Were you able to sleep in today? Did you arrive at church an hour early?
What does this have to do with church budgets? Good question! The answer is that church budget forecasts are impacted by events like the changing of the clocks for Daylight Saving Time. Most notably in the Fall, have you ever had someone say, “Gosh, I forgot to set my clock back and I woke up an hour later and missed Mass!” As we all know, the time change always occurs on a Sunday.
Have you ever noticed if your collections go down by a certain percentage in the Fall because people are more likely to miss Mass?
The point is that when you are creating revenue projections for the next year, like forecasting collections, note which Sundays have special circumstances surrounding them. For example, does New Years Day fall on a Sunday? Have you accounted for the cash flow impact when Easter is early (March) or late (April)? Is the Pope visiting? Is it an El Nino or La Nina weather forecast (just kidding)?
Tip 5: When preparing the budget, review the upcoming calendar for events, factors, or circumstances that impact Sundays (i.e. Daylight Saving Time)
The budget is impacted by a wide variety of other circumstances as well. This summer, I wrote a blog post titled, Beachgoers, Snowbirds, and Church Budgets. The post explored the wide variety of factors that may impact a church budget like weather, holidays, holydays, or even accounting for the migration of the northeast snowbirds (like my parents)! These factors call all wreak havoc, or create harmony (with an influx of cash) on church budgets. Without repeating all of the content on my summer post, click here to read more!
Budget Action Step: Review the past year and understand what has impacted your church budget. You may find that your budget is highly-sensitive to a variety of special circumstances – or maybe not sensitive at all. The bottom line is that if you have never checked, you may never know. This type of analysis can provide you the information and insight you need to prepare the budget in the best way possible!