How churches raise their funds to support their activities.
In this resource article we are going to learn how a church raises its funds. The various modes of fund raising methods including special fund raising events , pledges taken by worshippers, giving at freewill , sale of articles and identifying church sponsors are some of the methods discussed here.
Most of the upcoming churches in Africa are small entities set up by individual pastors. After a pastor graduates from a theological college he might find it good to set up a church. In setting up a new church this pastor can be able to exercise what he learned in college. There is always a risk of your knowledge wasting off if you opted to join an established church. In joining an established church the new graduate finds it hard to find a chance to practice what he was taught. This is because of congestion of potential preachers in his church of choice. On setting up a church the pastor now has to device ways and methods of funding his calling. There are various options of fund raising in a church and the pastor is at liberty to even use a mixer of these methods in his quest to look for funds. Taking of pledges from the church members.
Here the church committee identifies a project that they would like funded by the church members. The committee can then design and produce some pledge cards to issue to the worshippers who will be instructed to write on these cards what they would like to give to the church. It is important to note that this method is tricky because most of the worshippers find it hard to retract whatever pledge they made in writing. The pastor must therefore be very careful when attempting to raise fund using the pledge option. There are cases of worshippers who have moved churches after realizing that they cannot meet the pledge they made towards a church project. It might be good to give the worshippers ample time to make up their mind and not be tempted to ambush them with a pledge idea. Giving at free will without having to ask people for written proof.
At time the church committee gives the worshippers freewill to contribute to a project identified without having to ask them actually to make a written pledge. It has been discovered that this method of fund raising although ending up raising less funds is more popular with the worshippers. The worshippers don't feel tricked or ambushed into giving what they had not planned for in the first place. The pastor can either ask the worshippers to publically give their offering or just put it in an envelope which will be handed over to the church ushers on behalf of the church. Normal church offerings which also include the tithe.
The pastor should be versed with the use of bible verses to induce the worshippers into giving generously to the church. In some churches there is a special pastor assigned the duty of asking for offerings from church members. This pastor choses the appropriate verses from the bible to soften the hearts of the worshippers so much so that they find the urgency of funding the church. The preacher assigned such a duty must be a very good researcher of the word otherwise he might end up using the same verses week in week out monotonously. Here we must note that to get new results you need a new method and therefore a new preaching every time you are assigned this noble duty.Organizing fund raising events.
It is common to find churches organizing special fund raising events for particular projects. At these fund raising events important local or even national leaders are invited to serve as guest of honour. It should be noted that the more influential a guest of honour you are able to net the greater your chances of raising more funds from that event. This guest will most likely bring along his influential friends who will also be beneficial to the event. At such events sales of articles can be arranged so that the guest will be able to purchase the goods on sale for the benefit of the church. Raising fund by way of sale of articles during a fund raising event gives opportunity to those who are skilled in handcraft to donate items to the church for this purpose. Also artistes are known to exercise their talents at such events in favour of the church. Therefore professional musicians or actors who are members of the church are known to entertain the guests so as to make the event more colourful and prestigious in the process helping in greater success of the event. Church sponsors are very important component of the church.
The pastor can identify a number of worshippers whom he would assign the sponsorship of the church honours. Preferably these should be business people who have tidy sums of money at their disposal. Failure to identify such funders has made many churches close down shop for failure of meeting their day to day expenditure. The rent for the church premises, electric and water bills are very important components of which the church sponsors would do good to take up. These sponsors will be rewarded by giving them greater say in the way the church affairs are run. The pastor can even further name them church elders to even encourage them more in their funding of the church.
