By RaeAnn Slaybaugh

At the 49th-annual conference of the National Association of Church Business Administration in Keystone, Colo., we were introduced to a variety of new products — and old favorites — for the church market.

Get your MBA at 66% percent off! When asked why he was attending NACBA, Darrell Passwater (at right), dean of the School of Business at California Baptist University (CBU), said simply, “We’re here helping churches impact the world for Christ.”

In that spirit, he was excited about CBU’s online MBA program (www.calbaptist.edu), which is now being offered at one-third its original cost. The new pricing structure is designed specifically for church administrators and is offered online for students across the United States.

The student pays one-third the cost, with the requirement that his or her church pays one-third, and CBU pays the rest using scholarship funding.

“The response we’ve gotten from our friends in NACBA and from current students is that the program is great, but that price can be a sticky issue for many congregations in terms of ability to reimburse the student’s tuition,” Passwater explains. “This [program] takes the price from about $18,000 a year to $6,000.”

Planning for your future. Representatives were on hand from Envoy Financial (www.envoyfinancial.org) to spotlight their company’s retirement plans and financial services.

For more than a decade, Envoy has been providing these services and currently serves more than 7,000 ministry professionals. From plan design to implementation, Envoy’s experts are trained to assist — or revamp — a retirement plan that fits any ministry.

Envoy can help you set up a 403b, 401k or group-benefit plan (FSAs, HRAs and HSAs). Executive financial planning is also available for top management, and educational resources are offered for all employees.

Fund raising with integrity. Formerly the Genesis Group, Generis (www.generis.com) professionals have helped more than 1,600 clients raise more than $2 billion to help “build their dreams.” Marketing Manager Jane Chance says that at churches, this usually takes the form of capital-campaign assistance — mostly for new construction.

“We believe it’s less about raising capital and more about raising the spiritual consciousness of a people,” she says. “When that happens, organizations — and individuals — are free to realize their ultimate purpose and potential.”

Call 15 people or 15,000 — it’s all the same to these guys. Reps from OneCall Now (www.onecallnow.com) — formerly MyTeam One Call — were on hand to promote their new name and enhanced phone-tree services. Currently, the OneCall client list numbers more than 5,000, and the server makes 1,000 calls per minute. In total, that’s more than 1 million calls per month.

Better yet, this automated phone-tree system interfaces with all major management-software products, making it even more user-friendly.

In July, the company launched the system in the United Kingdom as well, so now you can set the system to dial up around the world.

It’s easy being green. According to the spokespeople from RNL Design (www.rnldesign.com), a “green attitude” is sweeping America’s churches. Choosing eco-friendly design communicates environmental responsibility and a social conscience — two very good messages for churches to be sending today.

Examples are abundant in the High Desert Church project RNL conducted in Victorville, Calif. At this church, tube-shaped lights embedded in the auditorium ceiling bend natural light from the outside to illuminate the whole space. When it rains, runoff water is collected and recycled to irrigate the church grounds. (Soap is also extracted from the water that’s used for washing hands and, again, used for irrigation.) The children’s building even has a grass roof! (See photo on pg. 14)

“Churches are starting to wake up,” says RNL Principal Doug Spuler (below, right). “If you’re thinking long-term, this can save you millions of dollars over 30 or 40 years.”

That’s the ticket! ServiceU (www.serviceu.com), makers of online software designed especially for churches, highlighted their TicketU online ticketing service. This feature lets people buy tickets to church events anytime, anywhere and eliminates the frustration of standing in line. It even lets church leaders assign reserved seating for a more personal touch and offers commercial strength to support paid or free events and online or onsite ticket sales.

Other ServiceU modules support event management, room scheduling, event registration, online donations and e-mail newsletters.

Laying the groundwork with style. Mondo (www.mondousa.com) reps say their new Advance maple-look flooring is just right for churches, especially in multipurpose areas. Advance comes in either triple- or double-layer designs and 18 standard colors to suit any environment.

This unique flooring’s first layer is comprised of vulcanized rubber for safety and comfortable play. The second, “resilient” layer is made of 100-percentnatural and synthetic rubber. The bottom layer — for shock absorption — is tear-proof.

As seen on TV. It used to be that only large churches could afford to make television commercials, but with Faith Highway’s (www.faithhighway.com) packages, this is no longer the case.

