Your church is new, congratulations. Maybe you’ve purchased a building, maybe you’re leasing, but now you want to attract new members while being faced with the challenge of sustaining ministry without resorting to preaching about contributions every Sunday. Below are some effective ways to raise funds and be self sustaining while adding incredible value to your congregation and immediate community.
The first thing to do is to pull down the walls and limitations in your imagination and expectation about how to raise funds as a Church. Weekly contributions aren’t going to cut it these days and I don’t think they ever have. Here are some hard truths, millennials don’t give as freely and unquestioning as baby boomers. They also don’t make as much just yet. So how do you raise funds? Well, one way is to tap into their (millennials) very powerful purchasing power. More below…
- Lease or rent out your facility to other churches and events when you’re not using it
This is the easiest way to raise funds immediately. Many Churches still run out of schools, homes, storefronts because established Churches don’t like sharing their spaces for whatever reason, whether fear of losing existing members, not agreeing with the doctrine of the tenant church or other sometimes valid reasons, it’s a real missed opportunity.
2. Create merchandise around themes, events, and sermons in the Church
T-shirts, wristbands, socks, pillow case, phone case, pens, mugs, stickers, beach towels, etc are just about the most effective way to raise funds in a Church filled with millenials, gen x and y’ers. Sell items that contributes to their identity and is about a mission, theme or cause they can get behind. You just have to be creative and build significant brands and themes. They will often buy for themselves and also gift these merchandise to friends and loved ones.
3. Package and sell content
I’m not sure there’s another institution except maybe education that has as much content as the Church. In a day and age where quality content is a challenge for any form of media, Churches create incredible content weekly. From sermons, to worship sessions, to prayers, a lot of Churches are letting incredible content slip by every week. Content that, with quality production, can raise a lot of funds. Either through subscription or selling ad space, sections of weekly services can be packaged and sold to be a blessing, inspiration and encouragement to the public. It takes consciously capturing (recording) and producing these sections in a way that they can be of value and sold.
Resources
- Shopify
- Teespring
- Printful
- Fiverr
- Teachable
- iTunes Podcast
