Many of the principles of the modern church capital campaign have their foundation in both Old and New Testament examples. The rest of the art of the campaign involves properly bringing to light and applying the truth of the scriptures regarding giving in an effectual and culturally relevant manner.

While some processes and practices have changed or adapted to the times, many remain unchanged and are the foundational elements for all successful church capital campaigns. Some things just don’t change; we call these Foundational Truths. If you approach your capital campaign understanding these truths, you will have a much more spiritually and financially productive campaign.

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8 Foundational Truths of Church Capital Fundraising

Pastors are taught a variety of things, including how to exegete the Word, pastoral care, church planting, and church growth strategies - but no one teaches them what to do when they are successful and need to build church facilities. We are here to help.

Your church will never undertake a task that is more demanding or complicated in terms of cost, risk, and effort than in a church building program. However, those in your church are largely unequipped by either training or experience to lead the church in a building program in a optimal manner.

The purpose, therefore, of our church construction consulting ministry is to equip and guide your church in building the best building for the ministry in a manner that will:

Reduce:  Uncertainty, Cost, Effort, and Risk

Increase:  Satisfaction with the finished project, Unity and concurrence in the body of Christ while building, and Financial support for the project.

Please visit the About Us page for more information about our consulting ministry.

A church capital campaign is a spiritual endeavor that also produces financial fruit.

A church capital campaign is really not about money, it is about helping people understand a kingdom need exists, understanding God's perfect plan of providence through stewardship, and, through teaching and prayer, calling people to the appropriate faith response; for God has provided an abundance for every good work .

What you should expect from a Church Capital Campaign

• Increased unity and support for the building program: spiritually, financially, and emotionally.
• To raise between 1 and 3 times your current annual receipts to the general fund over a 3 year giving period.
• Spiritual growth, as people seek God's will and trust His provision.
• Improved ability to obtain church construction financing.
• The necessary monthly cash flow to help service a mortgage.
• Increased cash reserves to provide a financial safety net.
• Increased excitement in the body of Christ.
• The spiritual benefits of a coordinated time of teaching and preaching regarding our money and possessions.
• Cash for up-front design fees and initial construction expenses.
• Potential to reduce the funds that need to be borrowed.
• In addition to the money raised in the campaign, it is not unusual to see regular tithes and offerings go up 10-15% during a capital campaign.
• The spiritual benefits of putting faith into action.

General stewardship principals teach us to give of our time, treasures, and talents.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:21 that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Treasure certainly implies money or wealth, but actually was probably intended to denote a broader spectrum of those things we feel are important to us. Not only do your members’ money follow what they feel in their heart is important, but so do their time and talents.  Giving of time, treasure, and talents is a heart, or spiritual issue.  What is interesting about Jesus’ quote is that he clearly states that in whatever place you store or invest your treasures, that is where your spiritual center (heart) is.

This passage raises a question much like the chicken and egg question; which comes first, your heart or your investment.  In reality, we see examples of money following heart (that is why missionaries visit churches), and heart following money (your devotion to a particular stock symbol once you have invested in a company).  What is important is to remember that they are linked, so the best strategy to increase both workers (investment of time an talents) and financial support is to implement a strategy that works both ends towards the middle.

If you can convince people of the need and importance of serving, and engage them in doing so, you should also expect an increase in giving from those people.  A recent study, the national study on volunteering just released by the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund (“Gift Fund”) and VolunteerMatch, showed Americans who volunteer their time and skills to nonprofit organizations donate an average of 10 times more money to charity than people who don’t volunteer.  If you engage their heart in serving, their giving goes up.  Conversely if you clearly teach your people about biblical giving, thereby increasing their financial support, they will be more likely to serve, since they now have a greater heart interest in the ministry. Pastor testimonials show that a clear, compelling, and unapologetic teaching of biblical giving principals on an annual basis increase giving 10-30% or more each year.