For the past 15 years, Faith Highway experts have worked with more than 6,000 churches worldwide — and they’ve achieved impressive results. More than 80 percent of those clients saw measurable growth while running the commercials; more than 30 percent reported significant growth in the first six months of airing them; and 14 percent grew more than 75 percent in the first five months.

Break it up! Rich Maas, vice president of marketing for Screenflex Portable Partitions (www.screenflex.com), says he regards the church market as extremely viable. “I go to a fair amount of church conventions, and in the last several months I’ve seen lots of expansion,” he says. Chief among the reasons for this growth are the need for classrooms.

His company’s partitions are designed to meet this demand and feature quite a few customizable options, including wood-grain freestanding cabinets, multi-unit connectors, doors, marker boards, panel locks (to hold the panels in position at any angle), windows, wall frames and chalkboards.

Catholic-friendly CMS. Logos Management Software promoted its Logos Catholic programs (www.logoscatholic.com) — two dynamic tools that score an A+ with parishes across the nation. Logos Sacramental Register lets users manage their Sacramental records, organize registers and print certificates.

And, adding Logos II Church Management program lets them maintain a single member profile for Sacraments, contributions, religious education and family information.

Logos Ministry Schedule offers detailed member profiles that track each person’s active schedule and the masses when they serve. It also keeps track of exceptions (vacations, for example) and sets links to other family members.

Software built for a church, by a church. Fellowship Technologies (www.fellowshiptech.com) highlighted its revolutionary enterprise church-management solution (eCMS), Fellowship One.

Fellowship One was created for Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, to meet the need for a more effective, efficient way to handle the growing demands of a dynamic church.

Fellowship Technologies reps say their program offers a number of unique advantages, including secure data backup, free upgrades, a browser-based platform, contact-management capabilities, real-time attendance tracking, a check-in module, and Weblink, which integrates the church’s website with Fellowship One to provide online giving, event registration, small-group assembly and more.

It might say “lite,” but it doesn’t act like it. EMS Lite (www.dea.com) is a user-friendly room-scheduling software designed to manage the meetings and events that take place at a church facility. Starting and less than $1,300, this program is a cost-effective solution for churches that need to schedule rooms in a single building.

Standard features include Reservation Wizard; a graphical reservation book; month-at-a-glance calendar; and a number of clear, concise report functions. There’s also a user-defined custom-calendar function for virtually limitless reporting.

Users can also add Virtual EMS, a dynamic Web-based interface that’s easily configured to expose only the information you want to make public and adapt to your church’s rules for online requests and reservations.

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Your 16-Step Guide to a Successful Program This Fall
By RaeAnn Slaybaugh

Whether you’re planning a harvest festival, bake sale or something much bigger, success is in the details.

1. Name a chairperson. Choose the right person for the job based on his or her reliability, availability, organizational skills, popularity and commitment to the cause.

2. Assemble a committee. For starters, experts recommend selecting one adult per 10 children. Once you’ve gathered all participants, young and old, list their names and phone numbers. Then, designate one person to be responsible for all the funds collected.

3. Set a dollar goal. Make sure it’s devised based on your group’s monetary need, not just a figure that sounds feasible. Also get specific — how much money will each person need to raise to achieve it?

4. Decide what to sell. Ask your group not only what they would like to sell, but what they absolutely wouldn’t like to sell. Its quality should be commensurate with its price.

5. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Look to your organization’s successful past efforts for inspiration. Most likely, there is a sense of expectation among your buyers for that product, which translates to better sales.

6. Don’t rely on profit margin alone. As many experts point out, an item with a 50-percent profit potential might sound tempting vs. one that offers a 40-percent yield. However, that 40-percent-profit item might be of better quality and, therefore, more desirable to buyers.

7. You make the call: pre-sale or direct sale? Using a direct-sale approach, many items can be shipped from the supplier in as little as one day. This is ideal if your group needs funds fast. If, on the other hand, your group has four weeks or more to collect its funds, consider passing out pre-sale brochures and following up with order-taking.

8. Factor in hidden costs. Ignoring key elements — such as shipping costs and buying prizes for sellers — can result in major profit losses. One way to avoid this is to solicit sponsors for the prizes so your church pays nothing out-of-pocket. Also, ask sellers of all ages what they’d like to receive in the way of prizes so they’re truly motivated to succeed.

