Pushpay 'Case Study'

They say it's the thought that counts. But, they also say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

There are a lot of sayings about being generous, but the one that Central Church in Auckland, NZ, takes to heart is that actions speak louder than words. In fact, they have this as one of their core values, and the origin of this value comes from a surprising place. Jim Barber, the Lead Pastor and founder of the church, has a background in animation and remembers reading something Walt Disney said that inspired him to move into the ministry he had always said he'd do one day. "'The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.'" Jim quotes. "Even though Disney was a huge inspiration in my career to that date, those words were his biggest influence on me - it led me to start a bible group in my house with my friends, and over five years it continued to grow, and developed into Central Church, with over 500 people coming every week."

But those words didn't stop there.

"Our heart is for the community," says Barber, "and so we've always promised that we'll do what we can, regardless of finances. And so when Auckland was hit by the earthquake, we knew we had to do something."

The earthquake that Jim refers to was a magnitude 8.7 that rocked the foundations of the city, damaging a large part of the CBD, as well as surrounding suburbs. The leadership team at Central immediately got together and looked at how they could help. Aside from giving shelter and food to many of the people whose homes had been damaged in the quake, they decided to suggest to their congregation that the donations given towards renovating their auditorium could go towards helping families instead.

"We'd received about $25,000 all up towards that, which wasn't really going to be able to help many people. A lot of people had been hurt in the quake, or lost houses, businesses, sometimes all three," recalls Dee Smith, finance operator for Central. "So we decided as a congregation to not only put that money towards this purpose but that we were going to - somehow - raise another $250,000."

Without quite knowing how they were going to achieve this, Central moved forward with the plan. Getting in touch with Pushpay, they chatted about what they wanted to do and realized that their best way forward was to run a campaign. The Pushpay team showed them how to set up the campaign in the Admin Dashboard, allowing people to pledge however much they felt to give at the time or to contribute periodically over the next year. They were also shown how to add an Impact Card to their app, allowing the congregation to see how things were going, not only with the monetary goal but with updates on the families they were supporting.

"We were expecting to get close to the target - maybe even hit it with the $25,000 we'd already promised. But we actually had over $300,000 pledged, not just by our people but by others in the community who heard about what we were doing. People actually downloaded our app so that they could give to the cause."

"And the big thing? Over the next year, people fulfilled their pledges," said Jim. "It may sound weird to point that out, but it's easy to promise to give something in the moment, but hard to keep that commitment when you're back in real life. Being able to not only give easily, but to see the difference you're making in others' lives? That's what helps people do what they say they're going to do, to quit talking and begin doing."

Since launching their campaign, Central Church has raised $425,000 towards helping hundreds of families affected by the Auckland earthquake, being able to give care parcels of food, blankets, and clothes, and even covering the medical and insurance costs of some of the families most affected, helping them get back on their feet.