The events of the past year need discussion. Here are five ways to make your charitable contribution statements do more work than the law requires of them.
Spill the beans
Your church is full of tales, and people connect with stories. If you want to show how vital your ministry is, tell a story about someone in your church, or someone your church has helped.
Put yourself out there
A letter that isn’t addressed to a specific person, from a specific person, will most likely be thrown away. Most people have learned to tune out impersonal contact — in email and in the post alike. Those messages immediately read as spam, or as something that can wait.
Send statements after a sermon on stewardship
If you want your congregation to take giving statements seriously, and to reflect on what it means to be a generous and loyal giver, send them while people are already thinking about their responsibility as stewards.
Encourage resolutions for the coming year
People sometimes believe they have contributed more than they actually have. A statement gives a comprehensive, factual account of a donor’s giving, which lets them judge for themselves whether they were as generous as they had intended. That makes the first of January an unusually good moment to talk about resolutions.
Maximize the impact of the statement itself
Reports of donations have to be sent; that part isn’t optional. But once you shift your view of the obligation — from paperwork to a chance to build up your church and celebrate what has happened — it becomes a genuinely powerful instrument for doing exactly that.