At Killer Church this week we are taking time out to take a look back at Liquid‘s 2010 Christmas Offering.

One of the critical success factors in our Christmas Offering over the last two years has been our approach to rolling out the information. On Wednesday we talked about the public parts of the campaign.  Although those were an important part of our motivating our people to give towards the campaign . . . we’ve found our “prework” communication has ended up being incredibly valuable!

We went to the following groups of people before we went public with the campaign to “let them in on the ground floor” and ask them to consider giving to the campaign.

Montclair Families – We hosted an evening in early November for Liquid Families from around the new location that we are launching this year.  We had a little bit of music, some great desserts and then Tim pitched the vision for the new campus and we softly introduced the Christmas Offering.

Lead Donors – The following evening we hosted lead donor families from our two existing campuses to a similar “party” in Montclair.  We rented these sweet party buses and had a great night together.

Volunteer Community – On the two following weekends we hosted a lunch at our Campuses for our volunteers.  Again . . . some great food and then Tim pitched the vision for 2011 and introduced the Christmas Offering.

Life Group Tour – Finally, our coaches visited most of our Life Groups in the two weeks leading up to the “public launch” of the Christmas offering.  They brought some fantastic desserts and also a video from Tim talking about what 2011 is going to look like as a church. [See Video]

Why am I convinced all this extra ground work is worth the effort?

• It ensures that people get the message! Think about it . . . it’s possible that a core leader who is living in Montclair heard about this exciting venture 4 or 5 times over the period of the Campaign.
• It also reduces the stress on any single point of communication.  No longer does all the weight rely just on what happens on Sunday morning. This feels like a gift to our communicators and also a gift to our people because we avoid a “hard sell” at any point.

Next year . . . I hope to spread out the communication a little bit better.  We compressed all these “prework” communications into a 4 week period.  Ideally – I’d like to move those out over 10 – 12 weeks leading up to the public phase.

We ended  up meeting and exceeding our target of $250,000 by December 31st ! (Our general offerings were also 10% above our projections for the month of December!) We were able to financially support the launch of a new campus, host an amazing compassion outreach and set ourselves up great for this summer’s Camp Rock!

Next week we’re going to look at some “fit and finish” details of our new website . . . plus I’d love get your feedback on some changes we’re making on the web front! Subscribe to the blog through email and you’ll get exclusive bonus content.