South Pacific Division E-Giving And App

Rodney Brady

Treasurer of the South Pacific Division

We learned from the tithe-studies done in our region that many people don't really choose not to return tithe or give offerings. They just don't get around to it or don't have the money with them when they get to church. We realized that we needed to develop a website and a mobile giving app that addressed how people were managing their finances today.

We've been rolling out the online and mobile options over the last three years. In the first year, we had about two million dollars in tithe coming in from that source, but now, we're reaching almost two million dollars per month! We think that a lot of that increase has to do with being able to access the e-giving website and app. When we looked at the reports, the internet site usage goes up on the days that most people get paid, and on the offering side, i.e. the mobile app, the usage spike occurs during the Sabbath worship service time. It has become part of their worship.

Since younger people and even older ones don't go around carrying cash anymore, we definitely need to engage our younger generation in this way, otherwise it's going to prevent them from giving. Stewardship is about planning ahead!

We are in consultation with a few other divisions in this regard. The app has more than recovered the cost of its development. We are grateful for the vision and dedication of our IT people, and our administrators' support of the project.

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This article originally appeared in the October-December 2016 issue of Dynamic Steward.

eGiving app on iTunes