I help with the finance committee on a fairly large and prosperous Methodist church. Despite having an active and generous group of supporters, they often lean on Foundation Loans and general Church financial assistance. You should be looking to your larger Church leaders and affiliated faith foundations for any and all options.

Ditto for insurance. They use the WesPath option provided by the United Methodist Church.

Obviously you will need as group of interested and able parishioners to serve as a set of eyes and ears for the Church Budget. I have never seen an effective preacher that gets into it to manage a budget and they usually make a terrible hash of it.

Build good relationships with your parent Church contacts as they can either be an incredible helping hand or force you into situations you would otherwise avoid. We had to swallow and old failing church not too far away and that has been a ton of work.


And many of the best practices within a Church are no different than at a corporation. Make sure to have:

1) a thorough budgeting process

2) a proper tracking process to make sure spending and cash flow are tracking . . . this is almost always a fail inside churches

3) oversight of cash disbursements and check writing

4) a strong offertory counting process. Sadly, there have been some five fingers discounts that had to be dealt with over the years.

5) a good culture of expense minimization. Make sure bids on any service are shopped. I have often been frustrated and church spending being farmed out to friends of the church at elevated rates.