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Creative & Proven Strategies
Presented by: The Gage Group
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Table of Contents Paul Gage, founder and president of The Gage Group in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX, discusses expert (but not widely known) strategies related to the five phases of capital campaigns: preparation, organization, campaign, commitment and giving / follow-up. In this insightful series, he answers some critical questions: PHASE 1: PREPARATION IS A GAME-CHANGER
PHASE 4: COMMITMENT 4
• What does true preparation look like leading up to the publicfacing phase of a capital campaign?
• Some churches have conducted capital campaigns before — successfully. What’s something they don’t know about preparation?
• “Commitment expectations” — what should a church expect from Commitment and Offering?
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• Generally speaking, when a church does a good job in the Organization phase of its capital campaign, what does that look like? • How does the PRAYER component of the Organization phase shape up? • What 3-4 PRESENTATION elements are most effective, whether a pastor is speaking to the entire congregation or a small, select group of givers? • How has the PREACHING component of the Organization phaseevolved or changed over time?
PHASE 3: THE CAMPAIGN
•T he Commitment Service is the “big day” — the culmination of the campaign’s Preparation and Organization phases. What does this Commitment Service look like? •T he First Offering is “the day the giving experience begins.” How might this experience differ from the Commitment Service?
• What does a financial roadmap look like?
PHASE 2: GET ORGANIZED! THE 3 P’S OF A SUCCESSFUL CAPITAL CAMPAIGN
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PHASE 5: GIVING & FOLLOW-UP
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•Y ou mentioned that during Phase 5, church leaders will focus their communications on a few specific groups: those who have made financial commitments, and church leadership. Explain. •A s a church leader develops a follow-up communication strategy, what components or strategies that work across the board? •Y ou emphasized the importance of offering “on-ramps to giving” throughout the campaign, right up and into Phase 5. What do those look like? •W hat percentage of pledges should a church realistically expect to collect by the time Phase 5 concludes?
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• What are the overarching aims and characteristics of the Campaign phase? • In the past 15-20 years, how has the Campaign phase — i.e., the public phase — changed in terms of its typical duration • With regard to the pastor sermons component of the Campaign, you mentioned that pastors were previously compelled to preach about stewardship and sacrificial giving five to six Sundays in a row. Is that still the case? • You have said that Bible study groups aren’t always receptive to entire sessions spent on money matters during the Campaign phase. What are some alternatives? • What has changed about the consultant’s role in the public phase of the capital campaign compares to 15 to 20 years ago?
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PREPARATION is a game-changer for capital campaign success By Paul Gage
Q: What does true preparation look like leading up to the public-facing phase of a capital campaign? A: For many churches, a major building project is their Super Bowl. They’ve got to be prepared for each phase of the big game — study the film, know their strengths and weaknesses, put together the best team and game plan.
Are You Ready?
To be fully prepared, a church would first have to develop a financial roadmap for success. We’ll get into that more in a minute. We must begin by creating the game plan — a campaign strategy, including the timeline and all the details within the calendar. Then, you must have a solid team in place to execute the game plan, whether they’re laypeople, staff or — for large churches — an executive team. Then, as a consultant, I coordinate the communication resources and training materials. In addition, I will help determine if the communication strategy will be done in-house or utilize outside professionals. Now, we are ready to move the ball up the field at the proper pace. Only then are we prepared to go to the next step: getting everybody organized. We’ll get in depth on that phase in our next series installment. Q: What does a financial roadmap look like? A: First, you need to define your purpose. What are we doing? Why do we want to raise money? Then, it would be wise to determine the church’s giving and financing potential. For most churches, we begin the process approximately four to six months before a capital campaign is publicly launched. We can help the church with a preliminary giving analysis to determine its giving potential.
