How First Orlando Doubled Its Donors + Its Impact

Summary

At First Orlando, a leap of faith into the digital age with Pushpay led to incredible growth and connection. Matthew Robinson, pastor of Ministries & Administration, shared how the church moved from a dated, homegrown system to the cutting-edge technology of Pushpay in 2017. He noted that the change was guided by a desire for simplicity and effectiveness, allowing the church to focus on what truly matters: its ministry and congregation.

Since implementing Pushpay, First Orlando has seen tangible improvements in key metrics such as kids’ attendance and giving—vital indicators of the church’s health and growth. The church has also doubled the number of households giving and increased recurring giving sixfold. Most of its contributions have shifted online, with about 70% now coming through digital channels.

But these metrics also show a deepened engagement and generosity within the church family, empowered in part by digital tools. With First Orlando’s now centralized ChMS, they didn’t have to worry about fragmented data or outdated systems. Leaders, staff, and volunteers all enjoy seamless collaboration and a newfound clarity and trust in their operations. This addition to their tech stack has helped First Orlando’s large church feel intimately connected for a more effective ministry.

Challenges

With a church management system built in the late 70s, Matthew recalled, “it was made with old computer punch cards and had been Frankenstein-ed over 30 or 40 years.” With decades of changes, First Orlando’s systems had gotten complicated and hard to navigate. Matthew continued, “We had developers on staff, and everything was custom for individual people. And then, over the years a person would leave, and things wouldn’t be maintained. There was just such a segmented, hidden, protected, You-Can’t-Touch-This nature of spreadsheets and different databases.” This not only made it difficult to keep track of data but also hindered collaboration and communication among staff.

The church’s outdated systems also posed a challenge when it came to engaging with their growing congregation. As more people attended services and events, managing attendance, donations, and other important information became increasingly overwhelming. The team at First Orlando knew they needed a change in order to effectively serve and connect with their congregation in the digital age.

Solutions

When Matthew and his team realized it was time to make a change, he shared that his primary focus was finding “a ministry partner who allowed us the ability to adjust and customize what we needed but not be responsible for any of the coding or management of the software.” The partners they chose were Pushpay and Church Community Builder. Matthew reflected, “I had used CCB in a church plant I had started back in the mid-2000s and was familiar with it. We went through a full search with everything but landed on that as the best solution for First Orlando.”

Then, the process of organizing their data began. He shared, “When we implemented the CHMS, it was really a mantra for us: if it doesn’t live here, it’s not true. So we had to just really go through a cleaning and renovation of all of our systems.” This was a necessary step to fully utilize Pushpay and CCB’s capabilities.

Along with the management tools from Church Community Builder, First Orlando also adopted digital giving from Pushpay. This simple new method made it easy for members to give online and set up recurring donations, leading to increased giving and more resources to give back to their Orlando community. As Matthew put it, “We talk about generosity at First Orlando as the good that we are able to do for Heaven here on Earth.” With Pushpay, the church empowered their congregation to be more generous and make a bigger impact in the world.

Results

First, Orlando’s use of Pushpay has allowed them to grow and thrive as a church. In 2022, the First Orlando team prayed and challenged their members for the largest one-week offering they’ve ever taken in the history of their church. Their goal? To give it all away to ministry partners throughout the Orlando community. The congregation answered the call and raised over a million dollars at the end of October. Matthew shared, “Most of our people gave on their phone through Pushpay and then we distributed those funds back to our community through 30 other nonprofits that we partnered with throughout Central Florida who were helping with things from homelessness to food scarcity to sex trafficking rescue.” He continued, “We repeated that even bigger and better in October of 2023 and we’re going to do the same, Lord willing, in October 2024.” And with every year that’s passed, they’ve seen growth in that generosity. Matthew shared, “We have grown from 2,000 to 4,000 members, and from about 4,000 households giving to double that in our time using Pushpay. Online giving went from about 20% to about 70% of our contributions. And our recurring giving has increased sixfold over that period in terms of the number of households that are giving.”

One of the factors that Matthew credits to the church’s powerful growth and generosity is its technology. “We had this technology that enabled us to connect to our people, help them take this step and be generous. It helps us feel really small because of what we’ve implemented… there is a really exciting spiritual movement happening and we’re able to have valid reliable data points to show that change.” With Pushpay, First Orlando has seen tangible improvements in key metrics and a deeper connection and engagement with their congregation.

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