can also make a short-term loan against those pledge receipts. Today, with the way construction costs have inflated, it sometimes takes both these elements to get the borrower where they want to be in terms of total borrowing capacity and project size.
Denise Craig: Michael, are you seeing anything from a software perspective on how churches are approaching their fundraising?
Michael Blanton: Yeah. The key thing that we see is folks looking to get better visibility and real-time information— everything from getting their data house in order to moving out of manual reporting. They want to be able to quickly produce answers around their overall capital structure and how well they’ re set up. From a budgeting and planning standpoint, it has been a tricky year for everybody, right? A lot of quick reactions from folks trying to figure out what to do next. So, from an immediate-planning perspective, the ability to nimbly plan has definitely been a big trend among the fastest-growing technologies for nonprofits, including churches.
BUDGETING TRENDS
Q: Have you observed any shifts in churches’ budgeting priorities over the past year?( e. g., areas being frozen, expanded, or reimagined)
Jeremy Moore: Something we’ re certainly seeing in the Church and in the broader economy is the rich getting richer. The divide between the haves and the have-nots is widening. Among churches, growth seems to be accelerating— in some instances, both numerically and financially. Meanwhile, on the other side, there are churches who are really struggling. For them, investing in updated budgeting software is pretty tricky when you’ re struggling to figure out how to fix the roof. It’ s something we’ re monitoring. Certainly, our average church client is quite large. It seems like the larger they are, you do get some economies of scale; they’ re scaling up even faster. They’ re starting to look more like middle market companies from a business and operations standpoint. I don’ t know that we’ re ready to make any determinations of value surrounding that, but it’ s real and something we’ re watching.
Sandy McClure: As we talk with church clients, many are looking at giving trends and growing deeper with their people as well as taking the one-fund approach. Having worked in a church office, I like the one-fund approach and not the detail tracking of restricted funds. We talked about it all the time in the church office:‘ robbing Peter to pay Paul’ when a new campaign started, but that’ s not the case with one-fund. The church says, Always give above your tithes— but then you see it shift between funds. [ Baker Tilly ] developed a tool called Ministry Intelligence that digs deeper into those giving trends. In this economy, it’ s important to be able to identify and reach out to people who need a pastoral touch. Monitoring the discipleship side is really important as you budget. Also, Jeremy [ Moore ] is right: several big church clients are planting new campuses, while smaller churches are being absorbed by bigger churches and taking on their branding. We also see some larger churches fostering some smaller churches, which shows Christ. It’ s really amazing.
Denise Craig: Yeah, it’ s a Kingdom mindset for sure.
David Lee: This is such a critical piece of the puzzle because, ultimately, if ministry didn’ t require money, then we wouldn’ t be having this session. Unfortunately, it does. Churches are leaning into campaigns not so much to fund just a project or an event where traditionally a campaign is perhaps two / three years,
and you’ re done. Instead, we’ re seeing churches talk about not wanting to just raise money but raise disciples; the financial support comes as a byproduct of deepening people’ s relationship with Christ. When that discipleship focus is there, everybody’ s living with an open hand, resulting in an overall increase in generosity.
Denise Craig: That’ s a great point. When someone is sitting in the pastor or church administrator seat, they have to somehow balance the practical, financial side with the spiritual discipleship side. There are so many scriptures about finances in the Bible. Sometimes it’ s not what we want from people, it’ s what we want for them— helping them learn what it means to live a life of generosity.
BORROWING PITFALLS
Q: What are some common pitfalls churches should avoid when borrowing or managing funds?
Dan Mikes: One thing I see in the marketplace that’ s concerning— and I don’ t think it’ s the case with the other lenders on this call— is lenders allowing churches to allocate up to 40 % of their core giving to annual debt service. I think that’ s too much; we stop at 30 %. You want the building to serve the ministry, not the ministry serving the building. This can result in financial stress should interest rates increase later. Another concern is, where are you placing your deposits? Is it in an institution that’ s doing good things with those funds? Are your funds FDIC insured? With a non-bank lender, your money might not be insured, and it might not even be immediately available to you in a worst-case scenario. Consider what happened years ago at the Arizona Baptist Foundation. Do a Google search and you’ ll see a very well-intentioned institution which ended up losing a lot of money for a lot of depositors.
Jeremy Moore: Something that we used to see a lot— then stopped seeing for a while— and are now seeing again is what I call‘ aggressive construction starts.’ People are trying to get ahead of the seemingly never-ending construction cost increases. From our seat( and probably from every seat here), if you’ re trying to get a loan from a bank or financial institution after you’ ve already put shovels in the ground, it’ s going to be challenging at best. Talk to the banks first before you start moving dirt.
David Lee: Yeah, I agree. And I think Dan brings up a good point about the management of funds. If it’ s my own personal finances, I’ ll abide by my own risk tolerance, right? As an administrator for a church, you are called to be a steward and manage what God has entrusted to you. One of the first things I did when I joined our finance team at my church was to help develop an Investment Policy Statement that aligned not only with the risk tolerance for our church but also was in alignment with our mission. If your church doesn’ t have an investment policy statement, you need to engage with financial professionals to make sure you have at least a general framework. If you’ d like to see a copy of ours, I would love to share!
Denise Craig: Absolutely. And that’ s the value in networking: you don’ t have to recreate the wheel; you can learn from other people who’ ve been there— who’ ve done that and learned the hard way. That’ s exactly what policies are for, too: to put parameters in place to make decision-making easier. It’ s almost like you’ re pre-deciding what you’ re going to do in some of those situations.
REPORTING & AUDITS
Q: What are some best practices for churches to streamline financial reporting and audits?
16 CHURCH EXECUTIVE | NOV / DEC 2025