Faithlife Giving provides different types of reports which you can use to understand giving trends, analyze giving data, and upload gifts into your accounting software. Understanding the giving at your church is essential to being a good steward of the funds entrusted to you. You can figure out how your givers currently give and how to encourage them to change their giving habits (e.g., to set up recurring gifts), and you can also assess whether the current giving is sufficient to fund your ministry needs, both now and in the future.
This article explains the reports available in the following sections of the Admin sidebar:
Overview
The giving overview helps you visualize giving trends on a high level.
1. View your overview.
To view your giving overview, select Overview in the Admin sidebar. Here, you can quickly see your total number of givers, how many of those givers are actively giving on a recurring basis, and how much recurring giving you can expect each month.
Note: Encouraging your givers to set up a recurring gift is a great way to increase the predictability of your church group’s budget, and it can also help your givers to be more thoughtful and intentional in their giving. Faithlife provides other tools to help your givers be intentional in their giving, including a private giving calculator to configure and schedule future giving as well as study resources about Biblical stewardship. Learn more.
The dynamic graph displays gifts given to your church for a specific period, and hovering your cursor over the available data provides a breakdown of giving by fund as well as data on the moving average for the selected period.
Note: The moving average is a useful indicator of the giving trend over time and is calculated for the total of all giving. Changing the selected period will change the moving average calculation, but selecting or deselecting funds from the below table will not affect the moving average calculation.
Below the dynamic graph, you can also see a breakdown of giving by fund in a table format.
Next, the overview pie charts show the breakdown of giving by fund and by gift type for the selected period.
Finally, the campaign charts show the progress of your church group’s ongoing and recently ended campaigns. (Progress is shown from the start of the campaign through the current date/campaign end date, whichever is earlier.)
Note: Only campaigns which are still running as of the current date and recently ended campaigns will show in the overview. To view all completed campaigns, you will need to go to Settings in the Admin sidebar, select Giving, and scroll down to Completed Campaigns.
2. Filter for a specific period.
To view data for a specific period, select the date filter and click a predetermined date range or input your desired date range.
3. Select funds.
You can customize the funds shown in the dynamic graph above by selecting or deselecting funds in the table.
4. Print your overview.
To print a copy of the overview, make sure you’ve selected your desired time period and funds and then scroll to the top of the page and click the Print icon.
Gifts
Gifts displays all gifts given to your church group. From this page, you can easily export your giving data in a CSV file and import it into your church group’s accounting software like Quickbooks. Learn more about the gifts page.
Note: Recurring gifts are included in the list of gifts on this page. Each occurrence of a recurring gift shows as an individual row on the list.
1. View your gifts.
To view your gifts, select Gifts in the Admin sidebar.
2. Filter and sort your gifts.
You can adjust the report by filtering gifts by gift type (e.g., cash, in-kind) and time period. The time period filter provides predefined date ranges or allows you to input your desired date range.
By default, this page shows all gifts in chronological order, but you can also click the column headers to sort by date, giver, type, status or amount. An arrow next to the column header indicates whether the column is sorted in ascending or descending order.
3. Export your gifts.
Once the page is displaying the information you would like to download in a CSV file, click Export.
You can then choose between three export options:
- Export by gift: keep single gifts together, even if the gift has multiple fund designations
- Export by fund: split gifts by fund designation
- Quid Pro Quo Contributions: export data for any nondeductible gifts (learn more)
Note: For example, a single gift for $500 may include three fund designations: $400 to the General fund, $60 to the Missions fund, and $40 to the Building fund. Exporting by gift will show the total gift on one line, whereas exporting by fund will break that gift into three lines, one for each fund.
The exported file will include comprehensive details for all donations given during your selected time period, including those given to funds that are now deactivated.
Recurring gifts
Recurring gifts create predictability in your church group’s budget because you know when cash inflows will occur and how much they will be. Understanding your givers’ existing recurring gifts is the first step toward achieving this predictability, and encouraging your other givers to set up recurring gifts furthers this aim. Learn more about how to set up a recurring gift and how to administer recurring gifts.
