Summary

Church: Carmel Church | San Diego, CA Type: Protestant Using Pushpay since: Pre-COVID Products: Pushpay Giving

Through a pandemic and a devastating diagnosis, giving never dropped. Then they used that generosity to put missionaries in local schools.

KEY RESULTS

• Giving remained strong through both COVID and their lead pastor’s cancer battle
• Raised $500,000 for the “Move Forward” community outreach program
• Reaching ~300 young people per week through campus missionaries in local schools
• ~125 students have transitioned into attending Carmel Church, many bringing their families

The situation

Most churches will tell you the pandemic tested their giving. Carmel Church in San Diego was fighting something far heavier at the same time.

Nic Schneider, Operations Pastor, described what happened: “During COVID, our Lead Pastor was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We circled the wagons. We shut everything down.”

The church prayed. And their pastor recovered fully. Even his doctor told him, “You’re the best cancer patient I’ve ever treated. Whatever you’re doing, we need to tell other people to do it.”

But through months of uncertainty, shut doors, and a congregation holding its breath, one thing held steady: giving. Nic was direct about why: “One of the things that remained really strong through COVID and through his cancer battle was giving. It would not have stayed strong if it wasn’t digital through Pushpay.”

That’s not blind loyalty to a vendor. Carmel evaluates their giving platform every year. Nic said plainly, “If it wasn’t the best system, I don’t think we’d be using them still, because we do look at other giving solutions every year.”

The solution

Carmel Church uses Pushpay Giving as the backbone of their digital generosity. But what makes this story worth telling isn’t the platform itself. It’s what stable, frictionless giving made possible when the church was ready to dream again.

After their pastor’s recovery, Carmel’s leadership took a breath, then looked outward. And what they saw in their San Diego community was a generation of young people in crisis.

The church had been running campus clubs in local schools for twenty years, always fighting for permission to stay. Then COVID flipped the script. School principals started calling the church. Nic recalled the shift: “Principals actually met with our church and said, ‘Please, can you come to our campus? Can you come help? Because our counselors are overwhelmed and kids are really struggling.’”

Carmel took that message to their congregation and issued a bold ask: raise half a million dollars to fund a program called “Move Forward” that would put campus missionaries into middle and high schools from Mira Mesa to Rancho Bernardo.

The congregation said yes.

The results

The numbers speak for themselves.

What started as campus clubs that had to fight to stay open has become a program that schools actively invite. Parents and volunteers now partner with Carmel to keep it running. Students are being fed, mentored, and connected to a church community, many for the first time.

Nic framed the church’s philosophy simply: “The greatest thing is that we’re not trying to sell anybody anything. We’re trying to give people Jesus. So we want to use the best tools available to the utmost of their ability.”

And the ripple effect is still growing. Those 125 students aren’t just attending. They’re bringing their families. As Nic put it: “We’ve done that through Pushpay.”

It’s interesting to look at growth through the lens of churches who serve a small, tight-knit community. And it’s doubly interesting when that church has led their local faith community for nearly 140 years.

“[The original area] used to be a junction point for a railroad in Missouri, then it became a brand new city called Carl Junction in 1885,” said Kenan Klein, Worship and Student Minister at Connect Christian Church. “A group of 36 individuals… saw that there was no church and thought, we need to put a church there to ‘connect people to Jesus.’”

Their church—named in honor of that “connect” line above, which was discovered in the original founders’ 19th century paperwork—had grown to roughly two hundred active members by 2020. Connect Christian was filling up their building for two services every Sunday, and at the beginning of March that year, they decided to include a third service to meet the needs of the community.

“We shut down three weeks later,” Kenan said—as did the rest of the country, per COVID social distancing restrictions.

As with most other churches, serious conversations had to take place immediately, specifically with regard to technology’s role in maintaining engagement during the uncertain months ahead. And while Connect Christian succeeded in holding their community together, inefficiencies in the digital approach became obvious during the pandemic—particularly with online giving.

“[Our previous technology platform] used a third-party to take all their transactions, and because it was third-party and not in house, it would take two to three weeks to hit the books,” Kenan said. “During COVID, that was terrible. There are some weeks where we have money coming, but we really need to spend money now that we don’t have, because it’s in this nebulous transition period.”

