Growing with grace: Managing risk and reputation in growing churches
With the right financial accounting tools, the CFOs of multi-campus churches can build resilience, increase transparency, and prove good stewardship to donors.
A church derives its strength from its congregants—and for growing churches, that support matters more than ever. On average, 96% of a multi-campus church’s total budget comes from attendee contributions.
But in uncertain times that support can be shaped by factors beyond a growing church’s immediate control. Scandals at fellow institutions, the loss of senior pastors, and economic downturns that impact members’ ability to give generously can all have an immediate impact on a church’s bottom line.
That’s why high-performance finance leaders at growing churches must be prepared to weather any storm by proactively addressing potential areas of risk. With the right financial accounting tools, the CFOs of multi-campus churches can build resilience, increase transparency, and prove good stewardship to donors, thereby ensuring the church is financially robust enough to continue delivering its mission well into the future.
Ensuring robust reputation management
As churches make strategic moves to expand, higher levels of scrutiny from both donors and the media are all but guaranteed.
Any negative stories can trend on social media within hours, and high-profile scandals have shown how a single headline can slash giving by double digits. Damaged reputations—whether due to financial mismanagement, leadership misconduct, or otherwise—can erode trust and affect fundraising efforts for years to come.
When churches are growing fast and scrutiny is sharper, reputation management should be a key priority to guarantee long-term sustainability. Even where a crisis isn’t imminent, donors are increasingly interested in understanding the tangible impact of their contributions.
Clear systems of accountability are the solution, and modern accounting software can act as a powerful platform for delivering more transparency. It allows growing churches to create accessible, real-time dashboards which can be shared with donors, board members, and the public. Some churches are exploring placing dashboards demonstrating key metrics on public-facing websites—and this openness can go a long way towards strengthening confidence and countering narratives of mismanagement or secrecy.
Regardless of whether live dashboards are proactively published, the ability to access and share regular, up-to-date information helps to cultivate a more open culture. This ultimately positions multi-campus churches as trustworthy institutions, allaying donor fears, and encouraging giving to allow further growth and mission delivery.
The importance of succession planning
One of the more overlooked areas of risk management within growing churches is succession planning. Just like in big businesses, key figures, such as a senior pastor, can help fuel growth particularly if their personality can encourage loyalty and generosity.
However, when that beloved figure retires, it opens the church up to a period of unexpected vulnerability. The transition can disrupt attendance numbers, giving patterns, and overall financial stability. Without a clear succession plan, churches can find themselves navigating not only spiritual uncertainty but significant financial strain.
Succession planning is a proactive strategy to manage the risk accompanying personnel switchovers. Forecasting changes in leadership allows churches to avoid unexpected shortfalls and maintain robust reserves.
Modern financial management systems can play a key role in ensuring that the back-end finances remain healthy during these periods of change. AI-powered tools can help finance teams to model scenarios, understand how giving patterns are impacted, and provide real-time insights as well as long-term projections.
It’s an act of stewardship; by ensuring that robust financial forecasting supports any periods of transition, the church is able to continue engaging the community, delivering services, and growing—not stalling.
Safeguarding high-impact giving
According to one study of trends in church giving, 44% of gifts given are under $100—but this translates to just 8% of overall giving volume. This means that a very small number of donors represent a significant percentage of all giving.
These donors have a huge impact on overall church budgets, and any changes in their giving patterns—which may come about naturally in economic downturns and recessions—can cause sudden, unexpected gaps within church budgets.
Churches must therefore have strong data-driven insights to preserve cash flow. This data allows CFOs in growing churches to:
- Continually engage high-impact donors with strong storytelling about mission impact.
- Understand giving trends and impactful initiatives to guide future fundraising strategies.
- Identify opportunities to diversify the overall funding base and reduce that reliance on a small number of attendees in the future.
The more information a church has about the specifics of donors and giving behaviors, the better placed it is to continue to elevate its ministry. That information must be tracked and monitored to create an overall illustration of congregant giving—with the right metrics and data connectivity in place to enable pastoral staff to understand giving trends in real time.
This proactive approach allows churches to remain resilient against volatile giving environments, ensuring that budgets are sustainable and that growth and impact will not be interrupted by unexpected shortfalls.
Conclusion
To thrive and grow their missions, churches rely on the generosity of worshippers. Any significant changes in giving behaviors can cause huge shifts in the working budget of a church. Many of those aren’t in the direct control of CFOs themselves –– sector-wide scandals or accusations of financial misconduct, the retirement of a popular senior pastor, or the passing of a high-impact giver, can all affect the church’s financial health.
High-performance finance leaders in growing churches must prioritize risk and reputation management to ensure the continued growth and sustainability of their organization.
Technology alone will not solve these challenges. But with the right tools on hand, finance leaders will be empowered with the data and insights to protect their faith-based nonprofits and ensure better decision-making for the future.
Discover more about how high-performance finance leaders are preparing their growing churches for the future with 5 reasons smart financial management is critical for every growing church’s mission