A church needs to determine what kind of financing it is able to afford. It’s like driving across town and touring a multi-million-dollar home. You might fall in love with it, but there’s not a bank in town that would loan you the money to buy that home if you can’t afford it. Or, hypothetically, let’s say the bank says your church can borrow $10 million. While that’s more money than you’re willing or able to pay back, 4
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the bank feels like you can or they wouldn’t loan it to you. But the point is, the church would be in a sizable debt, and it will probably limit ministry. As an alternative, the church can raise half through a capital campaign and finance the additional $5 million balance. This will limit the debt exposure and frees up more revenue for missions, programs, staffing and everything else. Q: Some churches have conducted capital campaigns before — successfully. What’s something they don’t know about preparation?
A: That what they’ve done in the past might not necessarily work today. For example, recently I was talking to a small church that’s building a new $8-million worship center. Since their last building campaign, the church has grown substantially and they don’t understand why they should hire a fundraising consultant. In years past, when they needed to raise money, they just told the congregation what they needed, and God’s people showed up and paid for it — but they’ve never pursued a project of this magnitude. Unless they have several people who can underwrite 50 percent or more of the project cost, they are unlikely to raise this kind of money. There are so many things in life that are constantly changing. Some churches adapt; others get stuck in ‘what we’ve always done.’ And there are constant changes in capital campaign trends, too. Because we do this every day, we understand the positive and productive trends. Sometimes, it’s one or two small decisions that make all the difference in a congregation’s level of participation. All this equates to preparation. Are you utilizing every advantage available to you and being prepared in the best way you possibly can? — Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh Paul Gage is founder and president of The Gage Group www.thegagegroup.com in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX. Gage has more than 30 years of ministry experience and has personally provided consulting for 500-plus successful capital campaigns, assisting pastors and church members to raise in excess of $1 billion
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STRATEGIES Presented by: The Gage Group
Get organized! 3 priorities for a successful campaign In this series installment, Paul Gage — who has consulted more than 500 church capital campaigns, with results exceeding $1 billion — focuses on the second phase of a campaign: Organization. According to Gage, the three most critical components of this phase are Prayer, Presentation and Preaching. Generally speaking, when a church does a good job in the Organization phase of its capital campaign, what does that look like? Recently, I concluded a very successful campaign with a church in Fresno, CA. They needed to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art children’s facility — the largest project in their 25-year history. With a campaign strategy, calendar and leadership team in place as part of the first phase (Preparation), I started to meet consistently with the leadership team to begin the Organization phase. The church is large enough — running about 2,000 in attendance — that it was a staff-led campaign. That meant the leadership team had full-time, dayto-day responsibilities. Pursuing a major capital initiative would require of them additional time, expertise and work. So, it was imperative that the Organization phase of the campaign be designed to ensure they had appropriate time to complete the work. Over a 90-day period, we were able to have numerous on-site meetings to train and organize each team. I provided the training materials and communication resources they needed for this phase of the campaign. During the time I was away from the church, the leadership team had one or two meetings on its own to mobilize the plan. The goal was to organize the team, meet regularly, and communicate frequently to hit targeted deadlines and avoid taking any shortcuts. How does the PRAYER component of the Organization phase shape up? It all begins with prayer, and it is paramount to everything we do in this spiritual journey. We make prayer a priority, which means that everyone participates. We ask churches to establish a prayer emphasis during the public-facing phase of the campaign. Usually, that ranges from three to four weeks. During the 90-day Organization period, we get all prayer materials prepared for distribution. Depending on the church, prayer / devotional guides must be written, produced and printed so they can be handed out during worship service. Some churches use social media and websites to post daily or weekly devotions. Churches that are advanced in their data collection practices can distribute the prayer / devotional guides electronically via email, text or even their church app.
