Congregations

We hope your congregation can easily find a way to participate in the Congregational Financial Assessment program. In many congregations, operational responsibilities exceed the human resources needed to address them. Even in congregations with an abundance of people willing to serve, issues of congregational finance may still pose an extraordinary challenge.

This program is for congregational leaders interested in improving their congregation’s financial wellness and operational impact but unsure where to start. The Congregational Financial Assessment provides both a starting point and a road map to improved financial stability. Program participation may enable leaders in your congregation to step forward and serve with greater confidence and competence as they seek to master more advanced topics (e.g., narrative budgeting, online giving).

This program is also for congregational leaders interested in learning from and helping other ELCA congregations improve their financial wellness. Through the Resourceful Servants website, congregational leaders across the church will be able to answer one another’s questions and share resources they have developed or curated.

Share the infographic titled Improve Congregational Financial Wellness with leaders in your congregation to start or enhance a discussion about finances and how the Congregational Certificate Program could help your congregation.

Explore the available resources — Using the “Congregations” area, your congregation can determine what you do and do not know about congregational finance and can explore resources (e.g., videos, articles, websites, textbooks) related to healthy financial practices. Links associated with each practice provide a deeper dive into the topic.

Track congregational behavior — Leaders in your congregation can track its progress on healthy financial practices. The site will indicate the congregation’s level of proficiency on each practice and give it an overall self-assessment score.

Communicate with peers — Built-in discussion tools enable your congregation to teach and learn from peers in other congregations and share its own feedback on resources it finds helpful or unhelpful.

To begin the Congregational Financial Assessment and score your proficiency in each of the 21 healthy financial practices, log in to the behavior tracker. The tracker can be accessed from the Congregations menu by clicking on “Track Progress.”

Your congregation will earn points as you assess your use and competency for each behavior, with answers ranging from “We don’t do this practice” (0 points) to “We do this very well, with no need for development/improvement” (5 points).

To amplify learning across the ELCA, Resourceful Servants will watch for emerging trends related to:

• Congregational participation in the portal,
• Reported proficiencies in each healthy financial behavior, and
• Overall assessment scores across the range of practices.

This information will help us determine which resources will impact the greatest number of congregations.

In addition to the internal motivation of improving your congregation’s financial health, participating in the Congregational Financial Assessment may benefit your congregation in the following ways:

• Growth in giving — Let’s face it: people are not inspired to give to causes that are “sinking ships” or have minimal impact. Donors want to sense that their gifts are being managed appropriately and are making a difference. Engaging with the Congregational Financial Assessment signals to supporters that your congregation takes good stewardship seriously, setting the table for higher levels of support and generosity.
• Impact on ministry — Financial wellness has impact beyond the congregational coffers. Participating in the Congregational Financial Assessment and implementing healthy financial practices may enable your congregation to focus more fully on faith formation inside and outside your walls.
• Knowledge transfer — By tracking your healthy financial practices, your congregation creates an excellent opportunity to transfer knowledge and practices from a retiring officer (e.g., a finance chair or treasurer) to an incoming officer. Record-keeping will raise new officers’ awareness of the congregation’s financial practices and prepare them to take further beneficial actions.
• Calling a rostered minister — Should your congregation enter the call process, rostered ministers seeking a call can see whether your congregation participates in the Congregational Financial Assessment. Participation could indicate to a potential rostered minister that your congregation values financial health.
• Borrowing money — Improved financial practices are of interest to donors as well as to any lending institution as it considers extending Congregations with sound financial practices are judged as less risky and thus are better positioned to be deemed creditworthy and deserving of low interest rates.
• Recognition at a synod assembly — If your congregation participates in the Congregational Financial Assessment, the congregation will be lifted up at your synod assembly. This will reinforce for the other congregations in your synod the importance of financial best practices and the work associated with them. It will also inform these congregations about the availability of resourcefulservants.org, the resources the website provides and the impact of any knowledge gained and behavior changed.

Assessed practices are not intended to be “one and done”; rather, they must be repeated over and over. The self-assessment tracker retains a score for any given practice for up to 18 months before reverting to zero. The goal is to emphasize periodic reassessment while providing the time to research, implement and improve each financial best practice.

Yes. All ELCA congregations can access the “Congregations” area of resourcefulservants.org.