What You Missed In Mobile Giving for Feb. 16
Happy President’s Day! For many people it’s a day off, but that doesn’t mean fundraising stops. We’ve changed the format of this newsletter from daily to weekly. Let us know what you think in the comments.
Subscribe to the Givelify Mobile Giving Weekly to get all the latest news and resources for church and nonprofit mobile donations and technology sent to you via email. In the meantime, here are the top five stories from last week.
Engage Your Church Members the Starbucks Way
The tables and seating at fast food joints are designed to be uncomfortable. The goal of the entire experience is to increase turnover—get in, get your food, get out. The tables and furniture at Starbucks are comfortable and encourage sitting, staying, and socializing. Their stores have become a de facto casual gathering place and business meeting space. Add in their slick mobile app, their partnership with Apple for the iTunes Song of the Week and App of the Week, and they’ve integrated themselves into people’s everyday lives.
Throughout history, churches have served much the same purpose. They were a hub of their communities, a place where people flocked to worship, engage with each other, and conduct business. They have on the whole, however, been slow to adapt to new technology as a means of remaining relevant. People have sought out and found alternatives like coffee shops, supplanting the central role the church plays in their lives.
Read more on the Givelify blog
Nominees Announced for 16th Annual TechPoint Mira Awards Honoring ‘The Best of Tech in Indiana’
TechPoint, the voice and catalyst of Indiana’s tech ecosystem, has announced the nominees for its 16th annual Mira Awards presented by BKD CPAs & Advisors, which recognize and celebrate the best of tech in Indiana each year.
Winners will be announced at a masquerade-themed, black-tie awards ceremony and gala on Saturday, May 2, at the JW Marriott.
For the second consecutive year, more than half of the applications came from first-time companies, schools, organizations and individuals who had never before entered the Mira Awards. Mike Langellier, president and CEO of TechPoint, said that the high participation-rate by newcomers is a reflection of the growth of tech in the state and a healthy startup scene.
Read more on the TechPoint blog
Why Executive Pastors Can’t Ignore Technology
Helping over 4,000 churches implement software over the last 13 years has taught us a few things at Church Community Builder. One of the most important lessons has been about the role of the Executive Pastor (or the Lead Pastor when the XP position doesn’t exist). Here’s the bottom line about that role: While they may not directly deal with the day-to-day management of church technology, they absolutely set the pace for those who do.
More often than not, we observe executive pastors delegating technology decisions and implementation processes to others without considering the foundational principles necessary for long-term success. The resulting lack of unity and utilization leads to regret, lost opportunity, and wasted money. Let me illustrate: A church of 500 people can easily spend close to $10,000 implementing a new church management system in the first year alone. The ongoing costs of licensing and staff time can make this expenditure one of your largest outside of facilities and salaries. It’s simply good stewardship to make sure you lead this well!
What Can The iPhone Reveal About Philanthropy?
Recent studies of nonprofit donorshave found that the majority aren’t interested in impact. But what if that current reality isn’t also future reality but rather an opportunity? What if just as Apple created a market for smartphones where one didn’t exist, we could create a market for social change funding where one currently doesn’t exist?
As I mentioned in my 10 Great Reads list for January, data wonk Caroline Fiennes reviewed recent studies on donor behavior and found that donors don’t increase their donations when shown nonprofit performance data. And Caroline is not alone, others have also argued that donors just don’t care about performance.
This could be depressing because if donors aren’t interested in the effectiveness of a nonprofit they won’t shift their money to the nonprofits more effective at creating social change. In other words, we have no hope of solving social problems if we can’t channel money to those entities that are actually solving those problems.
5 Methods to Creating Church Instagram Posts
Ah, Instagram — the only social media channel that you can’t schedule ahead of time.
There’s a lot of pain and beauty to that.
Our team recently discovered that Instagram was giving us the largest return on investment. We found that post after post has more engagement than anything we post on Facebook or Twitter. We know that our church uses Facebook more than Twitter, but the statistics for Instagram really changed our minds on what we should be investing our time into, especially during live events.
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