What if the Church Lost its Tax Exempt Status?

The following report commissioned by Kingdom News Daily pertains exclusively to online marketing, not to any other church activity.

As our headline suggests, secular associations have proposed eliminating the Church's Tax Exempt Status. Thank God, they have not been successful at present. Nevertheless, this possibility may increase as a consequence from an economic collapse, such as that warned during a prophetic message by Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn at President Obama's Inaugural Prayer Breakfast on January 21, 2014. Without entering into this particular debate, we want to share KNN's research into the improvement in fundraising practices for the vast majority of American churches.  

KNN R&D has discovered that with few exceptions, only a few Mega-Churches have invested correctly in online marketing and benefited from its success. Left behind are churches with much lower memberships, who have remained content with using free in-house marketing. There are three main shortfalls to this strategy.

Firstly, due to the ineffectiveness of these limited campaigns, most churches are losing more potential income than what they are saving in production costs.

Secondly, most have not yet realized that the online marketing model is not necessarily a tool to be used exclusively for increasing their membership, rather it is a funding device to enhance their in service collections, which in turn serves to alleviate the economic burden placed on members.

Thirdly, it is true that, "you get what you pay for." Professional marketing companies must produce social media results that justify the fees they charge, unlike free in-house efforts. You can notice the difference between pro and in-house campaigns, even in private companies, whose owners indulge in the latter. Recent examples are the promotional tweets by Indianapolis Colts owner, Jim Irsay, which have generated nothing but negative publicity for his public relations office. Then there was an amateurish Wrestlemania promotion of a Scooby-Doo feature tweeted by a high profile WWE official. If this type of marketing reflects poorly upon a billion dollar company, then surely it shouldn't be the norm for churches that represent the Kingdom of God because, as we can all agree, the Lord's bottom line is infinitely more valuable.

Fortunately, just a slight shift from the traditional paradigm for church fundraising to online marketing would impact outreach return on investment creating an economic overflow that will enable church administrators to initiate or expand charitable projects. Churches that adopt the sound business practice of giving back to the client more than is received will benefit from a double blessing, in the natural and supernatural realms. This is stated in Old and New Testaments as, "One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered," and "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Hopefully, you will receive the wisdom contained in this report in the constructive spirit, in which it is intended. Then again, you might think the reason for pointing out these findings is that we offer professional services and stand to make a lot of money, if and when smaller churches decide to contract these. However, there is no such conflict of interest because KNN is an independent ministry and we have never quoted price standards to any church. That doesn't mean our services don't involve some cost, it means our fee scale is within the margins for not-for-profit organizations. Thanks for your readership. We pray that your church's increase and expansion is exceedingly and abundantly more than can be imagined, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Blessed to be a Blessing,
RSJ-KNN Founder