9. Speaking of prizes… Offer different levels of prizes to keep everyone motivated. These might include individual completion prizes (cash, movie tickets) for everyone who sells a pre-determined minimum amount; a best-seller prize for the person who raises the most money; and draw prizes (cash, other merchandise) in which every participant who sells a pre-determined minimum amount is entered.

10. Allow adequate prep time. Not only will this leave your group time to select the perfect fundraiser, it also lets you promote it in your church’s bulletin and on the Web.

11. Make sure your church’s fundraisers don’t overlap. When different small groups conduct programs at the same time, it can create an atmosphere of competitiveness that’s unflattering to the church. Additionally, it’s more difficult to sell two items than one.

12. Set a timeframe and stick to it. Without an end in sight, your group could start to lose its motivation. Many experts suggest putting a 10- to 12-day limit on order-taking.

13. Boost the energy! Remind all volunteers of fund-raising goals and deadlines to keep the program at the forefront of their minds. Also make sure they know how to share why they’re selling the item(s) with buyers; people are more likely to purchase if they support the cause.

14. Special tips for kids.

Encourage children to sell to family members and neighbors first, and to ask their parents to take catalogs and sign-up forms to work. Teach children to be cheerful and courteous when selling — to say “thank you” whether someone buys or doesn’t. Make sure they use the buddy system, or are accompanied by an adult, when selling door-to-door, and that they never enter a stranger’s home or venture out at night to sell.15. Avoid shipping and ordering problems. This can be as simple as looking over the order forms to make sure they’re legible and complete before submitting them to the distributor. Also keep copies of all order forms. Once your products arrive, double-check them against the items received to make sure nothing is missing or damaged.

16. Say “thank you”! When the program is finished, hold a wrap-up meeting or party. At that time, award top sellers with prizes, celebrate your successes as a group, and maybe even discuss the next fundraiser.

Sources: JustFundRaising.com, PartyPantry.com, eFundRaising.com, and FundRaiser-Finder.com

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Your Web Site
Is it seeker-friendly?

In May, 31-year-old Stefan Heinze, a deacon at the Hannover Evanglical Youth in Germany, conducted the world’s first mobile-phone religious service using text messages–six of them, to be exact. One was for a welcome, another was for quotation from Paul, another was for the sermon, two were for the Lord’s Prayer, and then came the closing words.

Simultaneously, Heinze was leading a more traditional worship service for about 80 people. In the 45 minutes allotted, some of the messages sent back were read aloud.

While some pastors might find this approach offensive and impersonal, Heinze says he actually took the service very seriously. “We know there are things we cannot do,” he told Unwired News prior to the service. “You can’t sing together. You can’t celebrate the Last Supper together. But tomorrow the young people will be using their leisure time to celebrate this service wherever they are. That’s a good thing for the Christian way of life. Just break up your ordinary day and spend half an hour with God.”

So it’s not for everyone. But some churches do know how to strike a balance between technology and spirituality. Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas–one of the nation’s largest–is one of the best examples around.

One of Fellowship’s most notable characteristics is its forward-thinking Web site. In addition to daily devotionals and church news, it features sports scores, stock quotes, weather and maps.

Visitors to the Fellowship’s on-line community can also purchase religious books and sermon transcripts, or sign up for sports leagues, which, according to fundraising experts, is just one of the things the church did right when it created its site.

“A Web site is not a technology toy,” says Dee Vandeventer, managing partner of Mathis, Earnest & Vandeventer (ME&V), an integrated marketing, communications and fund-raising consultancy. “Non-profits must think carefully about how to use this tool effectively.”

Also make sure the site is clean and up-to-date, Vandeventer adds. “[This] sends a message that the organization knows what it’s doing and is worth of being taken seriously.” Plus, updated content draws visitors back to the site often. Information about how funds are being used should also be included.

A Web site that does all of these things can be used as a forum for donor recognition, Vandeventer says, and recommends featuring photos of recent donors, enticing others to give.

Once a donor gives on-line, however, follow-up should not be neglected, she points out. “E-mail is an effective form of immediate communication, but people give to people. The Internet is just one more way to reach a community of supporters for your mission.”

–RaeAnn Slaybaugh

See our profile of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas (June 2001), at www.churchbusiness.com/articles/161profi.html

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