#1: Purpose. He addressed the “what” and the “why” of the campaign. (What: building a new children’s facility. Why: to meet a growing demand for children’s ministry, to reach the next generation, and to bringing new families into the church.) #2: Timing. In this same church — once the congregation knew the “what” and “why” — they wanted to know when. There had to be a finish line. When do we break ground? How long will it it take to build the facility? When can we invite our friends and the community to be a part of it? #3: Ministry benefits. When a presentation is effective, the audience walks away knowing everything they need to know to support the campaign. In the Fresno church, the pastor talked about safety and security measures for the children, and how the brand-new, state-ofthe-art facility would improve methods and classrooms. It would have a theatre atmosphere, using art and music. It would be more enjoyable, more exciting and their experience will have a lasting impact by hearing the life-changing message of Christ. #4: Financial plan. Once people are excited and “all in,” they want to know how the church plans to pay for the project. Key questions: What’s the cost? Will there be any financing? If so, can the church afford additional debt? And then, it gets personal: What’s expected of me? To pray? To seek the Lord in this level of commitment to generous giving? Will I be asked for a one-time gift, or can I give over a period of time? How has the PREACHING component of the Organization phase evolved or changed over time?
In your experience, what 3-4 PRESENTATION elements are most effective, whether a pastor is speaking to the entire congregation or a small, select group of givers?
Leading up to a capital campaign, pastors are doing a better job casting the vision — getting people spiritually prepared, and conveying how the campaign will help fulfill the church’s mission, locally and globally. They’re also doing a lot more teaching and instruction. While the Fresno church pastor delivered a preaching series — which was very powerful — he also shared a video series of life-changing testimonies and introduced the future impact the church will have in the community. One Sunday service, he invited the children’s pastor to present the new children’s programs and cool things the church would be doing in the new space. Members got a lot more than a sermon; they got a real visual aid for how this project would reach children, families and the community for generations to come. — Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh
In the Fresno church, the objective of the presentations was to get the pastor in front of as many people as possible to communicate four things:
Paul Gage is founder and president of The Gage Group www.thegagegroup.com in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX.
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PHASE 3: The Campaign
In this series installment, Paul Gage spotlights the public phase of the process: the Campaign itself. It’s a critical time — and it requires plenty of prep work to get right.
What are the overarching aims and characteristics of the Campaign phase? The bottom line is that the Campaign phase is when we bring people to the point of decision. It’s the public phase. The Campaign is a spiritual journey — a three- or four-week process involving preaching, prayer, preaching and information-sharing. It’s a culmination; by this time, we will have spent weeks (if not months) preparing and organizing for this phase, when we bring people to that point of decision. It’s like Billy Graham coming to a big stadium in your town. There’s an agreement for him to come which was put into motion about two years in advance. All the planning, preparation and promotion make it possible for him to be in town for three or four nights, preaching the Gospel. Everything is in place for him to bring people to a point of decision during that time. In the past 15 to 20 years, how has the Campaign phase — i.e., the public phase — changed in terms of its typical duration? Over a period of years, the feedback we’ve received from church leaders is that the Campaign lasted a long time, which has the potential to generate negative responses among their people. The pastor is always preaching about money! It’s been going on for five, six, seven weeks — enough is enough. It’s hard to invite friends, family or lost people to church because we know the pastor is trying to raise money for a building program. Aside from the sermons, Sunday school classes and small groups were geared toward finances. Many churches just prefer not to do that. Today, the public phase of the campaign is shorter — maybe 3 or 4 weeks of preaching — involving more vision casting and conveying information to people. Now, during the previous phase of the campaign — Organization — we’re meeting with people in different environments, including major donors and small groups. This will take place for three or four weeks before the Campaign begins. With regard to the pastor sermons component of the Campaign, you mentioned that pastors were previously compelled to preach about stewardship and sacrificial giving five to six Sundays in a row. Is that still the case? I would say that Campaign preaching series for two or four Sundays is more common, but the focus today is different. The message isn’t just about money matters, generosity, sacrifice or contentment; it’s really more about vision, serving people, and changed lives — things that are more missional and inspirational.
