Raising money for your new church building doesn't need to be stressful. With the right tools and a stellar strategy, you can raise more and be in your new or updated building in no time! In this article, we'll show you the seven ways you can raise more for your new building fund, along with some tools to help you smash your goals.
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Church fundraising is evolving right now. Weekly tithing, while still an important source of support for churches, isn’t as common. In fact, only 3-5% of people who give to their local church do so through weekly tithing.
So, what does that mean for you? It means that people want to support your church in other ways – like supporting your church building campaign.
In this article, we’re going to walk you through seven of the best ways to raise money for your church building fund. We’ll also look at three examples of successful building campaigns.
Let’s get started!
Online fundraising is a must for churches these days. In fact, almost half of all donations to churches are made with a card. You definitely don’t want to miss out on those donations when fundraising for a new building!
Online fundraising is easy with the right tools. You can collect online donations, track your campaign, and connect with your donors.
Donorbox makes it super simple to start fundraising online. Simply sign up for an account and create your first campaign in 15 minutes. You can fully customize your online donation form to fit your needs with multiple donation levels, donation intervals, and unique fields to collect any information you need.
Donorbox also allows you to change the color of your donation form to match your church’s branding. All forms are completely mobile-friendly, so people can give to you from anywhere.
Once you’ve fully customized your form, you can choose to either embed it on your own website or host it on Donorbox.
Check out this church building fund campaign, which leverages online giving with a powerful donation form on their online donation page hosted by Donorbox.
To really make the most of your online fundraising presence, it’s important to offer the option of recurring donations. Recurring donations are repeat donations that happen automatically at regular intervals.
This is so helpful for church building funds because donors can generally give more over time than they can give in one lump sum. In fact, recurring donors give 42% more on average than one-time donors.
You can choose up to four donation intervals to include on your Donorbox donation form. The more options you offer, the more likely a donor will find one they’re comfortable with. You can also choose a default selection and a recommended selection that will be marked with a heart.
Here’s an example of how it looks –
Once someone signs up for recurring donations with your Donorbox donation form, they can log in to their own Donorbox account at any time to make changes or cancel.
Capital campaigns are possible only when many people come together to make financial contributions with the same goal in mind. Big things can happen when we all work together – and that’s the philosophy behind crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding typically takes place online, with people giving to the same online campaign and following updates as the campaign progresses. This method uses social proof to encourage more giving – meaning people want to give when they see others giving.
Donorbox Crowdfunding provides you with every tool you need to make your campaign a success. This includes an attractive campaign page with a donor wall highlighting donors’ contributions, a goal thermometer showing how close you are to your goal, and the ability to post regular updates to keep the momentum going.
Check out how Pioneers Church uses Donorbox Crowdfunding to bring in funds for a new church.
Try Crowdfunding for Your Church!
Several small donations can add up in a big way, so crowdfunding and capital campaigns are great options for raising funds for church buildings.
An option to raise more funds to support your new building is to be open to sponsorship opportunities. Obviously, as a church, you’ll want to be sure the corporations and organizations you partner with align with your values.
But sponsorships, with the right corporate partner, can be great ways to boost your building fund. You can provide advertising space in your church programs or around your church, and you can even name part of your new building in honor of your sponsor.
Similar to how crowdfunding uses social proof to inspire more giving, peer-to-peer fundraising is a fantastic strategy to raise more for your new church building.
Peer-to-peer fundraising is when a donor chooses to fundraise on behalf of your church. This is typically best accomplished online through peer-to-peer fundraising pages, or “children” pages, that are connected to the central “parent” campaign.
Donorbox Peer-to-Peer is quick to set up. You’ll simply customize your parent campaign with details about your building fund. Then you can choose whether you want to invite fundraisers from your Donorbox account or if you’d like to let anyone fundraise on your behalf (via a button added to your parent campaign page). Your supporters will receive an email from Donorbox and they will sign up to set up their peer campaign pages. Any donations they receive will flow to the account associated with your parent campaign.
