4 New Church App Features to Nurture Your Donors

The idea of nurturing people along a journey isn’t a new one for the Church. In fact, ministries exist to take people from being unaware of the good news to becoming committed members of a local church community. It’s about knowing what people’s next steps should be and guiding them along their journey of deeper engagement with the church.  

And a big part of that journey means donating to a local ministry.

By the time someone is ready to give to a local ministry, it’s safe to say they’re pretty invested in the church’s work, vision, and mission. That’s why we created new features within the Pushpay platform to make it easier for your donors to express their generosity and stay connected to your ministry.

Technology should enable deeper engagement with your church, and our newest tools are designed to do just that.

1. Donor campaign progress

Sometimes, the call to generosity comes at a less-than-ideal time for donors. Maybe your church started a fundraising campaign shortly after a wave of lay-offs at a large company within the neighborhood or things are just especially tight for your most faithful givers.

Now, within the Pushpay platform, donors can pledge against your next fundraising campaign and also track their progress toward the goal they committed to.

Pledging allows donors to be generous over-and-above what they can give when the giving talk happens. The Pushpay platform takes things a bit further though. Now donors can log into their Pushpay giving account and see how much they’ve given toward each fund, whether it’s the general fund or a missions campaign, and even view their progress toward completing their pledge commitment. Being able to log in and view their progress toward their financial pledge or whatever campaign they’ve donated to, gives donors a stronger sense of ownership over the overall fundraising campaign.

The platform also enables church admin to manually send reminders to pledgers who might be falling behind schedule. Once givers are reminded, churches often see a spike in the transaction volume to the fundraising campaign.

Donors who feel more ownership over a campaign are more empowered to give in the future and get a deeper sense of accomplishment when their pledge is fulfilled and the overall campaign hits its goal.

To learn more about this and other new features (or simply to see if the Pushpay giving platform and app is right for your church), click the button below to talk to one of our experts today.

2. Impact Cards

Transparency is one of the greatest gifts your church can give its community. Transparency in how the church is governed, what big decisions are in the pipeline, and how donations are used is critical to establishing trust with the people you serve. Now, with impact cards in your custom church app, you can also show donors how their contributions are being used and shed more light on the incredible work being done.

This new feature goes beyond a simple thank you message to donors after they give. Impact cards are a templatized tool within the admin portal that allow you to make specific content more visible to your community. Churches can use it to surface the results of recent ministry work, photos from a recent food bank drive, or key stats related to a fundraising campaign the community member recently donated to.

This level of transparency is not only well-deserved by your congregants, but it also drives even more generosity and app engagement.

3. Thank you by fund

Saying thank you is a no-brainer. It’s not only a Biblical principle referenced multiple times in the scriptures, but it’s also good manners. Within the custom church app by Pushpay, admin can now issue thank you messages to donors based on the specific fund or campaign they donated to.

Givers aren’t just sent a generalized thank you note, but now get a specific one letting them know that their money was issued to the correct fundraising campaign. Plus, church admin can customize the thank you note based on the fund, so if a donor gives to mission trips, they can get specific stats and messages related to mission trips.

This new capability helps build trust between the church and its donors and is a practical way to acknowledge and nurture generosity.

4. Content Cards

Nurturing donors isn’t just about making it easy for them to give. It’s also about giving them logical next steps so they can engage even more with your church. That’s where content cards come in.

They’re small cards that appear on the thank you receipts and emails your members get after they donate. These icons display recent content from within your church app, giving the donor a next step to continue interacting with your church.

After someone gives, they’re more likely to click into a content card displaying a recent sermon or whatever other content was recently uploaded into your church app. This new feature encourages people to stay in the app longer and continue engaging with your ministry’s content.

Nurturing your congregants from a stage of unawareness of your church and moving them to a stage where they feel comfortable donating to your church is a huge deal. You’re 100% right not to take these congregants lightly. They’ve raised their hands to join your ministry in pursuing its Kingdom-focused vision and mission. Our app updates are designed to care for these members and encourage even deeper engagement with your church.

These aren’t the only new features Pushpay users can expect from the 2019 Spring Product Launch. To learn how else our platform helps churches like yours nurture donors and encourage deeper community, or to see if Pushpay is right for your church, click here to talk to an expert today.