The Dakotas Methodist Foundation and the Dakotas Conference Finance Office will be hosting webinars with the purpose of helping our churches in the Dakotas Conference to have more money for ministry.

Pastors, treasurers, finance committee members, and anyone interested in stewardship and generosity in the church are welcome to join.

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Our Webinar Sessions

"Transforming Lives in a Transactional World" - May 9, 2022
How many times have you gotten stuck in the mindset of “we have to do it this way!” or, “we don’t have any money for missions or ministries in our budgets”. How many times have you relied on Church fundraisers to meet the budget? Join us for our next Webinar to learn how you can turn Money into Ministry by re-examining your Church fundraising, budget, and investments. We will help you understand ways to look at your Church finances and invest money for the future. Many times we find ourselves concentrating on the line-items in our spreadsheets and overlook the opportunities for ministries.
Video
Powerpoint
Henri Nouwen's A Spirituality of Fundraising
Clif Christopher's Rich Church, Poor Church
 

"Investigating Your Balance Sheet" - February 21, 2022
The balance sheet is often the most ignored financial statement. It's not nearly as exciting as a budget report or statement of profit and loss, but understanding your church's balance sheet can lead you to making some important decisions.
Video
Powerpoint
Conducting Church Audit

"Building Relationships – Telling your Church Story" - November 8, 2021
In this webinar, we will help guide you in how building relationships and telling your church story can help generate resources within your church to build up your ministries. 
Video
Powerpoint

"QuickBooks and your Church" - August 9, 2021
You’ll learn about how to customize settings and reports to make QuickBooks work better for your church. We’ll also cover some common struggles such as accounting for designated funds. This will be mainly focused on QuickBooks Online although much of it will be applicable to the desktop version.
Video
Powerpoint
TechSoup.org (cheap software for nonprofits)
Related Quickbooks Videos
Webinar on Chart of Accounts
Paying a Lay Employee Manually

"Your Two Largest Givers Aren't Even Members - How to get the most from your Investment and Endowment Accounts" - May 10, 2021
During this webinar, we will help you discover how an investment or endowment account will benefit your church. Sheri Meister and Jeff Pospisil will provide you with tools for your Church leadership to use as they find the best account management processes and align these processes with your church’s vision and goals.
Video
Powerpoint
Contagious Generosity
Video Testimony from Legacy Giver
Dakotas UMF Endowments
Dakotas UMF Investments

"Assessing your Church’s Financial Health" - February 8, 2021
Have you ever felt so cruddy that you start fearing the worst? Maybe you Googled your symptoms which only makes you feel worse. Eventually you go to the doctor to get checked out, and, no matter if the results are good or bad, knowing the truth is much better than living in uncertainty. The same is true for a church’s financial health. Most churches don’t really know how well they’re doing, and this tends to fill their leaders with a sense of fear and doubt. After years of working with churches and talking with leaders, we’ve put together some tests to assess your church’s financial health to give you the confidence of knowing. Sheri and Jeff will share these with you as well as give you some next steps depending on your church’s financial health.
Video
Church Financial Health Assessment
Budgeting Video Series
Preaching on Giving Video Series
Pastors Knowing Giving Post

"How Letting Go Fuels Generosity" - November 9, 2020
Are members more excited about the church’s past than its future? Are there ministries, committees, and programs that you have to beg or bribe people to participate in? People give generously to life-changing ministry, not life-draining ministry. Our next webinar will help you: Understand who you are as a church, identify what needs to go,  and generate funding sources to support your thriving ministries.
Video
Powerpoint
Should Pastors see the Giving Record?
"Let Go" by Matt Miofsky

"3 Principles That will Transform your Church Budget" - August 10, 2020
Are you disappointed with your church’s budget? If you didn’t have to have the budget approved at charge conference, would you even make the effort to create it? A budget should be a map to your church’s success. In this webinar, Sheri and Jeff will share three principles that, if implemented, will transform your budget and give new life to your finance committee.
Video
Powerpoint
Budget Bottom Line Calculator
Walkthrough of Creating a Narrative Budget
Narrative Budget Examples

"Old Money – New Opportunities..." - May 11, 2020
Many churches have such sizable endowments or investment accounts that committees or individuals struggle over the purpose and how these funds should, or in many cases shouldn’t, be used. We will share ideas for ending this struggle and look at ways to make the most of these funds for the ministry of your church, while staying true to the wishes of the donor and the intent of the gift.
Video
Powerpoint
Defining Reserve Funds
Managing Endowment Distributions
Gift Acceptance Policy

"Charting your church's success (or failure) with the Chart of Accounts" - November 11, 2019
Church leaders often don’t fully appreciate the power of a properly setup chart of accounts in the church’s accounting system. The chart of accounts is often the difference between your financial reports being meaningful and insightful or confusing and cumbersome. Without good financial reports, how do you make confident decisions? As the new year is coming up, now is the time to take a fresh look. Whether your chart of accounts needs some minor tweaks or a complete overhaul, this webinar should help you.
Video
Powerpoint

"A Deep Dive into Endowments and Legacy Giving" - August 19, 2019
Endowments are difficult for most people to understand. What is an endowment? Who holds the money? How does the church get access to that money? Are there restrictions on how the money can be used? Why would a church or a church member want an endowment setup instead of just making a lump-sum gift? Sheri and Jeff will dive into the details and hopefully provide some clarity on these questions.
Video
Powerpoint
Endowment Application

"The Why's and How's of Online Giving" - May 13, 2019
Electronic giving has been around for a long time, but many of our churches do not provide a way for people to give besides cash or check.  In this webinar, we will cover: Top reasons why a church should consider offering electronic giving; Most important criteria for choosing a service provider for electronic giving; Biggest mistakes in rolling out electronic giving to your church.
Video
Powerpoint
Vanco
PushPay
ShareFaith

"The Art of the Ask" - February 11, 2019
We can ask people to serve on a committee or serve in the choir or speak in front of the church, but most of us have no idea how to ask a donor for a large gift. In this webinar, we will focus on who and how to effectively ask donors for large gifts that further your ministry.
Video
Powerpoint
How to have LESS Awkward Conversations

"Fear of the Finance Committee" - November 12, 2018
For new people and pastors joining or working with the finance committee, there is often a lot of anxiety and fear. In this webinar, we discuss ways in which everyone can ease that anxiety and work together.
Video
Powerpoint

"Giving and the Life of the Church" - September 10, 2018
This webinar addresses how to incorporate principles of stewardship and generosity into the life of the church.
Video
PowerPoint
Self-Assessment