Sometimes, the best ideas are the least intuitive. That’s often the case when trying to engage non-givers in your church to take a first step toward generosity.
Let’s start with two crucial church generosity questions:
- What percentage of active households give to your church? (You should know this number!)
- What is your specific plan to engage these financially disengaged people?
Understanding the Financially Disengaged
When I was a lead pastor, I was perpetually shocked by the number of people who did not give to their church. I knew so many of these people—they loved our church, invited others to our church, and had their children baptized in our church. Yet they remained financially disengaged.
It wasn’t a financial problem. Not to be too judgmental, but I spent time in their homes, rode in their German cars, and envied their European vacations. These people could give, but they chose not to. Or they chose not to prioritize giving as part of their financial planning.
You know people like this as well. They love your church but aren’t financially committed. It’s not that you’ve ignored the subject—you’ve preached about generosity and thanked givers every week. But for some reason, these people seem entirely resistant to opening their financial hands to their church.
To engage these individuals on a generosity journey, we must first understand why they remain disengaged.
Why Don’t People Give to Their Church?
The reasons people don’t give are as varied as the people themselves. While some issues, like financial hardship, are beyond our control, the more likely reasons for financial disengagement are:
1. Lack of Trust or Transparency
Some people may hesitate to give if they don’t trust how the money is being used or feel there’s a lack of transparency regarding the church’s finances. This is especially significant for those who’ve been burned by generosity in the past.
2. Dissatisfaction with Church Leadership
People may choose not to give if they’re dissatisfied with the church’s leadership or direction. They won’t tell you, but their frustration (even if only a little) is a powerful excuse to withhold donations.
3. Personal Beliefs
Conflicting personal beliefs may lead some to withhold their financial support, especially if they disagree with how the church uses its funds. In many cases, these people don’t know how the church uses funds, so a lack of information can create an easy disagreement.
4. Lack of Engagement
People who don’t feel connected to the church community may be less likely to give, as they may not feel invested in the church’s mission or financial needs.
While these reasons can be frustrating for church leaders, they can be directly addressed.
Inspiring Non-Givers to Take the First Step
Generosity is a journey. As a church leader, it’s your job to guide people along a discipleship pathway that includes growing in generosity. Ignoring the heart of giving is spiritual malpractice.
The first step of generosity is often the most challenging. First-time giving obstacles are real and must be addressed. Trust, transparency, and lack of engagement keep people on the financial sidelines. Passing an offering bucket or preaching about giving once a year won’t move the needle for the disengaged. To inspire their first generosity step, here’s the secret:
Ask Non-Givers to Give Through Your Church to Something Outside of Your Church
Tipping—giving a few dollars to a practical need or specific ask—is often the first step on any generosity journey. Non-givers need an accessible, practical, tangible, and emotional step to begin their journey.
That’s the power of giving through your church to something outside of your church.
As part of our Generosity Accelerator Course, many churches use this tactic to engage non-givers to take a first step. I’ll share some results later, but if you’re interested in this strategy, here’s how to get started:
Steps to Implement
- Select a Trustworthy Organization
Choose a local organization, non-profit, or community need that is doing great work. This organization needs to be trustworthy to help you build trust with non-givers. Vet them before giving to them. - Select a Sunday to Support This Effort
Dedicate a specific Sunday to this cause and focus all giving efforts on it. - Create a Giving Mechanism
Set up a dropdown selection via your online giving platform, use a QR code, or have a text-to-give number dedicated to this effort. Ensure that giving for this purpose is separate from regular giving and is tractable to the giver. - Promote the Effort
Promote the effort the week before and make giving easy on the collection day. Use stories from the organization to activate participation. The ask needs to be highly practical and emotional. - Focus on Participation, Not Dollars
Make the financial contribution relatively small. Asking everyone to give $4 is an easy first step. The dollar figure is less important than the accessibility of the number. Use $4, $5, or $10. Just keep the financial ask minimal to encourage participation.
The steps to implement this idea are simple. But let’s not count our donations quite yet.
Making Generosity First-Steps Systematic
If you do this once, many non-givers will participate. But we’re trying to establish first-step onramps throughout the year. Systems simplify steps.
Here are some systematic suggestions:
- Make It a Monthly Moment
Focus on a different organization or need each month. Many churches do this every fourth Sunday, calling it “$4, FOR our Community, every Fourth Sunday.” Another church calls the first Sunday of the month “Love Does Sunday.” Attendance patterns dictate the need for consistent on-ramps. Offering a monthly opportunity also allows you to highlight stories from the previous month to activate participation for the next. - Brand These Days
Branding the day makes it feel more important. When you brand a day dedicated to helping the community, the message to guests and non-givers is clear: “We care about everyone, not just us.” - Follow Up with First-Time Givers
Use an email nurture sequence to follow up with all first-time givers. NOTE: Every Wednesday, I publish a new Substack Post where we dig a little deeper and consider application steps. Tomorrow on the Substack, I’m giving you email samples for the nuture sequence.
What You Can Expect
The first question I get when presenting this idea is always the same. You may worry that your current givers will abandon generosity to your church and begin giving to these other organizations instead. I get it—that’s a natural response. But it’s also rooted in scarcity thinking.
Think about it. All the non-givers currently in your church aren’t giving anyway. A moment like this can build trust and give them a reason to test generosity. Most of your current givers will give over and above what they already give. I mean, we’re only asking for $4. A few people may divert their regular giving to this moment, but the volume of new givers starting their generosity journey will more than make up for the few losses.
The Results Speak for Themselves
This is more than just a good idea—it’s a proven system that’s part of the Generosity Accelerator Course and is available to all Church Accelerator Partners.
Bryant Golden, the senior pastor at Centerpoint Church in Tampa, Florida, launched a monthly “For the City” campaign last year. They invited everyone in their church to give to a different community organization or need on the fourth Sunday of each month. Here’s what they experienced:
- 206% Increase in NEW GIVERS
- 62% Increase in TOTAL GIVERS
- 26% Growth in TOTAL GIVING
- 112% Increase in RECURRING GIVERS
It may be coincidental, but they also saw:
- 48% growth in ATTENDANCE
- 13% increase in SERVING
By creating a first step along the generosity journey, Centerpoint Church is experiencing a massive increase in first-time givers, total givers, recurring givers, and every other giving metric—and even engagement metrics.
One More Thing…
You’re probably aware of our Church Accelerator Community. All our Partners have unlimited access to our resource section, full of courses, frameworks, supporting documents, and our new Custom AI tools (Sermon Outline Creator, Sermon Evaluator, Small Group Question Writer, and more).
Partnership begins at $149 per month, which gets you about $5,000 in resources. Don’t wait. Become a partner today.
If you’d like personalized coaching for you, a staff member, or your church, check out the Strategic Partner and Community Partner options. I limit the number of these options to maximize my investment in each church and pastor. Let me know if you are interested.
Leading With You,
