- Granger just completed their 7th stewardship campaign in the life of their church.
- They did six, 3-year campaigns back-to-back.
- Their most recent campaign was “The New Normal Project.”
- Stewardship campaigns are a great opportunity to recast vision to your church.
- At the same time, you can generate people and financial resources.
1 – They didn’t call it a stewardship campaign.
- The word campaign is associated with war and politics.
- They called it a project… The New Normal Project.
- It gave people handles.
- It articulated what the church was going to do and how people could accelerate it.
- There are special people who want to go above and beyond, and those were the people who were involved in The New Normal Project.
- Looked for language to use from outside of their church.
- In all communications, they would communicate the issues, not the deliverables.
- Communicate the values.
- Don’t just communicate where you are going, talk about what is happening on the ground.
- Focus on the things you want to accelerate [church planting, small groups, etc] and find the values that those vehicles meet [connection, family, friends].
- What is for “our people” is really for “their family, friends, co-workers, etc.”
2 – Spent an entire year working on their 5-year vision
- This campaign became the face of Granger’s 2016 vision.
- Granger crowd-sourced their congregation and had them help them craft the vision.
- Spent 6 months listening to individuals; spent 1 month listening to the congregation; spent 1 month listening to the community and then wrote the vision.
- The crowd gave input on the proposed vision and revised it multiple times until it was perfect.
- Once the vision was complete people were ready to get involved — they had ownership.
3 – They asked for help.
- They did 2 campaigns on their own, 5 with the help of consultants.
- Stewardship consultants are the only free consulting you will get.
- There is a fee, but every single penny and more is a ROI.
4 – They didn’t make it an add-on, it was an extension of who they already were.
- Instead of adding events or extra communication pieces, they looked for ways to weave it into the life of things that were already happening in the church.
- They built a series around it.
- The didn’t do banquets, meetings, desserts, etc.
- It’s not that people don’t love Jesus or the church, they are just busy.
- The only way you can own it corporately is if people can own it individually. The only way people can own it individually s by making it portable.
- Make it easy for people to own.
- It invites more participation.
- It’s sustainable. People are breathing it, not carrying it like a backpack.
5 – They didn’t do extra printing.
- They did away with all of their normal print material and replaced the weekend bulletin with 4 “field guides” that served as their capital campaign material.
- Each guide was 6 pages long, at-a-glace it communicated the core issues and what’s at risk, it had to inspire and lead to action. Each week there was a different action. They didn’t ask for anything all at once. And each piece had to communicate a story [a tweet, blog post, etc].
- They only mailed 1 of the 4 brochures.
- Less material made it easier for people to focus on what was important.
6 – They asked for 2 year pledge instead of a 3 year pledge.
- They knew they were in uncertain economic times.
- The speed of implementation and the speed of culture makes it easier to go shorter.
7 – Took 24 businessmen on a vision weekend to California.
- They paid their own way.
- Senior leadership made personal invites for the businessmen to have an informal, relaxed time to get answers about everything and hear the vision first-hand.
- They were high-level thinkers who had the time and money to invest.
8 – It was the first project that soley focused on the And… attractional and missional.
- It was only the 2nd project that wasn’t all about buildings.
- A lot of it was focused on how they as a church could be more missional.
- Raised the level of complexity on communication.
- It’s easy to sell a building.
- On this project they were asking people to commit to missional communities… but instead of calling it that, they used language that gave people a handle on what they were trying to.
9 – The level of transparency was increased.
- Had multiple Q&A venues where people could push back, ask questions, etc.
- Senior team allowed anyone to ask anything.
- It’s risky.
- The level of transparency was HIGH.
10 – There was no big unveiling at the end.
- Campaigns are a big add-on in addition to the normal ministry that happens at churches.
- Portability, personalization and options are important.
- They created a microsite to tell the story and identify the unifying issues; to inspire and invite participation advocacy in multiple ways [social tools, mobile tools, etc]; and to serve as an ongoing update of what’s happening throughout the life of the campaign.
- They asked people why it was important for them to make a commitment when they made a pledge.
- All of those responses were published to the website sharing why it was important to them.
- They created a progress bar to show the stats for commitments coming in from different services, locations, etc.
- People were excited about seeing the real-time progress.
- It created a shared narrative.
- People were excited about it.
- Drip communication is important.
- Keep following-up with the donors… share the ongoing story of what’s happening as a result of the campaign.
- It fosters relationship.
- You’re communicating with the people who are already committed to the vision.
- What’s motivating to the donors if you don’t invest in communicating with them throughout the long haul?
- Up until the commitment, they are asking “Save the date, pray, etc.”
- After the commitment, it’s all about keeping them informed.
- Show them how their money is at work.
- Tell stories.
11 – Kept it in people’s faces.
- Put together a strategy that kept the campaign in front of people.
- Some of that communication was just to donors, other was over the weekend to the entire congregation.
- At least every 3 months they have something specific and significant in weekend services where they reference The New Normal Project.
12 – Phasing of the Website
- Phase 1 of the website was strictly for people at their church making the commitment and all of the tools to support that.
- There are 2 types of givers…
- Boomers are all in.
- Millennials are different.
- Engage large donors who can make large pledges or one-time gifts.
- Millenials can give more small one-time gifts.
- They can spread the word and be just as passionate.
Q&A
- They didn’t commit to doing any of the work until the money have been received.
- They didn’t raise all of the money that they wanted to.
- People weren’t disappointed.
