From sermons to website content to announcements to contact cards and more, church communications are of utmost importance in helping grow your church and building strong relationships with members (and even fundraising!). This guide will help you with a thorough understanding of the subject, give you steps to follow, and offer insightful resources to keep handy at all times. Read on!
The church is all about communication, whether you’re leading your congregation in prayer or making your welcome speech. But there’s more to church communications than worshiping, and that’s where having a great communications team and strategy comes in.
In this article, we’ll outline why church communications are so crucial, what responsibilities your church communications team has, and how to create a solid strategy to guide your communications.
Church communications are what hold your church together. They include your weekly sermons and services, but they also include things like newsletters, social media posts, announcements, donation pages, and more.
It’s so important to have a strong church communications strategy for a few reasons:
Did you know that 17 million people annually who don’t regularly attend church will check out a local church’s website?
That’s a huge pool of potential congregants to grow your church. Having the right communications in place to redirect them to your church website can help show these visitors what you’re all about – and maybe even convince them to join a service.
The right communication strategy can clarify and cement your message about God. This element of your strategy will vary based on your denomination and values.
Check out how clearly The New Evangelicals spells out their mission on their Donorbox donation page. Clear communication like that helps develop donor relationships based on trust.
Pro tip: You should have a solid mission statement and vision statement posted on your website. These statements will guide everything you do. Refer to these statements in specific fundraising and marketing materials to connect with your members and potential donors more effectively. You can use our free worksheet to create your mission and vision statements.
Now more than ever, it’s important that churches serve their roles as stewards of the community. In fact, attracting younger congregants may rely on it. 78% of Gen Z respondents are looking for churches that actively help the poor.
Hosting volunteer days, food drives, and more is difficult without a solid communication plan in place. Communicating appropriately will help your church do more good.
A proper church communications strategy helps deepen your relationship with your church members and donors. One key element is personalized communication through targeted outreach.
Audience segmenting is a tactic that, when used right, significantly helps churches connect with members and donors. This involves filtering your communication– lists to target specific demographics with content made for them. The more personalized the outreach is, the more likely donors and members are to respond to it.
This helps create those lasting relationships that are so vital for churches.
Donorbox Donor Management helps you segment your communication lists with easy-to-use filters. You can simply go to the Supporters section on your dashboard and filter donor data to find the lists you need for targeted communication!
Segment Your Data for Personalized Communication
Without a proper church communication strategy, your church’s fundraising efforts won’t be as effective as possible. Communicating effectively and smartly shares your fundraising campaigns with a wider audience – and encourages more people to give.
Whether you’re launching a crowdfunding campaign for a mission trip, selling tickets for a fundraising event, or simply trying to accept tithes online, personalized communication can make a big difference. And if you’re fundraising for your church with Donorbox MinistryMatters, you can leverage church-focused tools to engage and retain more supporters and keep funds flowing to your church!
Your church communications team is your one-stop shop for all things communication. They’ll craft your website copy, newsletters, flyers, connection cards, social media posts, appeal emails, thank-you letters, internal communication, etc.
Anything that communicates something about your church should pass by them to ensure everything is cohesive. They’ll also be the ones to strategize about the best way to get a message out.
In an ideal world, your church would be able to hire a communications expert to act as the leader of your communications team. But this simply isn’t a reality for many churches. Instead, you may be relying on church leaders or even volunteers to manage your communications – and that’s okay!
But that doesn’t mean you should allow just anyone to manage your church communications.
You should review qualifications, even for volunteers, to ensure the person taking charge has the right level of expertise. Asking for some sample communications like emails, social media posts, and service announcements can help you determine if their voice fits your church’s brand. You’ll also need to know their salary requirements.
However, the most important quality your communications team leader should possess is the ability to think on their feet and divert from their communications plan when necessary.
Finally, meet with your church leadership, church board, and the leader of your communications team to determine if you’d need more communications staff.
A solid strategy acts as the backbone of your church and can help you plan and execute fantastic communication campaigns. Here’s how to create one.
Finding a goal to shape your strategy around can help turn a nebulous task into something more direct.
For example, do you want to double regular weekly tithing in the next year? Or, do you want to recruit 25% more volunteers?
