While the idea of budgeting and advance planning may not be the most exciting thing on a church tech’s to-do list, it can definitely be one of the most impactful. Not all churches’ fiscal year aligns with the calendar year, but for those that do, this is the ideal time of year to be walking thru budgeting and financial planning for 2024/2025. It’s certainly a season in which to show one’s prudence and foresight, but it’s also an ideal time to reassess vision to ensure that tech teams are aligned with the ministries they support.
Technology improvements need to serve or undergird the vision of the church. There is sort of a line of demarcation between items that are vision maintainers and vision accelerators: what are the things that you need to invest in so you can continue the vision we already have, and what are the steps you should take so that we can expand or grow our vision into the next phase.
If it helps you advance the vision, if the capital is in place, and if it meets present timing and budget parameters, then you are more likely to perceive that decision as one that makes good sense regarding stewardship. Another factor in stewardship is if we can increase efficiency and engagement in staff or volunteer processes.
While it’s easy to want to spend money on the latest and greatest technology fad, or to want to buy an item that other churches have shown off on their social media pages, it’s critical to always consider how any proposed items will support or advance vision for the overall organization or for a specific team.
The Beginning Process
Being able to identify items or projects in this way can help further define what needs to be included as part of an actual operating budget, and which items may need to be part of larger projects that rely on capital funding for completion. Your volunteers are much more important than your tools. Don’t forget to budget for special ways to say thank you to them.
Additionally, since many technology purchases are investments that may need to last many years as part of a church’s infrastructure, it can also help administrative teams plan for the future if techs can compile three- or five-year (or longer) replacement plans for high-dollar items. Having multiple years to plan for capital investments not only makes it easier and more palatable for those administrators to manage financial resources, but it can also earn additional latitude in purchasing flexibility for tech leaders who are able to set their church’s leadership teams up for success in this way.
At the beginning of the fiscal year, the senior pastor and chief financial officer should determine how much you may spend on capital improvements, whether it be a single purchase or a project. From there, you, as a team, discuss what things from the wish list that are going to move forward and at what point in time during the fiscal year to purchase it.
Whenever you make a capital purchase, Don’t remove the item from the spreadsheet. Forecast the replacement date and update the spreadsheet line item. For example, if you purchase a new audio system for our auditorium in 2025, the line item of the audio system remains on the spreadsheet, Update the date to 2040, basing its next replacement date 15 years later. When you get to the year 2040, it may not get replaced that year, but at least it never falls off the radar.
Other churches may use project management tools like Asana, Wrike, Basecamp, or Monday to track budgets or proposed items, but simple systems like Google sheets and Excel spreadsheets can be equally effective. Regardless of the system, the underlying idea is that there needs to be something in place to track proposed expenses, costs, forecasts and other details.
Since churches rely on tithe dollars to function and make purchases, there’s a high level of responsibility in ensuring they are making wise financial decisions. Those decisions can’t be made in a vacuum and often require high level of details for need, function, cost of ownership and return on investment.
Yes, it costs a lot of money, but how will an organization best measure whether that expense was worthwhile and created the necessary return to define it as a “win”? This is an area where a church tech must be able to balance the tension of communicating the technology’s function and purpose, but perhaps not doing it in so tech-y of a way that it’s confusing or difficult to grasp by other teams. You need stable systems which are staff/volunteer-friendly and relatively easy to repair when needed.
Discuss the why and how this project/gear would better support the weekend experience. It is never about upgrading gear to the newest version, but to support their ministry department to the best of my ability and by helping them create a distraction-free experience.
Budgeting and stewardship
Stewardship is a multifaceted approach for spending. Yes, purchases must tie in with overall ministry vision and direction and have a clear path for creating impact. Yes, there should be wisdom and restraint used when using tithe dollars for purchases. However, effective stewardship doesn’t always equate to simply buying whatever is cheapest.
The greatest cost is often the soft cost of systems going down. A projector going down during a service costs a lot more than a bulb. A sound system turning off in the middle of a sermon costs much more than the battery backup someone should have bought. We need stable systems which are staff/volunteer-friendly and relatively easy to repair when needed. I would argue that the most important factor is consistency, as having the same experience each week, and if you’re a multi-site church, across every campus for staff and volunteers is our highest priority.
Budgeting is a coin with multiple sides: tying expenses to the ability to maintain or implement overall ministry vision; communicating impact and return on investment in vision-related terms, not just financial ones; considering the risk-reward ratio of a purchase by factoring stewardship, value, longevity and usability; and also having enough foresight to plan for the future, both with planned purchases and margin to allow for unexpected issues.
Operating with margin is also part of the strategic plan to account for unforeseen crises like failed equipment and the ability to respond to new ministry opportunities. There is a difference in being prepared for unplanned crises, versus having to make an expense request for a simple expense that was simply overlooked or forgotten about.
So, budgets can’t exclusively focus on high-dollar items or equipment purchases. They must also factor in the mundane: freight and shipping costs; rental expenses, either for one-off usage or as a stopgap while a regular item is being fixed or replaced; maintenance and repair costs; consumable expenses like gaff tape, batteries, haze fluid, pre-made cables, connectors, power cords, converters and power supplies, computer dongles and even drum heads; travel costs; vehicle rentals like box trucks or trailers to haul supplies; and tools like drills/drivers, crimping tools, decibel meters, light meters and a soldering iron. Budgets should also include allowances for personnel-related expenses like team shirts, travel to conferences, and fees for online training materials or other industry resources.
But arguably as important as anything else, there should always be some sort of allotment for volunteers. Every church should have dollars for volunteer appreciation and food. Culture and environment can be improved so easily when you can always provide something other than pizza, Every church should have dollars for volunteer appreciation and food. Your volunteers are much more important than your tools. Don’t forget to budget for special ways to say thank you to them.
Ultimately, budgeting goes just beyond equipment and even volunteers. It’s about a way to develop a strategic plan for community impact by allowing multiple departments to come together to create that influence.
Take the attitude that the team they’re on (the church) is more important than the team they lead (their department), sharing advice with techs at churches of any size. Keep the church’s vision at the forefront of departmental goals and resource requests. Have a strategic plan including costs for ongoing maintenance and work to set their short and long-term priorities for capital investment. When administrators see that level of teamwork and planning, they will see the tech leaders as partners in ministry. Let’s make the best of future budgeting.