At a Glance
- Steady stream of new adopters for digital giving
- 50 percent of churchgoers now prefer eGiving vs. traditional (Vanco Church Giving Trends 2025)
- “Online giving is a must — it’s like a utility. You pay for water, you pay for heat, you should pay for online giving because it’s worth it.” – Pastor Peter Bradlau
About Trinity Lutheran
Trinity Lutheran Church in Moline, Ill., is a mainline Lutheran congregation serving a largely older membership base.
Key ministries include:
- Weekly worship in a traditional, yet welcoming setting.
- Local outreach efforts include addressing hunger and community needs.
- Longstanding discipleship and fellowship opportunities for all ages.
- A vision to remain relevant and accessible by adopting new tools for generosity.
Table of Contents
The Challenge
Like many mainline congregations, Trinity faced hurdles with technology adoption. With an older membership, Pastor Peter Bradlau’s biggest concern was whether people would actually embrace digital giving.
The church also lacked staff resources to create marketing or educational materials to explain eGiving. Without this support, it risked falling behind, especially as “every other organization members are connected to is already doing online giving.”
The Solution
Trinity Lutheran embraced Vanco’s eGiving to introduce online and mobile giving options that met members where they were.
Vanco enabled game-changing improvements that meant:
- Ready-made marketing tools including bulletin inserts, videos and sample texts saved hours of staff time.
- Multi-channel giving through the church website by phone made participation simple.
- Category-based donations let givers direct funds to a specific ministry (e.g., hunger ministry) instead of only into the general fund.
- Responsive support meant answers often arrived “before we even knew the question.”
The Results
This is where the story gets really interesting for Trinity Lutheran Church: adoption was not only possible, it thrived.
- A steady stream of new givers began using online and phone giving.
- Members of all ages could now give digitally and direct gifts to specific ministries.
- Hunger ministry gifts became easier to designate, making generosity more tangible and immediate.
- The congregation gained confidence that digital giving was “going in the right direction.”
Context
According to Vanco Church Giving Trends (2025):
- 50 percent of churchgoers now prefer eGiving, matching traditional methods.
- Recurring givers donate 120 percent more than non-recurring givers.
Trinity’s steady adoption reflects this nationwide shift.
Simplicity encouraged fast adoption
Pre-done educational materials helped reduce friction and answered donors' questions.
Showing the importance of online giving
Online giving was framed as a “must,” like paying for utilities — essential, not optional.
Putting power in donors' hands
Members could give on their terms, whether weekly, monthly or directed to hunger relief.
An option for every donor
Older members weren’t left behind thanks to easy-to-use phone options.
Data Insight
Did you know? Weekly giving fell from 49 percent in 2015 to 39 percent in 2025, while directed giving increased from 27 percent to 31 percent. (Vanco Church Giving Trends 2025)
This shift explains why Trinity’s move to categorized online giving resonates. It aligns perfectly with how people want to give today.
A 159-percent Increase in Online Giving? – Get the Benchmark Study of 25,000 Churches
We benchmarked the giving metrics of the churches we’ve worked with for a five-year period and saw an average 159-percent increase in online giving.
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