Set and manage your budget the way Christ would \u2013 with care, concern and transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A good budget will put your church on a path thrive \u2013 not just survive. These 5-steps will help put your church on that path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step One – The budget is set and created based on your mission and goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Create a budget based on your mission and vision, not need. The first step to creating a great budget is to hold a vision and goal setting session. Invite key staff, board members and key leaders and thinkers from your church. Determine what you want your church to achieve over the next 12 months \u2013 in specific areas, such as Outreach, Spiritual Growth, Leadership Development (volunteerism), Compassion, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Two \u2013 Create a budget that is realistic \u2013 both from income and expense perspectives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s important to have several people look over the budget to determine if it\u2019s realistic. Are the income numbers reasonable, are the operational expenses reasonable and is it possible to accomplish the goals associated with your mission and vision with the budget projected? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Three – The budget is a living document \u2013 you look at it weekly and make adjustments periodically<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Financial reporting on a regular basis is the key to living within your budget. We recommend looking at income and outflow on a weekly basis. We also recommend creating a spreadsheet for the entire year with week-by-week projections for attendance, weekly giving and weekly expenses. You can update the spreadsheet with the actual numbers and compare them to your projections on the sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Four – There are triggers in place for quick adjustments, both up and down<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The advantage to a weekly budget is that adjustments can take place very quickly. We recommend putting in place triggers so adjustments can take place. We recommend a red, yellow, green condition to the budget as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Green \u2013 you are operating within 5% of the projected budget (up or down)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yellow \u2013 you are 6-10% high or low<\/p>\n\n\n\n Red \u2013 you are more than 10% over or under budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Five – The right people (key staff and board members) help create and adhere to the budget<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The budgeting process should be collaborative. People will support what they help create. Every ministry leader should be involved in the budget creation process (not simply told what their budget is). Your key staff should be included in the budget process. Your key board members should also help with the budget creation \u2013 especially those with financial oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next Steps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The process described above has been used for several years in church budgeting and it works well. If you would like greater detail into any of the topics discussed above, we recommend attending one of the six-week Church Goals classes. The class meets once a week for six weeks and has available significant resources in the areas of budgeting and finance. Follow this link for more information: https:\/\/bit.ly\/ChurchGoalsClass<\/a><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”6px||3px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/gqzsuwk9.pages.infusionsoft.net\/” url_new_window=”on” button_text=”Attend a Class” _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#FFFFFF” button_bg_color=”#8BE3E1″ button_border_width=”4px” button_border_color=”#8BE3E1″ button_border_radius=”100px” button_letter_spacing=”2px” button_font=”Montserrat|700||on|||||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Set and manage your budget the way Christ would \u2013 with care, concern and transparency. A good budget will put your church on a path thrive \u2013 not just survive. These 5-steps will help put your church on that path. Step One – The budget is set and created based on your mission and goals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n Set and manage your budget the way Christ would \u2013 with care, concern and transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A good budget will put your church on a path thrive \u2013 not just survive. These 5-steps will help put your church on that path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step One - The budget is set and created based on your mission and goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Create a budget based on your mission and vision, not need. The first step to creating a great budget is to hold a vision and goal setting session. Invite key staff, board members and key leaders and thinkers from your church. Determine what you want your church to achieve over the next 12 months \u2013 in specific areas, such as Outreach, Spiritual Growth, Leadership Development (volunteerism), Compassion, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Two \u2013 Create a budget that is realistic \u2013 both from income and expense perspectives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s important to have several people look over the budget to determine if it\u2019s realistic. Are the income numbers reasonable, are the operational expenses reasonable and is it possible to accomplish the goals associated with your mission and vision with the budget projected? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Three - The budget is a living document \u2013 you look at it weekly and make adjustments periodically<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Financial reporting on a regular basis is the key to living within your budget. We recommend looking at income and outflow on a weekly basis. We also recommend creating a spreadsheet for the entire year with week-by-week projections for attendance, weekly giving and weekly expenses. You can update the spreadsheet with the actual numbers and compare them to your projections on the sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Four - There are triggers in place for quick adjustments, both up and down<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The advantage to a weekly budget is that adjustments can take place very quickly. We recommend putting in place triggers so adjustments can take place. We recommend a red, yellow, green condition to the budget as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Green \u2013 you are operating within 5% of the projected budget (up or down)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yellow \u2013 you are 6-10% high or low<\/p>\n\n\n\n Red \u2013 you are more than 10% over or under budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step Five - The right people (key staff and board members) help create and adhere to the budget<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The budgeting process should be collaborative. People will support what they help create. Every ministry leader should be involved in the budget creation process (not simply told what their budget is). Your key staff should be included in the budget process. Your key board members should also help with the budget creation \u2013 especially those with financial oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next Steps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The process described above has been used for several years in church budgeting and it works well. If you would like greater detail into any of the topics discussed above, we recommend attending one of the six-week Church Goals classes. The class meets once a week for six weeks and has available significant resources in the areas of budgeting and finance. Follow this link for more information: https:\/\/bit.ly\/ChurchGoalsClass<\/a><\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"1080","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thriveconference.org\/churchgoals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}