What Your Church Should Know About Text-to-Give Software
Houses of worship have witnessed drastic declines in giving over the past few years. This has led many ministry leaders to consider using technology such as text-to-give software. Such advanced tithing and donation tools make it possible to raise funds even when attendance is down. In many ways, though, such a resource does much more.
It’s okay if you’re on the fence with text-to-give software. After all, you’re making an investment in your church’s well-being. After reviewing the following guide, however, you’ll likely understand that this form of mobile giving is essential to your ministry’s success.
Mobile Giving Isn’t a Shot in the Dark
When churches don’t use text donation tools, it’s often because they think doing so is a gamble. Church donations had reached historic lows even before COVID-19 entered the picture, so ministry leaders and industry analysts alike sought the best ways to respond. This resulted in many educated guesses and great ideas about how to increase church revenue, but these didn’t always pan out.
This simply isn’t the case for text-to-give software and other mobile solutions. Statistics show that offering mobile giving options increases overall donations and recurring giving. This includes app giving and online donation pages, but online church giving statistics also show that tithing by text services have become a multi-billion dollar industry.
Novel strategies to increase giving sometimes come with risks. When looking at the history of mobile and text giving, though, the benefits are well established.
https://donorwerx.com/articles/text-to-give-increasing-donations-through-mobile-giving/
Text-to-Give Software Has a Learning Curve
An old parable tells us it’s better to teach a man to fish than simply give him a fish. What if that parable, however, focused on giving the man a fishing pole? He would have a powerful resource at his disposal, but unless someone taught him how to use it, it would likely result in no measurable improvement. This holds true with text donation tools as well.
Fortunately, text-to-give software is typically user-friendly. The dashboard on SecureGive, for instance, uses visuals and easy-to-understand data. What church leaders must remember, though, is that there are underlying issues to address. Text donation services are invaluable, but you must use them alongside donor engagement strategies.
Just like giving a man a fishing pole without teaching him to fish, software for text giving is better than having absolutely nothing. After all, this will provide congregants with a simple way to tithe. Without understanding the fundamentals of increasing engagement among them, however, you’ll have a tool that goes woefully underutilized.
How to Use Text-to-Give Software
The text donation software you invest in will dictate the specifics of how you use it. You will no doubt have to learn a few basic functions of the program to track contributions, set up campaigns, send outbound texts and more. How you actually use these tools, though, calls back to the parable of teaching a man to fish.
Your tithing by text strategy should have a few other elements for it to succeed. Just like a fishing pole does very little without a casting line, hooks, bait and other essentials, there are many tools that can make your text-to-give software even more successful:
- Complete integration: It’s best to have a single platform that handles text giving, mobile apps, online donation pages and more.
- Donor journey map: You need to understand your congregants on an instinctive level if you’re to convince them to give. A donor journey map can help accomplish this.
- Donor avatars: While all your parishioners might share common beliefs, there are vast differences among them. Creating donor avatars will identify these differences and help you build better communication plans.
- Unified engagement strategy: Donor engagement is much more than journey mapping and avatars. You need a full engagement strategy — such as that provided in the — DonorWerx Framework – that works hand-in-hand with your text-to-give software.
We’ve focused so much on accompanying tools in this section because they are vital. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) in your text donation software, for instance, you can create improved donor strategies and see whether specific campaigns are working. You can also discover whether certain giving methods are performing better than others among certain groups.
There are plenty of modern alternatives to the church offering plate, but only a full view of your giving “lay of the land” can let you know you’re on the right track. The key takeaway from this is that your church needs digital giving software that handles everything from text donations to kiosk giving. And once you combine this with proven strategies to increase giving, nothing can stop you.
https://donorwerx.com/articles/what-is-online-giving-and-why-does-your-church-need-it/
Invest in Text-to-Give Software Today
Coronavirus may have done serious damage to church giving, but there’s no denying that tithes and donations were already in decline. No single factor can explain this trend, but pastors and other leaders must respond if they want their ministry to survive. Mobile giving is one of the most powerful tools churches can use to overcome modern hurdles and continue into the future.
Text-to-give software is no doubt a step in the right direction, but it cannot be the only step you take. Schedule a discovery call with the giving professionals at DonorWerx today. We’ll help you understand how technology and focused donor engagement strategies can help get your ministry back on track.
