest errors in fundraising is stubbornly clinging to a hypothesis when it has been proven wrong. It is a sure-fire way of converting a possible winning campaign into a failure that will leave you wondering what went wrong and who to blame for it.