Revelation Wellness is a Christian faith-based fitness instructor training organization that has used Donorbox Peer-to-Peer to spread the word and raise more money for their campaigns. Take a look at what they’ve to say about this powerful tool!
Sign Up for Donorbox Peer-to-Peer
You can read this step-by-step guide for more insights into Donorbox Peer-to-Peer and share it with your fundraisers to make their setup even easier.
Events are a fantastic way to boost your church building fund because your community, which already wants to support you, gets to do so at a fun event!
You can raise money at events by selling tickets, selling merchandise, running an auction or raffle, selling food, setting up a giving kiosk, and more.
Selling tickets to your event is super easy with Donorbox Events, our all-in-one events tool that lets you create multiple ticket tiers, set ticket limits and a ticket purchasing deadline, automatically send out receipts and tickets, allow the option of an additional donation, and collect donor information so you can stay in touch.
Plus, you can let people know how much of each ticket is tax deductible – meaning they have even more incentive to buy tickets. Learn more about Donorbox Events in this video –
Sell Tickets for Your Event - Sign Up!
At your fundraising event, you should also set up a giving kiosk to enable swift cashless donations. It’s simple and quick with Donorbox Live ™ Kiosk app. You can create a live campaign on Donorbox and activate the add-on. Then, download our iOS or Android app for your tablet, log in and select the campaign, and pair it with a card reader device to start accepting in-person, cashless donations. Learn more in our guide.
Need some inspiration for your event? Check out this list of 15 creative church fundraising events to start planning.
Faith-based grant funding is an excellent opportunity to raise more funds for your new church building. This is an especially popular option for churches that need to repair their building after a natural disaster, as there are many granting institutions looking to help.
To start, look for grantmaking organizations, foundations, or corporations that have made faith-based grants in the past. For example, check out this list of major grant funders for church buildings from the National Churches Trust.
Once you’re certain your situation fits what the grantor is looking for, you can put together your application materials.
Christ Life Church raised over $246,000 for their building fund using Donorbox.
We love how this church used the goal meter to show donors that with their help, it has surpassed its campaign goal with 1,334 donations!
Donorbox made it easy for the church’s donors to check out quickly with a streamlined form process. Plus, Christ Life Church gave donors the option of signing up for monthly recurring donations, which significantly multiplied their overall donations.
Holy Myrrhbearers Orthodox Christian Church raised almost $464,000 with just 887 donations using Donorbox – and their campaign supporting their new church building is still going!
This church posted tons of updates along the way which makes for a super engaging crowdfunding campaign. Updates are so important – campaigns that update their supporters raise a whopping 126% more than campaigns without updates.
Their updates include pictures and videos detailing every step of the building process, so donors get to see what their donations are literally building!
Debre Menkrat Saint Gebriel Weldeta Lemariam Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church Boston is using Donorbox to raise funds for a new church space since they’ve outgrown their current rented space.
We love that they offer a good range of suggested donation amounts along with a custom amount option. The higher donation suggestions are great because they encourage people to give more than they might have on their own.
Donorbox makes it so easy for donors to share your campaign on social media, too. With just a click, they can share your campaign with Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter/X, which multiplies your reach. Sharing matters big time when you consider that campaigns that are shared fewer than two times have a 97% chance of failure. So get those campaigns shared like this church did!
There are several great ways to raise money for your church building fund. A new or repaired building is a big expense, so we recommend a fundraising strategy that includes several of these methods to ensure your campaign is as successful as possible.
When you’re ready to launch your campaign, Donorbox is here to help. We’re trusted by thousands of churches all over the world to help them modernize and streamline their fundraising. Learn how Donorbox MinistryMatters, our dedicated pillar for church fundraising, focuses on developing and offering products, features, and services to help keep funds flowing to your church.
For more church fundraising tips, check out the Church Fundraising category on our Nonprofit Blog. We have hundreds of other nonprofit-related blogs over there. 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