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You have said that Bible study groups aren’t always receptive to entire sessions spent on money matters during the Campaign phase. What are some alternatives? We want the lead pastor to maintain as much visibility and leadership as possible, and we don’t want to disrupt the curriculum already in place. So, instead of having four to six weeks of Bible studies or small groups devoted to finances, we’ll show a three- to four-minute video of the pastor speaking to the group, or a testimonial by people in the church speaking about ministry impact or a personal story about life change. With this approach, we can actually show the areas and ministries we’re going to be influencing and impacting through the generosity of our people. We’re seeing a lot more of that today than, “OK, everybody bring your Bibles and we’re going to talk about generosity tonight.” What has changed about the consultant’s role in the public phase of the capital campaign compared to 15 to 20 years ago? The role of the consultant in today’s modern church is less visible than it has been in days past. We might not have any presence to the congregation. We might not be up on the stage. Sometimes, we’re not even in meetings or presentations where the information is getting conveyed to the people to get them excited about the campaign; usually, that’s headed up by the pastor, campaign chairman or building committee representative. One reason people give to capital programs is because of the trust and confidence in their pastor and church leaders. Our role as consultant is to put the pastor and the church in the best position to succeed. — Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh Paul Gage is founder and president of The Gage Group www.thegagegroup.com in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX. churchexecutive.com
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PHASE 4:
Commitment For church leaders preparing for a capital campaign “commitment service” is similar to football coaches preparing for the Super Bowl. Here, Paul Gage weighs in on how to maximize this giving experience. You have said that Commitment Service is the “big day” — the culmination of the campaign’s Preparation and Organization phases. What does this Commitment Service look like? When a church pursues a major building project, it is often the biggest financial challenge in its history. We spend months preparing and organizing for the Commitment Service. At this point, we are focused and spiritually ready for the “big day.” The people have processed all the information, and prayed for God to lead in their decision to give gladly and generously to expand God’s work in their local church. For many churches, the Commitment Service is designed to be a worshipful experience and encourages everyone to present their commitments during the planned service. Most churches will receive the commitment cards at the conclusion of a worship service by passing an offering plate or by having the people come forward and place commitment cards at a designated area. For many, this is a very powerful moment in their spiritual lives. It is important that everyone has a commitment card. Usually, the cards are circulated before the worship service by placing cards in the church bulletins or in the pews / chairs. The key is encouraging everyone to participate and make their commitment known during this Commitment Service. You have said the First Offering is “the day the giving experience begins.” How might this experience differ from the Commitment Service? It used to be the commitment and offering were introduced at the same time. With churches growing larger in size, it is now more productive to separate the two services. The larger churches will experience 20- to 30-percent rotation in their congregation any given Sunday. So, instead of having a combined commitment and offering service, we are introducing the next Sunday to begin the initial First Fruits offering. Many churches will experience offerings up to 10 percent or greater of the total commitments. We encourage the church to give as much of their commitment up front during this First Offering. In every campaign, there will be many that will give to the offering that are not ready to make a long-term financial commitment. This allows everyone the opportunity to participate. churchexecutive.com
Let’s talk about “commitment expectations.” What should a church expect from Commitment and Offering? Recently, I was talking with a church that was completing a three-year campaign. This campaign experience had not been favorable, so now they were seeking other alternatives. We talked about how much was pledged — $4 million — and how much has been collected: $1.7 million. I asked what was received in the First Offering, and they said the previous company never mentioned an Offering; the emphasis was only on the pledges. My next question was the percentage of commitment participation — 38 percent of regular donors made a pledge. A few quick evaluations: • A church will often receive commitments from 60 percent of regular donors — not of total members or attendance. Churches that have more than 5,000 in attendance will see 50 percent to 60 percent participation. • A church will often receive a 5 percent to 10 percent of total pledges in the First Offering. This must be promoted from the very beginning of the campaign presentations. • A church will often collect 80 percent of commitments with a good follow-up strategy. Churches that have more than 5,000 in attendance will collect up to 70 percent. As you can see, to achieve these levels of participation in most churches, it is critical that a First Offering and regularly scheduled offerings are implemented to collect the total pledges. The offerings will allow one-third or more of your congregation to participate in the campaign — individuals who might not otherwise make a long-term commitment on a card. — Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh Paul Gage is founder and president of The Gage Group www.thegagegroup.com in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX.