The more concrete your goal, the more measurable your effectiveness will be.
Pro tip: Your goal should be SMART:
Evaluating your goals with these qualities in mind will save you from spinning your wheels with a communications strategy that can’t possibly succeed.
To begin this process, it’ll be helpful to create an inventory of all communication channels like:
Pulling copy examples from each channel will make this document more useful, as you can quickly get a sense of what communication has looked like in the past – and what holes you’ll need to fill moving forward.
Donor management for churches is crucial. Since giving and being a productive member of a church go hand in hand, chances are your donors are your most dedicated congregants. And they deserve to be top-of-mind as you assess your church communications strategy!
Donorbox Donor Management can help you fully manage your communications with your supporters. Donorbox features that make communication easy include:
Sign Up for Donorbox Donor Management
Getting the message out won’t look the same for everyone. Now is the time to determine which communications channels will be the most effective for your audience – and you may need to select a few to reach the different demographics in your church.
For example, older generations are more likely to accept and approve of cold calls and phonathons for fundraising and volunteer recruitment. But this method isn’t effective for younger generations, who prefer text messages and email over phone calls.
Pro tip: Use your donor management software to segment your lists and determine your demographics. Donorbox lets you maintain a thorough profile for each supporter. You can update supporter details on these profiles as and when needed (as shown below). Finally, use filters on your donor data to create segmented groups and send targeted communications to your supporters.
There are a ton of church technology resources out there to help with your church communication strategy.
Here are some you should add to your toolkit:
All of these apps and platforms have built-in analytics to help you measure the success of your communications like email open rates, views and likes on social media, web page visits, and more.
Donorbox seamlessly integrates with 2000+ applications via Zapier, which helps you connect with marketing apps like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Active Campaign, and more. We also have a native integration with HubSpot that will help you sync your donor and donation data between both platforms and utilize HubSpot’s marketing and data-utilization tools.
Finally, Donorbox MinistryMatters is a dedicated pillar focused on church giving to help churches like yours boost donations and outreach with innovative and effective tools like Text-to-Give, QR codes, Donorbox Live™ Kiosk, Peer-to-Peer, Crowdfunding, QuickDonate™, and more.
Fundraise for Your Church with Donorbox
Scheduling your communications will save headaches and leave room for surprises and last-minute additions.
For example, mark important holidays and your plans for communication on those days. Plan the launch dates for fundraising campaigns and mark your newsletter interval.
Pro tip: Share this calendar with your pastor or priest and get their feedback. This will help align your communication strategy with their sermons so you can create synchronicity in your church communications.
Your strategy should include built-in moments and measures to evaluate your success. Doing this regularly allows you to pivot your strategy as you go.
We have two resources to help with this evaluation:
Evaluate your communications strategy and come up with a response that takes advantage of your successes and reimagines your failures. You might find that this shifts your goal – and that’s totally okay!
A strong church communication strategy will help strengthen relationships with existing members and build new connections within the community. It will also enhance your fundraising efforts through meaningful appeals and gratitude messages.
To make it achievable, we have a quick podcast episode featuring our Donorbox expert Cara Augspurger. She will provide you with insights into the nonprofit communication strategy along with proven tips.
Communication is key when it comes to your church. Having a strategy will make life easier for your church communications team and ensure you have guidelines when something comes up last minute.
Remember to evaluate your successes and your struggles as you go, and to always refer back to your mission for guidance.
Managing a church requires specific tools to help, and Donorbox is excited to offer Donorbox MinistryMatters, dedicated to church fundraising. Our powerful fundraising tools and free church fundraising resources are trusted by thousands of churches looking to grow and enrich their congregations.
Ready to boost your church fundraising? Sign up today.
Check out the rest of our Nonprofit Blog to read useful articles and find plenty of downloadable resources. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a curated list of Donorbox’s best resources in your inbox every month.
Lindsey spent years wearing many hats in the nonprofit world. Whether she was helping arts nonprofits with their messaging and content, planning a fundraising gala, writing an NEA grant proposal, or running a membership program with over 400 members, she learned how to navigate – and appreciate! – the fast-paced world of fundraising. Now, she loves sharing those hard-earned lessons with the Donorbox community.
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Lindsey Baker Bower