Description
How to Prioritize and Distribute Your Church’s Missions Giving
By Mike Easton
This resource is designed to help church missions leaders align their global missions partnerships and funding decisions with their church’s vision and strategy. It provides a framework—using categories like People, Places, and Projects—to evaluate current and potential partners, prioritize resources, and establish clear tiers of support (such as Sending, Supporting, Encouraging) that correspond with a downloadable spreadsheet tool. By working through this process, missions leaders can confidently steward their church’s time, talent, and treasure, ensuring strategic impact while fostering healthy, transparent relationships with partners.
The goal of this resource is to take the vision and strategy that you have developed and translate that to the stewardship of your church’s resources—both the time and talents of your people, as well as the material resources God has entrusted you with.
We want you, as a missions leader in your church, to be confident as you lead members of your church to give their time, talents, and treasure towards global missions endeavors that fit with your vision and strategy. Pastor David Horner, former lead pastor of a large, missions-focused church, says about the importance of strategy:
Rather than embrace a noble vision and then attempt to pursue it in a haphazard manner, churches need a strategic approach to their efforts that takes into consideration not only the vision itself but also the purposes, principles, and values of the congregation as a whole. A strategy provides both a logic and a first level of detail for how a vision can be accomplished.
We also want you, as a missions leader, to approach solicitations for partnership or funding with confidence and clarity—being able to listen and give encouragement, while remaining clear and kind in regards to your partnership intentions.
In my first two years as missions pastor, I kept a list of all the snail mail, e-mails, and phone calls I received from people around the world. Why? In hindsight, I’m not really sure… maybe I like spreadsheets too much. But in those two years, I received requests from people from over half of the countries in the world. Even the prince of Nigeria got in touch with me. With a personality traits of a “helper” and a “feeler,” I would feel some level of anxiety with every email and phone call. “How am I going to say no to this organization? They are doing great work. I don’t want to offend them. I don’t want them to get angry with me. Even if I say no, will they understand why?”
Leadership often comes down to communicating the why as clearly and simply as possible, making great decisions, and loving those you lead, no matter their response. It was my responsibility as a missions pastor to give clear and simple criteria for what we focus on and fund. I need to be clear with our members, and, in kindness, clear with anyone reaching out for partnership and funding.
As we developed our vision and strategy for global missions as a leadership team, I no longer dreaded those fundraising meetings. I often knew what our posture would be towards that organization or person before they came in for the meeting because of the guidelines our team had established beforehand. However, I disciplined myself to ask the Lord, “Help me to be an encouragement to this person today, and help me see if there’s any way you want to lead our church today because of this meeting.” Instead of dreading these conversations, I was able to see them as either an opportunity to reinforce our vision or discover a new thing God wanted us to move toward.
Our hope is that you would use this resource to confidently execute the vision and strategy God has placed before you.
Stewardship
The stewardship of money is an important responsibility both personally and collectively as a church. Jesus often spoke about money. The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30 highlights this idea of financial stewardship very clearly. Each servant was given an amount of money to be stewarded and grown for the sake of the master. Those who took what they had been given and multiplied it were rewarded. The servant that buried the money in the ground was punished for not stewarding that which he was given.
As leaders of the missions department, we have been given “talents” to invest, directing our church’s focus and funding. We are wasting what God has given us if we give time, energy, and finances to global missions simply to check a box at our church. Churches are called to make a significant, strategic impact as they do cross-cultural missions.
In the resource “How to Establish Missions Convictions in Your Church,” we describe the difference between having a broad versus focused strategy for global missions. We have observed that having a focused strategy, stewarding resources in a strategic way, often leads to deeper and more lasting impact. David Horner, former pastor of Providence Church says of this approach, “support becomes more targeted” and “partnerships become more personal.” This is the more difficult and courageous path, but it is the way to the greatest impact.
Evaluating Partnerships
How do we categorize our missions endeavors to provide the clarity of a more focused approach? In his book Gaining by Losing, Pastor J.D. Greear gives some helpful ideas for the categorization of missions. Three helpful categories for evaluating how a person or an organization aligns with your church’s vision is to determine to what extent it includes People, Places, and Projects:
People - Those we love from our church or who are closely connected to our church.
Places - Locations in which we currently partner or could see ourselves in the future.
Projects - Endeavors that fit our vision.
The more of the “3 P’s” the partner or organization includes, the more focus and funding they will receive. It is a very simple way to quickly gauge how much of your limited resources should be distributed to a person or organization.
A possible next step is to take the 3 P’s and create tiers of focus and funding based on the extent to which the 3 P’s are actualized in that category. Churches have categorized this in many different ways. Here are some words you could use for each tier:
Sending - Partnerships that include all 3 P’s: People, Places, and Projects. They might involve your most beloved members or partners. Perhaps these are in places you feel called to work. You may have either started the project or have taken a high ownership role in the partnership.
Supporting - Partnerships that include 2 of the 3 P’s: People and either a Place or a Project. The proposal for support may have come from someone in your church or an organization you like, but your church will be more supportive than proactive in the endeavors of that partner.
Encouraging - Partnerships that include 1 of the 3 P’s: likely People, but possibly a Place or a Project. You may love and desire to help them, but your efforts seem best in the form of encouraging from afar. This may not involve funding or a significant amount of time. For some churches, this may only be a commitment to pray.
At this point, you might consider downloading our “Spreadsheet for Prioritizing and Distributing Your Church’s Missions Giving.” This resource can serve as a step-by-step process for re-evaluating your missions giving and the amount of focus you give towards each type of partner.
