Capital campaigns

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:09

Hey, everyone. Lee Stevenson here with our unfiltered podcast. I have the privilege of serving with Converge as the executive director of church planting.

And here we are having real church planting conversations. And welcome my co host.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:23

Hi, my name is Danny Parmelee and I oversee church planting in Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:27

And today we're going to talk about money, money, money. So we're going to specifically be talking about capital campaigns in a church plant setting. When, how, how much should we be looking at?

And those are going to be some of the questions that we talk about.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:42

Cool. And I know that we've already talked about money, but we're talking about money again. I love talking about money.

Not because I love money, but it is a spiritual matter, it's a vision matter, and it's an important part of ministry.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:54

Absolutely, absolutely. Danny, how many capital campaigns have you kind of led your own church through over the years?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:02

So we did three, but it was one main one. And then the two following years we had some mini specific ones.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:10

Yeah, talk about the difference between a main capital campaign and a mini campaign. Just so that way we have terminology everybody's familiar with.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:19

Yeah, well, first of all, just amounts of money. So the first one was right around a million dollars and the subsequent ones were a couple hundred thousand dollars.

And for those, most people, well, depending on how you structure the campaign. But a lot of times you're asking people to give over a three year period.

So if in your main campaign you're saying, hey, would you give over the next three years?

If the following year you're doing another campaign, a lot of times you're inviting people who are newer to the church that weren't part of that original campaign. But if you've already built the building or completed that main purpose of that campaign, you're giving them something else to give to.

So for us, that main one was the building that we purchased. And then the subsequent ones were, you know, for to do a coffee shop on part of the building and then to renovate an entire children's wing.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:10

Okay, so when you guys did your million dollar campaign, that was a full three year campaign, that you full three year campaign. And then the mini campaigns, what was kind of the timeline specifically?

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:20

So then it was give over the next two years and give over the next year. So it's all kind of, that's why I say it was part of that name.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:27

So it's just kind of more extended.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:29

It extended.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:30

Okay.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:30

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:31

Okay, that's, that's helpful. We did probably, man, four real campaigns in the first Six years of, of the church plant, all different levels.

So we did many campaigns and literally a mini campaign in our context could have been two months and we did one bigger capital campaign that was a two year campaign. Where, where are you at at this point? Because I know there's some differentiating opinions about length of campaigns.

Traditionally it's the three year campaign was kind of the traditional campaign. Are you still an advocate for a three year campaign or would you change that at this point?

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:13

I think it totally depends on the culture of the church, age of the church.

So there might be some things that yes, I'm opinionated about when it comes to capital campaigns, but the most thing is that it is tailored to the culture of the church and to understand. So people, yeah, they're giving cycles and plan giving. That's changing over time.

And so I think that that's something that if you have a consultant which we can talk about will help to inform and to know that. So if it's a very, very young church, people might not be able to plan out three years.

If you have an older congregation, they may be able to say, hey, we know what our income is going to be for the next three years, so we can kind of plan based off of that.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:55

That's, that's good. I.

One of the things that I think is important to understand as a church planter, you're never going to take your, your foot off the gas pedal when it comes to raising funds. That's just going to be a part of your job. And sometimes a mini campaign can be a great approach to that.

I can remember when we were moving from one facility to another facility, people, because of the impending changes that were taking place, that was a moment for us to leverage a capital campaign.

And so we did a one month campaign to try to offset some of the extra costs that were gonna be involved in purchasing new equipment and stuff to fit the new building. When we, we had an opportunity to move very quickly from portable situation into a permanent situation.

But the property that we're moving to, it looked like a foreclosed property. And so it was, it was impossible for us to just take everything that we had, plug it in there and make it work.

We had to do some upkeep, we had to do some paint, we had to fix some AC units, those type of things in order for us to move in. The entire property was overgrown by weeds and bushes and trees had never been trimmed at least in the last four or five years.

And so we did a two month campaign. We just simply Called it dominate.

And the idea was we want to dominate the building and all the weeds that exist are keeping us, but we also want to dominate the community with the gospel. And people latched onto that. And in that two month campaign, we were able to raise significant amount of money to at least get us in the facility.

So there's a little bit of a different approach versus a mini campaign versus a long term campaign.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:36

And when we started out, we were renting an old Presbyterian church and they were on the decline and they made it very clear that eventually they would have to give up ownership of the building. So knowing that we put some money away each month. So that was kind of, that was not a campaign at all, but it was kind of part of our budget.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:54

And when, what kind of percentage? So that way you guys have kind.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:57

were ready. So we launched in: 2005

And we were again, small church, small budget. And I was so nervous and scared and I never wanted to do a capital campaign.

So I was thankful that the purchase of that first building did not require a campaign. Because when someone mentioned capital campaign, in my mind, what I thought was this is where you have to twist people's arms.

You force them to give money to something they don't want. Half the people leave the church because they think the church is only about money.

And you're just going to have to preach about money for a year to try to raise it. So I wanted nothing to do with, with capital campaigns.

And then after actually we got into that building and we grew for, for our second location, we were presented opportunity that required a capital campaign because of the amount of improvements. And so I kind of begrudgingly said, well, if this is really where God's leading, it's going to require us to do a campaign.

And that's when I started to kind of just ask around and you know, do you have to get a consultant? I ordered a couple books. They were about capital campaign consulting.

So that was my original thought, is I'm going to save some money, not pay a consultant 30 or $40,000 and just do this myself. And I can't remember who must have been someone on my elder board that had enough wisdom to say, no way. This is like way beyond us.

This is way beyond your ability, Danny, to do this. And so we did hire A consultant to do that, that big one that I was mentioning.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:37

So what fears? Once you actually walk through a campaign, what fears were real, which ones were made up?

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:48

Most of them were made up. So it was so fascinating to me.

