+1 901-619-2516
info@ministryactionplans.com

One Fund for One Mission

By

big_ideas_logo

One Fund for One Mission

The conventional approach for church fundraising is to finance essential operating expenses with a regular budget and collect special offerings for missions and large capital expenditures. Add to that mix special needs that arise throughout the year and many churches respond with additional love offerings for special causes and situations.

We might describe this model as the Multiple Offerings Approach. It provides a variety of focused opportunities to respond to stewardship messaging. This often means offerings for the church budget (understood and expressed as a biblical tithe or 10% of income), missions, benevolence, capital projects, and special love offerings.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this traditional giving approach, many church leaders recognize that cultural and generational shifts are changing the nature of charitable giving across the United States. Here’s a quick summary of just a few of these culture shifts:

  • Offering Fatigue — Too many offerings on top of the expected regular budget offering (tithe) may dilute the significance of the primary ask: Obedience to God by giving the first fruits of your own personal harvest.
  • Vision Confusion — Vision clarity for younger generations means framing the entirety of the church’s missional work—staffing, facilities and ministries, as well as local, state, national and international missions—as the essential working out of the Great Commission.
  • Denominational Decline — As denominational loyalty wanes and institutional trust erodes, it’s clear that giving at national and state convention levels will be affected.
  • Economic Dislocation — While many families will continue to have the capacity to give sacrificially, many others will not due to economic disruption, higher levels of debt, and a mixture of higher fixed expenses and lower disposable income.
  • Large Giver Shift — Many historically large givers are “passing the torch” to sons, daughters and spouses who may not share the same zeal for and spiritual commitment to the church and its vision.

Enter the One Fund Strategy—an approach designed to simplify and unify giving by connecting a new generation of givers with the full scope of the gospel task. This significant strategy adjustment to one unified offering has three objectives:

  1. Unify church financial needs with…
    • One Ask.
    • One Commitment.
    • One Mission and Vision.
  2. Grow overall levels of giving permanently.
  3. Build a sustainable future giving base.

It’s been said that money follows vision. Tellingly, that statement is both an aspirational goal for messaging and a clear reality about the motivations people have for giving. It’s also the rationale for collecting the entirety of the church’s funding needs in one place to present a unified vision of its collective gospel impact.

The practical implication is that all of it works together to accomplish the Great Commission, even mundane things like utilities, insurance, administration, staffing and facilities.

Most One Funds are presented with a 2-year timeframe and ask for a corresponding commitment to tithe and give above and beyond. In this way, a One Fund resembles multi-year capital campaign commitments. The difference is that the church’s full missional objectives—traditional budget, special missions and capital projects—are part of the commitment.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Consider how the pace of change among our churches and broader culture is impacting charitable giving across the United States. Perhaps a One Fund Strategy is the answer. It’s an approach designed to simplify and unify giving by connecting a new generation of givers with the full scope of the gospel task.

Resources

6 Ministry Budget Traps

By

big_ideas_logo

6 Ministry Budget Traps

Managing ministry money is one of the first places where vision drift creeps into a church. It happens in the absence of bold vision and a coherent ministry strategy. It also happens with short-sighted or visionless leadership.

Making financial decisions is the golden moment when a church shows its true priorities. A church can say it has strategic priorities, but how it budgets and spends money is a far better indication of what it values than anything it might say.

Why the disconnect? Why do we so often say one thing but do something completely different with ministry money?

Consider the answer in these 6 ministry budget traps:

  1. Silos vs. Vision – Before starting a new budget process, pull staff or volunteer leadership teams together to review vision as well as key strategic areas and initiatives. Work to reduce and eliminate ministry silos with a compelling ministry vision.
  2. Past Spending vs. Future Focus – Previous year spending patterns can be a consideration for budget cuts, but exercise caution. Ask important questions about why the money wasn’t spent. Above all, don’t allow low spending to determine future budgets in key areas.
  3. Programs vs. Purpose – Budgets are a good time to evaluate ministry programs and purpose. Consider the things you should stop, start and continue doing. Does a ministry program need adjustment? Should an existing program (and budget) be ended in favor of something else?
  4. Events vs. Strategy – Ask leaders who supervise budget lines to think strategically. Require that budget requests be linked to church vision and clearly-defined strategies and action plans. Work with your team to prevent last year’s calendar from automatically determining future plans.
  5. Personalities vs. Priorities – The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Some church budgets reflect this, as more money gets allocated to louder voices and departments. Well-reasoned—but quiet and low key—ministry priorities get pushed aside in these situations. Commit to avoid this trap with a coherent, priority-driven budget process.
  6. Status Quo vs. Change – Create a budget process that encourages a vision-aligned, strategy-driven openness to change. The best stewardship of the church’s financial resources is a Q&A attitude about the status quo.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Allocating money strategically is the best way to manage limited financial resources. Make your budget choices completely dependent on what you are called to do (vision and values), who you are called to reach (outreach focus) and how God has called you to reach them (goals, strategies and action plans).

Resources

We provide open access tools to help ministry teams lead, grow and serve.

Ministry Tools

Categories

Contact

Search

Copyright © 2025 Ministry Action Plans. All rights reserved.