How Meta Church Was Able to Help People Get Connected, Give, and Contribute
98% of digital giving to campaign
A Pushpay app is quite compatible with the way we live life here. People live on their phones. It’s been a massive support for us in being able to help people get connected, give, and contribute to what we’re doing.
Ricky Ortiz, Lead Pastor of Meta Church
Summary
When Ricky Ortiz arrived in New York City to plant Meta Church in 2017, he came with big plans. Ortiz dreams of 50 healthy churches spread out throughout the city, engaging the community with the gospel.
In December of 2017, Meta Church launched a giving campaign designed to fund the young church’s efforts to advance the gospel locally by securing a venue where the church could meet weekly and expand the team. They also had a goal to invest in equipment and technology to produce, edit, and distribute sermons online through social media, email, and the Meta Church app. And lastly, they sought to advance the gospel globally by supporting church plant efforts around the world.
Ortiz wanted to set an ambitious goal, so he set the church’s aim at $15,000—a tall ask for a young, New York City church plant.
Problem
Reaching the $15,000 goal wouldn’t just be tough for Meta Church. It would require new methods and strategies to reach it. Ortiz knew he had to keep potential donors engaged on a consistent basis if he wanted to have any chance. He also needed to provide a simple, culturally appropriate way to give.
98%
Percentage of digital giving to campaign
Pushpay
Meta Church partnered with Pushpay right from the church’s start. Ortiz had been familiar with Pushpay from his time on staff of NewSpring Church. NewSpring would frequently recommend Pushpay to other churches in its network. Mobile giving fit the New York City lifestyle. Ortiz wanted to eliminate as many stumbling blocks to generosity as he could. Though he chose Pushpay because of its ability to provide a simple way for people to give digitally, Ortiz saw the new mobile app as a great “bonus.”
When Ortiz made plans for the holiday giving campaign, he leaned on the church’s mobile app and Pushpay’s digital giving solution to help. The church directed people to give through text messages and the church’s app.
“Pushpay gave us an easy way for us to onramp people to the campaign,” Ortiz says.
Meta Church also used mobile notifications to keep its community up to date on the church’s progress toward the goal.
Result
Meta Church didn’t just meet its $15,000 goal. They surpassed it.
“It blew our minds,” Ortiz says. “We thought we were nuts having a goal of $15,000. And for us to raise $22,700, that was amazing.”
And, Ortiz added, digital giving through Pushpay helped make that happen. All but $300 of the $22,700 raised through the campaign came in through digital means. (That’s more than 98 percent of the total.) People from seven different countries gave to the campaign.
Thanks to the donations, Meta Church tackled all three goals of their fundraising campaign. They secured a meeting location. They purchased a camera and streaming equipment. Since January, the church’s online videos have been viewed more than 9,000 times. They’ve also supported two church plants (in Kigali, Rwanda, and Battambang, Cambodia) with funding that provided each church with six months of meeting location space.
