How to Run a Church Cause Campaign Using Pushpay

There are few things that can empower and solidify a congregation like a cause that everyone can rally behind. It’s good to periodically find a cause for your congregation to support. It can be an international cause that can galvanize your local church, or you might even find a local cause that can help your church have a more profound effect on your community. The transparency that this kind of campaign can offer can also help increase your weekly giving as it brings the community together and gives them visibility to their generosity.

You’ll only need three things to pull off a really strong cause campaign:

1. A cause to rally around

Find a Story

There’s a lot of need in the world, so there shouldn’t be any lack of compelling causes to get passionate about. There are a lot of great places to discover them:

• Social media (look at the “trending” section of Facebook’ sidebar for ideas)
• Your denomination
• Charities
• Local organizations and other churches
• Travel and other mission trips

If you want to make a plan out of sponsoring a few causes a year, empowering your congregation to find those needs and elevate them to the leadership can be a great way to get church workers even more enthusiastic.

Talk It Up

The next step is to start to build some momentum and get everyone on board. If the cause has its own promotional materials, you can use them to get people excited about it. If it doesn’t, you can create your own videos, skits, or talking points to get people thinking about the need, and give a welcome speech to introduce the event at a high level.

Set a Fundraising Goal

You’ll want to set a goal for the funds you’re going to raise as a congregation. There’s going to be a temptation to set a low bar because you want a goal your church can meet, but you’re going to be surprised at how much your church is willing to give when they’re rallying around something tangible and important. You want the goal to be attainable, but you want them to have to stretch to reach it.

2. A plan for raising awareness

It’s important that you take this beyond your congregation. This is an awesome way to build relationships and establish your church as a meaningful member of your community. If you make it simple and easy, much like giving, people are more apt to do it if it’s not complicated. Here are some tools to help broaden the influence of your cause campaign:

Social Media

This should be a no-brainer in the 21st century. Sharing your cause on social media allows it to be seen by more people—especially when your congregation is sharing it as well!

Emails

Make sure you’re taking advantage of the email list you’ve built!

Local businesses

Go around to the businesses in your community and talk to them about what you’re doing. Get them to donate, talk to their customers, and put fliers up in their window.

Church Services

Set aside 5–10 minutes in every service to talk about the cause, how fundraising is going, and other ideas to get the word out.

Home Groups

Get your home groups and Bible studies involved and talking regularly about the cause. They can even compete with other groups to see who can raise the most funds, come up with the best fundraising ideas, etc.

Children’s Ministry

Kids are tenderhearted and love to feel involved in causes. It’s critical that they get to feel like they’re playing a significant role, too. This is going to help them become more generous and justice-oriented when they’re older. It also helps because they’re going to incessantly bug their parents about it.

Materials You’ll Need

You know how you’re going to reach people, but what are they going to see? Your cause campaign will rely on a few key materials that tell people what your church is doing and why people should participate.

The needs will vary from campaign to campaign, but you can count on a few staples:

• A page on your church’s website explaining the campaign and how to get involved
• A video telling the campaign story in a compelling way
• A 100-word description of the campaign (to use in bulletins, flyers, speeches, etc.)
• Signage for your church meetings

3. A means to collect donations

Let’s face it: Checks and cash are passé. You need a solution that’s fast and simple. If your giving platform requires too many steps or is too complicated, people are going to put it off—and end up neglecting to give.

If you can find a platform that your church is using already, it’s that much simpler. Churches using Pushpay already have the ideal tool for collecting donations. Adding your cause fund to Pushpay’s drop-down menu is a breeze. And it is intuitive, simple, and easy to get others to give as well.

The fact that Pushpay helps your church adopt Pushpay technology as their giving solution ensures optimal success. For churches that are using Pushpay, an average of 76 percent of their digital giving is coming through mobile. That’s ten times more than the average church!

Over 7,500 churches nationwide use Pushpay to raise funds weekly, bolster the yearly budget and raise money for special campaigns. With world-class security, intuitive features, and a 10-second giving experience, it continues to encourage generosity among the churches we serve. To see how Pushpay can work for your ministry, click here to talk to an expert today.