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Phase 5: Giving & Follow-up The fifth and final phase of a capital campaign is all about a commitment to consistent communication. Here, Paul Gage explains why this is so critical, and how to make sure it happens. You mentioned that during Phase 5, church leaders will focus their communications on a few specific groups: those who have made financial commitments, and church leadership. Explain. Among those who have made pledges, we sometimes can segment those people and communicate accordingly. For example, if 60 percent of the congregation made a financial commitment, within that 60 percent might be a very small group of people who made large pledges. For this group, you might have special meetings or discussions to keep them well-informed of how the ministry and projects are going, because they’re making a very significant financial investment in church’s future. Then, there’s church leadership. We must keep them fully informed so they can continue to influence the people they lead regarding the positive developments in the church and the ministries that are impacting people’s lives. Everyone needs to be a positive voice, and the best way to do that is to keep the leaders motivated and well-informed. The third group are those that have made pledges and are regular attenders of the church. They also need to be well-informed and involved. As a church leader develops a follow-up communication strategy, what components or strategies that work across the board? Words of encouragement. When I say that, I mean delivering positive information to the congregation, especially during worship services. This is an ideal time to share updates and good things that are taking place related to the capital campaign. Quarterly financial reports for each individual pledge. Sending quarterly status reports keeps everyone informed and up-to-date on their pledge. Especially if it’s a three-year campaign, many people lose sight of where they are in terms of their financial commitment. Video updates. A lot of churches show video updates every month during the campaign — often during worship services, but also on their website and in e-communications. One church we’re working with is doing a $20-million capital campaign, which includes expanding its global missions. They adopted an orphanage in Haiti. They sent their people to help build the facility, manage and oversee it. They also had people taking video footage and ministering to the kids, making them feel loved and welcomed. When the church show those videos back home, the church family’s hearts are about to explode. They just want to continue supporting the ministry. Social media. More and more churches are using social media forums to communicate. In the modern digital age, we try to take advantage of that for consistent communication. 8
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You emphasized the importance of offering “on-ramps to giving” throughout the campaign, right up and into Phase 5. What do those look like? For multi-year campaigns, we recommend having annual commitment and offering weekends. It’s a mistake to have one initial pledge and commitment service at the beginning, and then hope for the best for the remaining three years. That annual commitment weekend brings new people onboard financially. Other onramps can be offered two or three times a year as special offerings, and they might be tied directly to a project. For an example, a church we’re working with is building a new children’s wing. Its location is where the church parking used to be, so they have to add parking spaces. We broke down the cost of adding 100 new parking spaces — about $1,500 each — and gave people the opportunity to invest in one, or commit to paying for one for 90 days. Any creative special gift of offering opportunity we can do is an onramp to giving. And we find a lot of people will give to those who maybe didn’t otherwise make a pledge to the campaign. Financial seminars and workshops are another onramp. In a three-year capital campaign, a lot of churches might have one or two of these, led by an up-to-date financial or estate planner. This is good for people who might want to have a living trust or to establish the church as a beneficiary in their estate. Debt-reduction workshops or seminars are another onramp. Especially over the course of a few years, this frees up more resources to support God’s work. What percentage of pledges should a church realistically expect to collect by the time Phase 5 concludes? In a two- or three-year campaign, most churches will collect 75 percent to 80 percent of what’s pledged. To exceed that, the things we’ve talked about in this installment are essential: consistent communication; commitment and offering weekends; onramps to giving. If a church is good at all these, it will greatly benefit the fulfilment of pledges. And, as more people come into the church, it has greater potential to exceed 85 percent. If a church collects 90 percent to 95 percent of what’s pledged, it’s because it has done a great job in all these areas. — Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh Paul Gage is founder and president of The Gage Group www.thegagegroup.com in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX.
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