Jun
22
2012

Finance Fridays: Fourth Aha! Communication

An article by Alan Wildes Comments

Four weeks ago Alan Wildes began a series on “Capital Campaign Aha! Moments“. This series is unpacking the most common lessons learned by churches over the twelve years he has served them.

In all my years coaching churches in the area of generosity, I have found that I coach as much on communication as I do on generosity. Churches can have a great vision and get the necessary buy in on the front end of a campaign but shoot themselves in the foot if they can’t effectively communicate the vision during the remainder of the campaign. While starting the planning process with a church, my experience helps me recognize when a church is going to have a hard time communicating throughout the entire campaign. Typically churches have a hard time communicating effectively for one of 3 reasons:

Insufficient people power
Insufficient tools
Insufficient prioritization

Thefreedictionary.com defines campaign as a vigorous concerted effort to accomplish a purpose. Getting a person, or group of people, to accomplish a purpose requies you to communicate a lot! Many times, as I am in the middle of the campaign, church leaders will say “Haven’t we said this enough?” One of my greatest hurdles in coaching churches is to getting them to believe me when I respond “No, we haven’t said this enough.”

Think back to Aha! Moment #3: churches tend to be surprised at how much work it takes to gain congregational buy in. With this in mind, church leaders need to start at ground zero as they begin to roll out a vision for the project. This takes time and repetition. Let’s take a look at how I have seen successful churches prepare themselves to communicate throughout their campaign, and lessen the pain of the process:

Identify a communication champion: Make sure a staff member is primarily focused on communication: either doing the work themselves or ensuring the work gets done.
Identify three primary communication tools: Focus on these tools and make sure that they are current and up to date. I strongly recommend starting with these (in order):
- Website
- Video capabilities
- Email platform
Make communication a priority: Your staff and leadership team need to be outspoken about the campaign. Re-write the core values of the church, if necessary, incorporating clear, concise, and consistent communications as a core value.

Implementing these three suggestions at least 6 months prior to launching a capital campaign will pay huge dividends for the church, both for the campaign and the over all church culture.

How have YOU successfully managed communications in YOUR church?

Are you considering a capital campaign and unsure of how to handle communications? I’d love to help get you started on the right foot. Click here to shoot me a message.

About the Author: Alan Wildes

Guiding a church from vision to implementation takes patience, objectivity and experience. Alan has 12 years with Generis and has worked with over 90 churches. Alan’s experience with local churches has reinforced his passion and ability to build relationships. Regular on site attention allows him to personally get to know each church and its’ people in order to create a generosity game plan unique to them. A social studies teacher and baseball coach for eight years prior to becoming a generosity coach, Alan earned his Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and his Master of Science in Education from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.