Metrics: Cost Per Attender
You might remember the old wooden signs many churches had in the sanctuary showing last weekend’s total numbers. The signs boasted total worship attendance, Sunday School attendance and total given to the offering.
Traditional metrics can be helpful. This week I’ll offer different metrics we use that might be helpful to you.
Cost Per Attender
At all of our campuses, we measure what it costs to minister to each person who attends a campus. To determine this number, simply take your average weekly expenses and divide it by your average weekly attendance.
For us, it is helpful to break this down to micro levels.
We measure how much it costs to minister to:
- Kids (birth through 5th grade)
- Teens (6 through 12th)
To find this number, divide your weekly budget by your weekly attendance.
You may (or may not) make big decisions based on what you find. But it could be helpful to know if your cost-per-attender is growing or shrinking. If it is growing, you’ll want to ask if your ministry benefit is growing as well. Or are you simply investing more for a similar result.
What are your thoughts?
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Unfortunately the last church I was at had one of those signs.
Do you go by the formula that a church shouldn’t spend more than 50 % on staff? With your formula staffing is an investment in changed lives. I like that.
It makes good business sense; it’s important to measure how much you are spending where and why.
Metrics make sure that everything you do as an organization makes $en$e!
Kevin, I had always been taught that a church should never spend more than 50% on staff. Yet I know many great churches who spend as much as 60-65% on staff.
The answer to your question depends on a lot of variables. A couple of the biggest include:
* How much do you outsource verses in-source. For example, we used to outsource all our architect and building costs. Now we do it all in house. The could drive our salary costs up but overall budget down.
* What do you count as staff?
We have always been between 32% and as much as 45% (including all staff costs) depending on the year and our goals.
here, here - good busness sense- Scott, I like it!
some other handy metrics are (i bet LC already looks at these) costs (total/segmented)/sf, attendees/sf, income/sf, and of course doughnut holes/teenager!
It helps me to know we can measure things…
I’m working right now on having a measuring stick for other elusive things within my ministry… I’ve learned that having a metric is a great tool for measuring success…
Thanks Craig… praying for you today!
Good information! The only thing I see missing is, “cost per salvation” and that isn’t really important because Christ taught us that no price is too high..
it is good stewardship and business to set the expectations of the organization and then measure return for that cost of capital. however much of the return in this situation is soft-dollar since it is people-related.
i’m interested in the revenue per attendee as well and how that is budgeted and what are the goals; zip code, age of campus, etc. and does intentional teaching towards this topic spike this line item.
Our metric is roughly $20 per guest. That’s a million dollar budget (undesignated giving only) with approximately 1000 in attendance each week.
Is there a suggested range a church should shoot for?
David, I think the range will vary depending on the age of the church, the demographic of those attending, and the part of the world you are in.
$20 would probably be considered high for a new church and low for an established one in many parts of our country. Rather than comparing with other churches, we try to compare with what we’ve done in the past. I want to know how we are doing this quarter compared to last quarter to make sure we are being effective managing God’s resources.
Craig…
The best comment I can offer, is to refer you to a thought-provoking article…
http://gotchange.blogspot.com/2007/03/christian-scorecard-tool-for-driven.html
and pray for innovative leaders as they consider it.
Hey, great way to look at stewardship beyond the mere tithe angle and also look at fruitfulness, productivity (100x). Ya’ll are doing some great work there, so keep it up.
Alan Nelson
http://www.rev.org
$0 per person right now.
We keep track of this as well. I don’t think many all pastors in a church should make this their business but I think there needs to be someone that does. As a small, growing church (25-250 in a few years) we’ve put a decent amount towards staff with our goal of reducing that overall statistic each year (while still increasing staff size!). If I remember correctly, we’re at about 60% for staff right now. One of the things we learned early is that we had to focus on some things greatly and put some others off in hopes of being able to support them more fully later. It’s working so far but we’re keeping our eyes, ears, and hearts open to see how it progresses in the future.
There are a few with the gift of generosity, and one way certainly to bring in line (whatever that is for your church) the cost per attender is to pull back the curtain and reveal for them the impact of their gifts. Jesus said that the poor we will always have with us; perhaps the generous move beyond us if they can’t seem to find the appreciation and value in their tithes, gifts, offerings and sacrifice.
I’ve been moved by the thought that our gifts to the Lord are our “first fruits,” but they are also the “end game.” I work to give. I give to watch Jesus’ bride work.
Thank you for your posts on Metrics.
You mentioned that you look at the change from quarter to quarter. If you compare quarter to quarter a change could be the result of either a change in attendance or a change in the budget.
Is the value for the budget fixed?
What does it tell you if the cost per attender dropped from quarter to quarter?
Kevin,
Great questions.
We have a rolling budget. That means that quarter we adjust the budget for the next twelve months. In a sense, we are budgeting for the next 15 months with quarterly adjustments. Make sense?
If a church is growing quickly or changing a lot, a rolling budget might be something to consider.
We’ll compare this quarter to last quarter. We’ll also compare it to the same quarter in the previous year.
Last week, we examined this number. Our cost-per-attender decreased. (This was our goal.) We believe we are being much better stewards.
On the other hand, a church may intentionally increase cost-per-attender during certain seasons. (Maybe staffing up for growth, or doing some ministry initiative, or upon moving into a new building, etc.)
Hope some of this helps.