Addressing both the financial need and the need for workers is done in similar fashion.  As churches learn from annual stewardship programs or capital stewardship campaigns, to get people committed to giving you need to do four things. First, you need to provide the biblical basis for what you are asking; you need to lay the spiritual groundwork. Secondly, you need to clearly communicate the need that exists.  The third step is to clearly and unapologetically make the call to action – tell them what you need them to do and challenge them to a specific action (exhortation).  Finally, the last step and the one where many churches miss the boat, you need to hold them accountable to respond.  While you may not feel as comfortable with this step as the others, you have to take seriously what James said, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.“

All too often pastors across America will just toss the concept of giving out there and hope the congregation responds.  People need to be exhorted in the truest sense of the word.  Strong’s Concordance has, as the definition for exhort (parakalountev),  ”to call to one’s side, summon, admonish, beg, encourage, and instruct.”  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines exhort as “to incite by argument or advice : urge strongly.” From the pulpit we need to lead, instruct, and exhort in every sense of the word.  In general, most people only rise to the lowest level of expectation.  In large part if you toss important ideas out there hoping they will act, the people will probably think about it, but not act.  Often times they only think about it until the end of service.

If there is one thing we learn from church fundraising, you have to have personal dialog with people to get them to invest, whether it is their time or their money.  You have not because you ask not.  But only asking from the pulpit makes it a general issue and everyone assumes someone else will step up to the challenge, and when no one does, people generally don’t feel bad because the are just doing (or not doing) what everyone else is.  Exhorting means you not only need to make it clear over several weeks from the pulpit, but you also need to get face to face with people and make the personal appeal by exhorting them in the truest sense of the word.  At the end of the day, it will be a blessing to the church and to the person giving of their time, talent, and treasure.  So get out there and preach it, teach it, beg if you need to, and incite your people to a Godly response.

As we enter into the fall, now is the time we are helping equip churches to execute a capital campaign in the 1st quarter of 2010. Now is the time to begin to implement a campaign timeline and strategy, recruit capital campaign committee members, and integrate your campaign into the church’s calendar. There are a number of things the church can do to prepare the way; to prepare the fields and sow some seed that will increase the spiritual and financial effectiveness of your capital campaign next spring.

By the time of this post, most of those churches planning a Christmas play or pageant have already begun to organize and mobilize for this event. If you give 3 months to preparing for the Christmas play (a one-day event), how much more time should you give to preparing for a capital campaign which is much more complex and lasts for 6-7 weeks?

All too often churches underestimate the time and effort that goes into preparing for an effective capital campaign. There are several topics for messages, if not entire sermon series, that should proceed the “actual campaign”. There are scheduling issues that need addressed, recruiting, organization, and equipping that needs to be done before you even begin!

Churches that wait until after the first of the year to begin to move on a spring capital campaign will find themselves pressed for time and having deal with more stress and complications than necessary. The church that does not plan ahead will make this wonderful event a burden, not a joy to the staff and committee members. It will, in all likelihood, end up negatively impacting the spiritual effectiveness and financial benefit of the campaign. The earlier your church begins to prepare for its capital campaign, the more effective the campaign will be, and the least stressful for those involved.

Millions of dollars every year are wasted on church building plans that churches cannot afford to build. Many churches let the church building project define the budget, instead of letting the budget drive the design of the church. This simple transposition of steps in the process takes a toll on churches in terms of cost, time, effort, enthusiasm, and support for the project.

Design is part of the building process. Counting the cost does not mean sending your plans to the builder for an estimate. Counting the cost means understanding what you can afford before you begin.  There are a great number of church building plans available, and any number of church architects that will create more, but knowing what you can afford is a necessary step before you concern yourself with design.

The quick answer is that a church capital campaign is not the best tool for obtaining financial support from the community. The reason being that the campaign is strongly based on a Kingdom need and God’s provision to meet that need through His people; an approach that will find little traction with most folks outside your church and faith.

Getting support from the community takes a somewhat different approach, and is much more like a grant writing effort than a capital campaign. The similarity to a campaign  is you will be creating a case for support. This case for support, however, will focus on the ministry of the church and its measurable impact in the community. It will also be much more extensive, objectively detailing what you do and giving a qualitative analysis of how you have impacted the lives of those you have ministered to, and the impact the community

Essentially, you need to tell the story of what you do and how those programs and ministries are improving or serving the community as a whole. You need to make the case and explain what effect the donation you are seeking will make in the community.

It will also be helpful to research your community, find which businesses give to local charity and religious organizations. Also, you can research if there are any local donors or foundations that support programs in the community. These two sources would be the best place to begin looking for financial support for your church, outside it’s four walls.