The impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on this year’s stewardship campaigns and fulfillment – Survey Results

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Don’t miss our Open Forum this Friday, May 22nd. We will discuss virtual fundraisers for UU congregations.  We are eager to hear your ideas and experiences in conducting virtual events to attract funds while engaging in virtual fun. You should have received the Zoom link in your email. If not, contact us (email at the bottom of this page).

In early May, Barry Finkelstein and Liz Coit of Stewardship for Us put together a survey for congregations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this year’s pledge drives and pledge fulfillment. The aim was to gain information in real time, as congregations were conducting their pledge drives or just winding up from them.  Liz and Barry presented results during the May 15th Friday Open Forum, and are following up with this blog, which highlights key findings and captures comments from our Zoom chatroom.  This link will take you to the Power Point presented during the Open Forum. It provides more detail about each of the questions asked in the survey. 

First, we thank all those who participated in this survey.  Gathering this information shed light on our unique and shared experiences in rising to the challenge of conducting stewardship during this global pandemic. With 89 respondents, survey results reflect excellent participation, geographic diversity and a broad range of congregational sizes.  We learned that campaigns this year have been more successful than might have been expected:

  • More than half achieved 90%+ of campaign goal; 86% achieved 85%+
  • Only 5 of 65 achieved <80% of goal
  • Not surprisingly, congregations that began their campaigns later in the spring did not do as well toward achieving their goals, but the difference was not as dramatic as might have been expected

The jury is out on fulfillment, and more monitoring is needed going forward to capture a more comprehensive picture of what the true impact of this human and economic crisis has been and will continue to be on our congregations.

We asked people what was their primary method for conducting this year’s drive, and “visiting stewardship” topped the list, but comments added to the “Other” option suggested most congregations combine strategies and sequence them during the pledge drive period.  Responses suggest that most stewardship campaigns this year started before the “Lockdown” began and that congregations made the transition to virtual campaigns in the middle of their pledge drives.  Only 25.35% reduced their goals, and only 12.68% temporarily suspended their pledge drives.  Decisions about goal setting and continuing pledge drives are somewhat driven by when stewardship campaigns were started.  Several people asked about correlations between data points:

  • Is there a correlation between achievement of pledge goal and whether congregations lowered their goal during the campaign? We found no correlation at all.  The 47 congregations that did not lower their goal achieved an average of 91.6% of goal; and the 18 that lowered their goal achieved 90.9% of goal; so the range of levels of goal achievement were very similar.

  • How does congregation size correlate with primary stewardship campaign method? We don’t really have enough data to answer this, but the information we have indicates that all methods are used by congregations of any size.  As noted above, visiting steward conversations was the answer chosen most as primary method, cited by 14 congregations, and those 14 span all sizes except for the largest.  We were surprised by the large number of congregations that indicated Direct Mail as their primary method, and that these spanned all size categories (10 this year and 17 in 2019).

From the Chatroom

During our Open Forum on May 15th, the Chatroom was abuzz with information-sharing from those attending.  For example, six of the 38 participants gave us updates on the stewardship drive results: reported pledge drive participation rates were all 80% or better, and financial goal attainment exceeded 75% as of April 30th, with two months left for those with June 30th fiscal year end dates.  We thank all of you for contributing experiences and data from your congregations.  Here are several helpful chats from our session:

What Some Congregations are Doing

Our minister (UC Evanston, IL) videotaped a greeting and a “how are you doing?” video, and the link was sent to all members. She included an appeal for faithful stewardship during this time. We never used videotaped communications from our ministers before – not certain about the efficacy of this yet.

In this year’s post-campaign meeting, we (UU Catskills, NY) decided to put our minister as the “leader” of our next drive.  Our minister is going to hold a Parking Lot service soon.  She is a musician and will set up a stage with a sound system.  We will social distance in the Parking lot.

We (Beacon UU, Summit, NJ) use Benevity to facilitate employer matches on many other donations. But most employers (including ours) won’t match donations to churches. Anyone know any companies that do?

Granite Peak UU (Prescott, AZ) tries to pledge new members right after each new member ceremony. They get a pledge card in their new member packet for consideration prior to the later scheduled pledge visit. Our FY 20-21 pledge drive ran from 2/29 to 4/15, with an Early Givers pledge collection from the top quartile and the stewards. Several members of Granite Peak donate their RMD payments to fulfill their pledges.

We print appeals from Minister and board Chair, and Minister follows up directly with specific members.  We also begin the stewardship conversation with the minister when folks attend our quarterly “new to UU” classes.

Olympia Brown UU Church completed their 3-week “Close the Mini-Gap” 1:1 matching campaign to raise the $15,000 needed to achieve pledge amount equal to budget.  We met the goal, with 40 units contributing.  Thanks to S4U for hosting that discussion several weeks ago.

We (Asheville) think that making a commitment to be a member requires a financial commitment in addition to commitments of time and talent.  You can’t be a member until you make a commitment (amount makes no difference).  We had 4 of 51 pledge units use RMD (Required Minimum Distribution) this year.

With the COVID situation, we have more donors with identified contributions since people cannot just toss cash into a plate. Also, we use the Zoom webinar logs to see who is attending. I have started documenting Zoom participation in Breeze with a new profile field.

Questions That Came Up

Are many congregations using year-round stewardship?  No one selected year-round/continuous stewardship as a primary method for this year, but four congregations did choose this option for 2019.  In addition, some respondents mentioned that it is part of how some members fulfill their pledges, i.e., there is continuous pledging and monthly contributions (sustainer payments) but less engagement in continuous stewardship activities.  We do know a number of congregations have experimented with both year-round and time-bound pledge drives, but do not have comparative data on their effectiveness.   

For those participating and mentioning great fulfillment to date, do you have many members who took Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) from their Retirement Accounts to pay their pledges?  Two congregations mentioned having received some RMD funds as part of pledge payments during the study. For those who have the option to contribute RMD funds, we note this is of great help to congregations aiming to maintain financial health during an economic downturn.  

What are people assuming in their budgets about how soon we’ll be gathering in person again? We we’re assuming October, then just yesterday, guidance from UUA president Susan recommended that we should assume May 2021. This is an evolving conversation and we expect many congregations will consider this and related issues concerning budget assumptions and projections during their annual meetings and beyond.

Thank you to all who participated in the Survey and all those who joined us for our Open Forum!

 

Liz Coit, Kay Crider, Mark Ewert, Barry Finkelstein, and Rachel Maxwell are part of the Stewardship for Us Team. Please Send your questions and topic suggestions for our blog or online Friday Forum discussions to: team@stewardshipforus.com.

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