(Begin with the tab, “Strategy Statements.” Write out different names for the categories of Sending, Supporting, and Encouraging that best fit your church’s context. Define those categories for your context.)
Taking Inventory of Your Partners
Now that you have created the categories of focus and funding for your partnerships, make a list of those partnerships to evaluate them based on your key values and strategies.
On the spreadsheet, take a look at the tab called “Example Partner Re-evaluation Matrix.” This is an example of how you could evaluate your partners by giving them a weighted score for each value or strategy.
Here’s a screenshot for reference:
In this example, you’ll find:
A list of sample values and strategies on the top row
Underneath, a weighted score for each value or strategy (some of the values/strategies carry more priority for partnership)
Partnerships listed on the left-hand column
Each partnership given a score based on the weight of that value/strategy
Partnership scores totaled for comparison
Total scores sorted from lowest to highest, and then categorized by one of three tiers: “Sending, Supporting, or Encouraging”
Partners categorized by type (different types of partners should have different financial giving parameters)
Each partnership listed with monthly giving to that partnership
With this data, you will be able to:
Create an initial evaluation of your current partnerships
With the philosophy of tiers in mind, give an initial assignment of a tier to each partnership
Assess on one page how much is given to each partner
Determine outliers to make adjustments
In this example, you’ll see that this church would need to make some adjustments to their monthly giving towards some partnerships because they are not consistent between the tier and type of partnership.
With this example in mind, go to the tab, “Create Your Own Matrix.”
In column A, list all the missionaries and organizations that you currently support.
On the top row, list the primary values/strategies that you want to use for evaluation (add a column if needed). Sort the columns by order of importance.
Give each column a maximum weighted score.
Score each partnership by each value/strategy up to the “max weighted score.”
Sort your partnerships by total score.
Categorize each partner by tiers based on your definitions and total scores. This exercise may cause you to redefine your tiers—that’s ok!
Determine the type of partnership for each missionary and organization.
Determine the allotted giving to each partner.
If you’re not using the spreadsheet, check out this graphic:
Now, evaluate your giving to your partners:
Should you make any adjustments to your strategies and scoring weights?
Should you make any adjustments to the definitions of your tiers?
What are the giving outliers? Highlight or make a note to look into necessary adjustments.
With this information in mind, go back to the “Strategy Statements” tab on the spreadsheet. Underneath the heading “Defining Your Giving Amounts,” determine with some minimums and maximums of what to give each tier and type of partner. This will serve as a helpful guide for re-evaluating giving to old partners and establish giving to new partners.
Here is an example:
(Under the “Recommendations” column, you’ll notice a percentage of giving for the first two tiers. It has been our experience that these percentages communicate investment and value at the right level for each tier. Going above 20% for first tier partnerships can place a lot of weight on the church and make it difficult to distribute funds for future missionaries. Less than 15% can make it feel like the church is not very invested in the work of first tier missionaries.)
Analytics are a helpful tool, but they are not the end-all be-all. Utilize these tools to help lay a foundation for re-evaluation and decision-making. Your final decisions should always be made through conversation with one another, with leadership at your church, and through prayer. These guidelines will help, but they should not replace the leading of the Holy Spirit in a different direction. They are simply one example of how churches have gone about this.
Focus
Stewardship is not only about money; it is also about time and energy. You’re investing not only money, but also time and energy into your partnerships. The next step of stewardship is to determine what relational focus to give to each of your tiers of partners.
Think about the different areas of focus that you give to missionaries:
Assessment and Development Pre-Field - How much effort will your missions team give to their assessment and development process? Will you have them attend a monthly missions cohort for potential missionaries? Will you cover the costs of some personality or assessment tests?
Commissioning Plan - Will they be highlighted at a commissioning service? Will you host a commissioning luncheon for them?
Frequency of Interaction on the Field - Who from the church will interact with them when they are on the field? How often will those people interact with them?
Advocacy Team - Will they have an advocacy team?
Highlighting in Church Communication - Will updates about their work be given on a Sunday morning, through church newsletters, and/or prayer gatherings?
Trips - Will you send missionary care trips? Will you send short-term trips?
Help with Furlough Logistics - What will your church provide practically in terms of housing, transportation, schooling, fellowship, etc.?
Speaking Back to the Church - Will they have stage time when back at their home church? Will you provide a smaller space for them to share about their ministry? Will they have time to speak with staff?
Now, visit the “Time & Energy” tab on the spreadsheet. Next to each question on the left-hand are some sample answers to those questions based on their tier categorization. Go through this tab and make it your own. Add other questions you’d like answered. Change what time and energy you would like to give to them.
Here’s a screenshot for reference:
Concluding Thoughts
As you clarify your focus and funding model, you will increase your church’s ability to make efficient and healthy decisions about partnership with new missionary candidates or organizations. Ultimately, you will better steward the resources that God has given you. Lord willing, your kingdom impact will increase as you see greater synergy amongst your leadership and members towards the mission that God has put before your church.
Next Steps
The journey toward sending well happens one step at a time. Here are three ways you can continue moving upstream:
Download the “Spreadsheet for Prioritizing and Distributing Your Church’s Missions Giving.” Make a list of all your partners and how much you give them per month. Make some initial observations. As you have time, complete the exercises in the Spreadsheet.
In the Members area of the Upstream website, click on the Missions Finances tag to explore all our resources on this topic.
If you would like to take a deep dive into your missions budget check out “Spreadsheet for Missions Budgeting” and the video training “Developing a Global Missions Budget.”