A New Perspective on Church Engagement With Pushpay Insights

Four years ago, Pushpay welcomed me into its family through the acquisition of Church Community Builder. Before that, I wore the hat of Head of Software and Technology at CCB for two years. So, I’ve spent the better part of a decade helping churches strengthen community, connection, and belonging through technology.

Pushpay has grown and changed since I first joined, but one thing has remained the same—our drive to meet the needs of mission-based organizations. Our goal has always been to use technology to connect people and grow relationships within the Church. In 2020, we announced the launch of ChurchStaq™, which combines giving, app, and ChMS. Even then, we wanted to bring tools together for our customers—helping build relationships, creating bridges between technology, and connecting church administrators to the data and information they need to keep their congregants engaged.

Fast forward four years and both technology and the Church have continued to evolve at a rapid pace. We’ve witnessed a major shift towards online and digital tools for communication, engagement, and giving. And with that increase in technology usage comes an increase in data, too.

The data a church keeps can provide a bird’s-eye view of congregational health and pave the way for individual follow-ups. But it takes the right skills and strategies, like data literacy, to make sense of it all.

Data Literacy Within the Church

According to our latest State of Church Tech report, 46% of churches are exploring analytics or data insights today. Yet while  data and analytics are on the rise, there is still some insecurity among the Church on how to leverage data in day-to-day interactions to move their ministry forward. As a leading SaaS company, one of our goals is to help churches improve their data literacy—to strengthen their ability to gather, understand, analyze, and communicate data in meaningful ways.

Data is everywhere and accessibility is growing, so it’s essential to have tools and staff in place to make sense of it and use it effectively. This isn’t just about reviewing numbers and creating charts. It also involves understanding different types of data, like demographics, engagement touchpoints, and giving, while always remembering that each data point reflects an action of a real person. When churches combine all this data and look at the picture it paints, leaders can better understand their congregation’s needs and tailor their communication and engagement strategies accordingly.

Once you’ve wrapped your head around those data points, it’s time to pull out some useful insights. This is where technology becomes crucial. With the right tool, churches can do more than just visualize their data—they can act on it.

Introducing Pushpay Insights

Our latest product, Pushpay Insights, is a comprehensive analytics tool that provides a centralized view with deep insights into giving trends, member engagement, and overall church health. With this information at their fingertips, church leaders are empowered to make data-driven decisions to better know and grow their church.

Pushpay Insights unlocks a clearer and deeper understanding of a church’s health from attendance to giving to engagement. One of church leaders’ biggest concerns is people falling through the cracks. Now, church staff can better understand gaps and opportunities within their community and ensure those vital check-ins happen so that, in the long run, they can improve engagement and retention. Pushpay Insights clues you in on how people are engaging, disengaging, or even signaling distress, allowing your team to proactively reach out and minister to your people.

Empowering Pastors As Technology Evolves

I’ve been working in tech for mission-based organizations for six years and have seen firsthand how technology and data can strengthen relationships. Pushpay Insights paves the way for deeper engagement for churches and empowers leaders with easy-to-use tools so they can focus on what matters most—their people.

To help churches better understand how to leverage Pushpay Insights, we’ve launched a new learning path on Pushpay University, designed to help leaders understand how to get the most value out of church engagement data. We aim to continue improving data literacy for churches and utilizing technology to strengthen our communities and further their mission of connection and belonging.

It’s an exciting time for both technology and the Church, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us next.

TAKE A TOUR