A One Fund can keep your budget growing, even after the capital campaign ends.

Chances are, you’ve found yourself on this blog because you know you need more funds to help your ministry grow. This need isn’t a new thing—the traditional capital campaign has successfully been around for decades. It’s also not necessarily a bad thing—any time an organization experiences growth, it must find a way to fund the growth.

But maybe you’re not confident that the traditional campaign is the way to go?

Certainly, various scenarios exist that call for a different approach than the traditional church capital campaign:

• Maybe you want to elevate overall giving rather than quickly raise funds for one specific project.
• Maybe your leadership goals are unique and should be approached with an alternate game plan.
• Maybe your people are so new (to the faith, or just new to your church), or young, or different from previous generations that a different approach could better maximize their giving potential.

 If that’s you, be encouraged to know that there IS another option:  A One Fund.

Generis created this option with you in mind. We’ve used it with hundreds of churches and have seen it not only change the long-range giving of a church, but also fund the short-term project.

This unique One Fund approach does the following:

Expands the giving base and encourages new givers. 

In a traditional church capital campaign, givers are encouraged to give “over and above” their regular giving. While many givers certainly do this, some people end up giving to the campaign in place of their tithes. Additionally, the members of the congregation who aren’t giving regularly (or even at all) generally will not start giving for a specific project. “Over and above” nothing is still nothing. The benefit we’ve seen with One Fund is that people are asked to look at their total giving for the past year—even if it is $0—and to increase that number for two years.

In this way, the One Fund goes hand-in-hand with teaching biblical principles of giving. Simply put, the One Fund approach is a healthy discipleship approach to organic, systemic and life-changing giving decisions. The giving base increases because this method tends to encourage a much larger number of people to participate. Existing givers give more, and those who weren’t giving at all have an excellent chance of becoming new givers.

Establishes a giving base that remains beyond the campaign. 

Because of the discipleship approach of this method, new givers understand the why behind giving better than they would have prior to the campaign. The question of why you would want to give is answered through the teaching. This increases the probability that they will now be regular givers. Those who were already giving have now looked at their giving with a different perspective, and while they may not maintain their elevated amount of the campaign, they tend to continue to give more than they had before the campaign.

 Creates strong mission and vision alignment, which streamlines the giving process. 

In a traditional campaign, the focus is often a specific project, and therefore is budget- focused, but in a One Fund, it is mission and vision focused. In most cases, revenue for a project or budget becomes a positive byproduct of the momentum created from your givers toward mission and vision of your Church. Additionally, from the giver’s perspective, the One Fund streamlines giving, eliminating confusion about how many different reasons and campaigns they are supposed to be supporting. There is simply One Fund.

Before starting your next steps towards raising more capital, it can be helpful to consider what your needs truly are. While the traditional capital campaign can still be the most effective method of raising funds in some situations, if you’re looking to try something different, the One Fund is certainly a method worth looking into.