There were reliability concerns as well. “Facebook went down in 2021 for twenty-four hours. All of our ministry was on Facebook. At that point we’re like, we need another option that we can control that is not another entity, but it’s ours and we can have access to it, so if Facebook goes down we can go live there.”

Knowing a change was needed, they began their due diligence and started researching other technology solutions, and Pushpay quickly became a front-runner. One of the most appealing factors was how Pushpay processes all transactions in-house, which means gifts can be delivered in a couple days, as opposed to a couple weeks.

There were other advantages as well. “I think we should always be faithful stewards of the churches [finances],” Kenan said, emphasizing how this is especially critical for smaller churches. “For me, the biggest concern was return on investment. How is this product going to pay for itself? Because if it doesn’t, we can’t use it.

“I just basically made a spreadsheet of [our previous platform’s tiered pricing] and Pushpay’s price breakdowns, and the tools we use.” It was clear that a tiered plan would soon become untenable for Connect Christian’s goals, whereas Pushpay’s all-in-one pricing wouldn’t change as their community grew.

And grow they have—after adopting Pushpay’s suite of tech solutions, their congregation doubled in size to 400 active members in just three years.

While Connect Christian’s still-growing congregation is a joy for their ministry, Kenan has also been delighted by Pushpay’s customer success team. “I love that we were a church of 200 at the time, and I got the same experience as [a megachurch]… I’m in Southwest Missouri, and I was flown out to one of Pushpay’s customer meetings, and I’m like the smallest church there, talking about some of the things we’re doing.

Summary

Church: First Orlando | Orlando, FL Type: Protestant | ~4,000 members Using Pushpay Since: 2017 Products: ChurchStaq (Pushpay Giving + Pushpay ChMS, formerly Church Community Builder)

KEY RESULTS

• Giving households: ~4,000 to ~8,000 (2x growth)
• Recurring giving: 6x increase in recurring-giving households
• Digital giving: 20% to 70% of total contributions

The situation

If your church management system runs on one person’s institutional knowledge, and everyone on staff quietly knows it, you’ve probably already had the conversation about what happens when they leave. The workarounds pile up. The spreadsheets get password-protected. And eventually the system stops serving the church and starts serving itself.

First Orlando lived in that reality for decades. Their system was originally built in the late 1970s and had been modified by successive staff developers over 30 or 40 years. Matthew Robinson, Pastor of Ministries & Administration, put it plainly: the platform had been “Frankenstein-ed” into a patchwork of custom databases and protected spreadsheets with a “segmented, hidden, You-Can’t-Touch-This nature.”

Every time a staff member left, a piece of institutional knowledge walked out the door with them. And as the congregation grew from 2,000 to 4,000 members, the cracks became impossible to ignore. Leaders, staff, and volunteers couldn’t collaborate. Data lived in silos. And the church’s ability to steward its people and resources was being held back by the very systems meant to support it.

First Orlando needed a modern platform that could scale with a growing congregation without requiring in-house developers to keep it running.

The church’s outdated systems also posed a challenge when it came to engaging with their growing congregation. As more people attended services and events, managing attendance, donations, and other important information became increasingly overwhelming. The team at First Orlando knew they needed a change in order to effectively serve and connect with their congregation in the digital age.

The solution

Matthew wanted a partner who would own the technology so his team didn’t have to. He said his primary focus was finding someone who gave them flexibility and customization without putting the burden of coding or software management on church staff. After evaluating their options, First Orlando chose ChurchStaq.

The results

The numbers tell a clear story, but what they really represent is a congregation that became more connected and more generous because the technology got out of the way.

But the most powerful proof of what changed at First Orlando isn’t in a spreadsheet.

In 2022, the church prayed over and issued a bold challenge to their congregation: contribute to the largest single-week offering in the church’s history, and give every dollar away. Members responded with over $1 million, most of it given on their phones through Pushpay. Those funds went straight back into the Orlando community through 30 nonprofit partners working on homelessness, food scarcity, and human trafficking recovery.