And even as people talk about it now, years later, they talk back on the Reach campaign with such delight, like the good old days. Like, hey, remember back when that awesome time when we went through that capital campaign? Because it truly was.

It was a time of personal faith growth for myself, for the church, corporately. But individually, we did not lose people from the church. And I didn't have to force anybody to give. I didn't have to twist.

I didn't have to twist anybody's arm. And that was the most amazing thing.

And part of it, I would say, is I feel like we did have a really great consultant that said, this is about vision. You're asking, you're inviting people to give to vision. Just, it's like evangelism. You present the good news. It's up to them to decide.

And that's the same approach that we took with our capital campaign. We cast the vision for it. If people wanted to be involved, awesome. And if they didn't, then they didn't need to.

And even from our leaders, that was probably the most amazing part that, I mean, I think we had. I don't know, it was like $225,000 that was raised just from the leaders.

And again, most of us were still pretty young and not making a ton of money, so it was just phenomenal.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:10

Yeah, that's awesome. So what's your opinion then? Because there's people that differentiate and fall on both sides of the spectrum.

Hire a consultant, don't hire a consultant.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:21

I would say for your first one, the money is absolutely worth it. So if you have the right consultant, they will help you. A lot of it for us was the readiness part. So do a lot of the number crunching.

And even for us, did some of the interviews with different people within our church and were willing to kind of give us a green light, yellow light or red light to say, yeah, you're ready, and this is kind of what you can expect.

And I know there's some general numbers out there as far as saying, okay, well, you can do, like, three times your budget or, you know, those different things. But a good consultant will be able to break that down and look at your current giving units to give you a much better projection.

And that projected number is one of the most important things, because it's not just what you Need. It's, it's really kind of saying, here, here would be a faith stretch for you, but you don't do it too low.

That people are like, well, you know, like, that's not even. I don't know, it's not even a face. Yeah, it doesn't stretch us, but you don't want to go too high either.

You set a, you know, campaign of $8 million and you come in at, you know, 1 million, it's like, well, okay, you know, a little bit of egg on your face type of thing. But for them to say, here's really what I think is a realistic capability is just, that's, that's. And you can learn from that.

And then from there on, I think you can do it yourself. But it's also, you know, I don't think it's wrong to continue to hire a consultant if you've had a good experience.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:49

Well, let's. I'm going to lean into something you said there. You talked about a good consultant. What makes a good consultant?

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:56

Yeah, I do think that some of the best consultants is that they don't.

They don't take a cookie cutter approach and that they truly are looking at the uniqueness and individual, the uniqueness of every single church and trying to help them maximize their vision. So there's no doubt there are mechanics to a capital campaign like, hey, you should do, you know, these 10 steps.

But if a consultant doesn't help you to clarify your vision in the beginning, then you, you kind of lose the whole thing because, again, people are giving to the vision more than they are. Even just the capital building or whatever it is that you're trying to raise.

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:36

Money for right now. I do differentiate a little bit from you on the consultant thing.

To me, it's about energy that the pastor has, whether or not he has the energy to engage and to lead a capital campaign, or if the energy is kind of lacking, that's where a consultant can be extremely helpful because they keep the focus there, where you may be waning.

Danny Parmelee: 00:12:02

You call me Lazy Lee?

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:03

No, no, no. But what I, what I am trying to help guys understand is don't be afraid of doing a capital campaign.

And, you know, for us, early on, I went through our first kind of four campaigns and never hired a consultant.

But I did have a lot of good friends that had done this a long time, and it had very large established churches and had raised a lot of money that were basically on call. So I was able to call them up and say, how do I do this Walk Me through step by step. And that information was golden to us.

And I even had several churches, like here, we got copies of all of our old capital campaigns that we've done over the last couple years.

Just take it and look at it and educate yourself on how to write things, how to put vision together in a way that's compelling, what kind of stories are helpful. And that information, honestly, was very, very helpful, and it saved us some money, which I know is always a fear, but to me.

So that's why I just kind of say to guys like, you got to know yourself, know what you're good at, know what, what is challenging, know what your energy level is. Sometimes when you're in the church planning, you're in the trenches.

Like, the last thing you feel like you have the energy to do is to bite off one more major campaign. And so I totally get it.

If I was going to do it again, like another large campaign, we probably would have hired a consultant at that point, just simply because I know I didn't have the energy to drive at the level that we needed to drive it.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:39

Yep. Cool.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:42

What time period do you think a church planner should begin to think about engaging his very first church capital campaign?

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:50

Well, there's some. Again, some different thoughts on this. For some, they would say, hey, definitely start your savings right away.

But at year three, you should do a capital campaign, whether you have a piece of property or a building in mind.

And others would say, well, when you've kind of outgrown the current facility that you're in and it makes sense to get a permanent facility, then, you know, hunt went down. And if you find it, then kind of work backwards from that and do a capital campaign.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:23

Great, great. Well, this has been a fun conversation just talking about capital campaigns.

There's a lot of information out there, a lot of blogs, a lot of books that have been written over the years as well. And so I'd encourage you just if you're in that process, kind of educate yourself where you're at and understand.

My biggest push would be to encourage you as a listener.

Make sure if you do hire a capital campaign consultant company that they fit you, they fit your culture, they understand your context, they understand the age group in which they're working with as well. Because sometimes generational gap can become a challenge when it comes to capital campaign and knowing your culture.

I mean, I've been in churches where the campaign consultant was really pushy about doing a major banquet, but the culture of the church, that would not have flown well, doing a major banquet in that culture. So you want to make sure you're working with somebody that gets you and wants to help bring the vision to light, not just push an agenda through.

So thanks again for being with us. This has been unfiltered real church planning conversations. And until next time, everyone keep it real.

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:38

It.