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Dan Hotchkiss
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Middleboro MA 02346

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How much should we ask people to give?

by DAN HOTCHKISS

Leaders often ask: "Why don’t people give more to this congregation?" The answers frequently proposed – too much endowment, too little commitment, wrong theology, strife in the congregation, ministerial incompetence, too few wealthy members – all may have some truth to them. But study after study confirms that one factor overshadows all the rest: People don’t give more because they aren’t asked. Congregations that consistently and clearly ask for money get it, despite all obstacles.

To transform a congregation that is diffident and awkward about money into one that asks for it, the first step is to clarify a vision for the future. The second step is to decide specifically how much money to ask for. And the third is to secure from those doing the asking -–the board, minister, and canvass leaders – a personal commitment to say "yes." When these steps are completed well, the rest of the canvass is assured of success. I have found that I can be quite helpful, in a weekend visit or even a conference phone call, at walking congregations through these steps.

This article is about the second step. How do we decide how much to ask for? Determining the right "ask" is critical: you don’t want it to be so high that it seems frivolous, but it needs to be high enough to fulfil your vision and encourage your members to grow in their giving. There is a little math involved in finding an "ask" that satisfies these two constraints. My purpose is to offer some simple tools to come up with an "ask" for your congregation.

I make three assumptions, subject to exceptions in each congregation, but true often enough to be useful, that will guide us in defining the "ask":

1. If the board, minister, and canvass leaders overwhelmingly support the vision and have said yes to what is asked, about half of those asked will say yes also.

The importance of this first assumption cannot be overstated: The support of the leadership is among the most important factors in an effective giving campaign. It does little good to put out a chart of "recommended giving levels" unless the board, minister, and canvass leaders have used that chart in deciding their own pledges. The "ask" should be decided by a strong consensus of the leadership – not by the canvass committee alone, nor the board, nor minister. Approval should require not simply voting but commitment to say yes personally, by pledging.

Sometimes the minister alone makes a "leadership pledge" and challenges others to match it. In other congregations the canvass leaders do this. Either of these gestures can be effective, but not as effective as the leaders saying yes in concert.

2. The proportion of money raised from each category of givers does not change much from year to year.

I have a spreadsheet with the pledges from eight fund drives I have been involved in. The graph confirms Ed Landreth’s "quartile analysis": about a quarter of the money comes from 5% of the pledges. Another quarter comes from the next 10%, a third quarter from the next 20%. The final quarter of the money comes from the remaining 65% of the pledges. Comparing your pledge distribution to this norm can help decide whether the focus of this year’s drive should be the broad middle group of active members or the financial leadership, or both.

It can be helpful to construct a table like this one, to give a picture of what pledges will be needed to achieve a given goal:

1998 pledges	#	Total amount		1999 goal	#	Total amount
$ 2000-4000	5	$ 14,000		$ 3000-8000	5	25,000
1400-1850	10	18,000		2000-2999	11	25,000
800-1345	20	16,000		800-1999	21	25,000
100-780	65	22,000		100-799	65	25,000
Total	100	70,000			105	100,000

The chart reveals that this congregation suffers from weak leadership giving; it will be important to pay special attention to the top potential givers, and encourage them to carry their fair share.

3. It is better to keep the "ask" simple than to complicate it in an effort to be rigorously fair.

I like an "ask" that consists simply of a number: "We’re asking everyone to consider pledging $1400 in the coming year." This may seem insensitive. Some congregations publish charts of recommended giving relative to income, with fine print about exceptions and exemptions till it all resembles Form 1040. But no matter how we hedge or qualify, we never will accommodate the variety of people’s circumstances. And in any case, it’s not our job as canvassers to tell people what they ought to give. Our job is to ask. And we ask most effectively when we ask for a simple, verifiable amount.

Some congregations say instead, "We’re asking everyone to consider pledging $1400 this year, or if you are already at that level, to increase last year’s pledge by 50%." That still is simple and verifiable.

How do I come up with the amount to ask for? I look at the right-hand section of the chart above, and pick a number from the range in the third row: in this case $800-1999. To confirm the choice, I review the left-hand section, and note that 85 pledgers now give under $1400. If half of these say yes when asked for $1400, their giving will increase by $30,000. Together with increases in leadership pledges, that will easily achieve our goal.