They did it again in 2023, even bigger. And they plan to keep going.

As Matthew describes it, “We talk about generosity at First Orlando as the good that we are able to do for Heaven here on Earth.” Pushpay didn’t create that generosity. But it gave the congregation a simple, trusted way to act on it.

65% of all donations are given through Pushpay

Summary

The Grove Church was founded in 1932 and is a multi-site church that is based on “Loving God, Connecting with Each Other, and Serving All.” They provide services to communities in Marysville and Snohomish, Washington but most recently have been fortunate enough to welcome communities and families around the nation through their online services, due to the statewide COVID-19 health mandates.

A diverse church made up of young families, a strong youth group, and healthy seniors, The Grove serves about 1,300 people any given weekend and acknowledges that while their community might have different day-to-day lives, they are bonded together through a common belief.

Problem

In early March 2020, due to the growing number of COVID-19 positive individuals in Washington state, gatherings of more than 10 people were prohibited to reduce the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, this resulted in The Grove no longer being able to physically serve the 1,300 people across both campuses.

As the leadership team racked their brains on how they could still connect with their congregation without meeting in the building, Jon Rich, The Grove’s Business and Administration Pastor, threw out the idea of having a drive-in church. He got the idea from remembering how Robert Schuller first started his ministry in the 1950s. They met at a drive-in theater and he preached on top of the snack shack on Sunday mornings. Rich thought, “Well why can’t we do that?”

Using the FM transmitter that some people use for Christmas light shows, the team set up everything they needed on the roof of their church, and the idea took off. The Grove was able to serve their community in their parking lot, as their congregation sat listening safely in their cars. From worship, to the sermon, and prayer—there was still a strong sense of community as people sat behind their windshields for Sunday service.

However, only weeks later, Washington Governor, Jay Inslee, issued the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order on March 23, 2020, pushing The Grove to move all and any services online. But would online services and giving translate to all 1,300 of their congregation?

Pushpay

Roughly a year-and-a-half ago, before today’s push for online services and giving, The Grove inherited a small church in Redmond, Washington, formerly known as Venture Church, which became an additional campus for them. With the additional campus, they inherited Pushpay. As the two church campuses became more integrated, one of Rich’s top priorities was to get both campuses under the Pushpay umbrella.

Prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, when The Grove first migrated to Pushpay services, 40% of their giving came from the Text-to-Give feature.

Most recently, Pushpay and Church Community Builder have teamed up to provide an integrated Donor Development Platform for customers. Pushpay’s tools now allow users like The Grove to see segments of givers in their church for a comprehensive view of their donor’s health. While the Church Community Builder integration can take the list of donors and add them in Process Queues to customize the donor follow-up and nurture process.

Result

Today, 65% of The Grove’s giving is from the Pushpay platform. The first big instance of how much Pushpay services have helped them through the COVID-19 epidemic was when they started doing the drive-in church and communicated that Text-To-Give was the most sanitary and simplest way to give.

Through the Pushpay integration, they’ve also been able to provide a live stream to four services on Sunday mornings, as well as Youth Group and Life Group meetings; they’ve learned how to communicate remotely; and they’ve leveraged the use of social media by scheduling pre-recorded watch parties to keep-up the sense of community and communication amongst their congregation.

Since the push to digitally connect with their congregation, The Grove has seen about 300-400 people per service join their livestream sermons. And a few more than usual, thanks to a viral video and news coverage of the drive-in services they provided earlier in March.

For The Grove, the current times navigating the current situation is a walk of faith. And with the help of Pushpay and Community Church Builder, it’s about trying to stay connected with the church, caring for people, delivering a message of hope, and trying not to make the administrative side of things too crazy.

2X increase in digital giving in first 6 months

Summary

St. Isidore is a contemporary Catholic community in the Archdiocese of Detroit and is exploding in numbers and engagement. It’s one of the largest parishes in the archdiocese with over 3,000 families and 9,000 members. The average in-person Mass attendance is 1,400 to 1,500 each weekend, with another 300 to 400 people joining them online. 

