A recent study of over 1,000 churches across the United States who had recently completed capital campaigns revealed that seemingly subtle differences in the ways various churches approached their campaigns yielded startling and significantly different campaign results. The study was conducted in June-July 2010 by Volkart May & Associates, a Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota based marketing and market research firm.
All Things New
"We were very pleased that over 125 pledges came from members who hadn't pledged to the prior capital campaign."Ankeny First United Methodist Church (AFUMC) recently expanded to a third site within one of the fastest growing communities in Iowa. As a result of that expansion, we were challenged with launching a new capital campaign to retire the debt on that new third site, continue with other capital improvement projects at the other two sites, and support the capital intensive improvements with our mission partners at an inner-city church in Des Moines and in Malawi, Africa. All of this happened to occur during a time of a depressed economy and financial uncertainty for many of AFUMC's members.
James D. Klote & Associates was instrumental in orchestrating what turned out to be the most successful capital campaign in AFUMC's history. Through the efforts of James D. Klote's representative, AFUMC was able to raise over $600,000 more than the last capital campaign (a 32% increase) and we're not even complete with the campaign yet. Our consultant implemented a plan that relied on a Steering Committee of 1% of the congregation to contact every member of the church in hopes of visiting with them to discuss the campaign and a level of giving each member would be willing to pledge.
The plan was simple and straight forward. Although AFUMC happens to be the largest United Methodist Church in Iowa, the plan will work for any size church as it is always tailored directly for each specific congregation. It is important to understand that without our Klote consultant staying on-site the entire duration of the campaign, along with his administration, organization, guidance, persistence, and praise, AFUMC's campaign would likely not have been as successful. We were very pleased that over 125 pledges came from members who hadn't pledged to the prior capital campaign. We are thankful to God for bringing James D. Klote and their representative, to AFUMC.
– Wade & Crystal Greiman and Jim & Angie Thornton
Campaign Co-chairs
Ankeny First United Methodist Church
Ankeny, Iowa
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