A major initiative in the archdiocese is to move parishes from maintaining the status quo to a focus on mission, where the Church is serving Christ and helping people develop a relationship with Him—something that St. Isidore is using technology to help fulfill.. 

Reaching people in new and innovative ways

St. Isidore delivers content in five ways: bulletin, website, social media, on-site screen, and through Pushpay’s church app. Matt Kush, creative director at St. Isidore, understands that every parishioner wants to be reached in a different way, and because of that, he added a custom church app as an additional platform to reach people who want to engage with the parish through their phones. 

“Part of our mission is to reach others in new and innovative ways and connect with our parishioners,” he said. “The ultimate goal of any church is to stay connected outside of the one hour that we have with them on Sunday. So with technology you can meet people where they are. You can meet them on their screens, and that’s where Pushpay has helped.” 

The St. Isidore app is consistently updated with spiritual content, video recordings, invitations to sign up for events, and the latest parish news. Having the ability to analyze app analytics has helped him curate content that resonates, and is encouraging for Matt as the parish’s content creator. The giving button, also within the app, is making an impact on generosity. 

“You’re in one app, one ecosystem, and when you open the app you’re met with beautiful rich content that you can scroll through. You don’t have to leave the app,” he said. “When you have to bounce around between websites and apps there’s a certain amount of trust. To have that confidence to stay within the app helps because they see that content from their parish and then immediately act on that by supporting their church.”

Increased giving over five years

Prior to onboarding with Pushpay, St. Isidore used a free tool that they described as “clunky” and “archaic.” 

“One of our challenges is making people understand that free is not better, or cheap is not always the best solution. It’s still widely used by many churches in our area which blows my mind because Pushpay is such a better solution,” said Chris Kozlowski, parish business manager. 

The parish leadership team believes in removing hurdles for engagement. The free tool they were using made all aspects of engagement difficult, including software adoption and making changes within the tool.  

“Pushpay is really completely donor managed,” said Kozlowski. “People can come in and out of it whenever they need to, and it’s mobile-centric so they can use their phone. We field very few calls to our office, which is an important thing to me. The fact that the parishioners can figure it out really quickly or go to Pushpay customer service. The main reason for getting on Pushpay is that it’s hurdle-free and it can easily integrate into website design. We’re really pleased.”

The parish kicked off 2018 with a soft rollout to staff and leadership who were immediately jazzed with the new tool, and then it was finally introduced to the parish community. Staff and volunteers teamed up to help parishioners sign up for Pushpay and answer questions after every Mass. They also gave away free t-shirts to help get the word out, and videos of parishioners describing how easy it was to give through Pushpay. 

“From that point forward we started running and then plateaued a little—and then Covid happened. That first couple weeks, we started pitching it again and boom integration went way up. I think for many weeks in 2020 and 2021 we had as many gifts online as we did in-person envelopes and checks,” said Kozlowski. “Before Pushpay we were around less than $100,000 a year. After the first year with Pushpay it jumped up to $120,000 a year, then up to $200,000 then $360,000 and this last year was over half million dollars received through Pushpay. The system does a lot of the work.” 

An exciting part of using Pushpay is when people who have never given to the archdiocese before give to St. Isidore. Kozlowski credits their weekly streaming services and how Pushpay easily integrates into what they’re doing and how easy it is for people to jump on. 

“Like any household, once you know that your retirement fund is where you want it and your kids’ college education is where you want it, then you can start dreaming about vacations. Same thing for a parish community,” Kozlowski explains. “Once we know that our fiscal house is in order, then we can start imagining more about what we could do for Christ. What can we do in the name of Christ? We don’t have to worry about the day to day. For me that’s a huge part of it. Because it’s a lot more fun to think about how we can engage more people, than how we can get enough money just to keep the lights on. That’s not a fun discussion. It’s a really fun discussion to talk about how we can further engage in the Archdiocese of Detroit and move from maintenance to mission. I think we’re ahead of the game now, so it’s an absolute blessing for our community.”

Results

After implementing Pushpay, St. Isidore rapidly increased giving and engagement, and five years in, are still seeing steady growth. Ready to start your journey with a platform that supports mission-focused parishes? Talk To An Expert.