Note: Recurring gifts are included on the Gifts page, but non-scheduled gifts are not reported on the Recurring gifts page.
1. View your recurring gifts.
To view your recurring gifts, select Recurring Gifts in the Admin sidebar.
Note: Each row describes a scheduled recurring gift; to view each occurrence of a recurring gift which has been processed, select Gifts in the Admin sidebar.
2. Export your recurring gifts.
Next, to download this list of recurring gifts in a CSV file, click Export. You can use this information on scheduled recurring gifts to help estimate your cash inflows on your financial forecast.
Givers
Givers displays all givers who have supported your church through Faithlife Giving. From this page, you can easily export your giver data in a CSV file and also analyze an individual giver’s giving history and trends. Learn more about the givers page.
Note: From the Givers page, you can also access year-end giving statements for each giver. Each giver with an account is emailed when their year-end tax report is available for the previous year (by January 31st). If you manually add check or cash donations and assign them a donor with an account, the year-end tax statement will include these gifts as well.
1. View your givers.
To view your givers, select Givers in the Admin sidebar.
2. Filter your givers.
Using the first filter menu, you can adjust the report by filtering givers by type (e.g., First time giver) or contact information (e.g., Has email).
Note: Identifying your first time givers can be a great opportunity to invite them to engage with your church in other ways, such as inviting them to a newcomers lunch or to join a small group. Learn more about first time givers.
Then, using the second filter menu, you can select or input your desired time period (e.g., From this quarter).
3. Export your givers.
Once the page is displaying the information you would like to download in a CSV file, click Export.
You can then choose between two export options:
- Givers: exports this list sorted by gross gift amount
- Givers by fund: includes additional detail about the funds the givers supported (e.g., $100 to General Fund, $50 to Missions, etc.)
Note: The Givers by fund report may be useful if you have an event to support a specific fund, such as VBS 2021, and you want to determine which first time givers gave at this event rather than at a normal service.
4. View giver details.
By clicking on an individual giver, you can see further information about that giver’s giving history, giving trends, and activity. This can be useful in understanding the habits and giving trajectories of the individual givers of your church group.
You can also view the giver’s giving statements for predefined date ranges (e.g., Q3) or input a custom statement date range by clicking View Statement.
Deposits
Deposits shows all deposits, both open batches and completed, which have been initiated by your church group’s finance team. It also shows the status of all completed deposits (i.e., rejected, pending, deposited). From this page, you can easily export information about your completed deposits in a CSV file and also view individual deposits in detail.
1. View your deposits.
To view your deposits, select Deposits in the Admin sidebar.
Note: All open batches are listed at the top of the page. These are deposit batches that have been started but not yet marked complete. Learn more about batch deposits.
The list of all completed deposits can be found below the list of open batches.
Here, you can:
- Search for a deposit.
- Filter deposits by type (e.g., batch)/status (e.g., pending) and time period.
- Sort the deposits by date initiated, deposit date, name, items, status, or amount by clicking the column headers. An arrow next to the column header indicates whether the column is sorted in ascending or descending order.
2. Export all completed deposits.
To download a list of all deposits in a CSV file, scroll to the top of the page and click Export.
Note: Open batches are not included in the exported CSV file.
3. Export details of an individual deposit.
You can also view the details of a specific deposit by selecting that deposit from the list.
To export these details, you have three options:
- Export gifts: downloads a CSV file containing the gifts which make up the deposit, keeping single gifts together even if the gift has multiple fund designations
- Export gifts by fund: downloads a CSV file containing the gifts which make up the deposit, split by fund designation
- Print: prints the deposit details as seen on the current screen
Statements
You can set Faithlife Giving to publish statements and notify givers quarterly, semiannually, and annually. In addition to the automated messages, however, you can also download or print giving statements for any giver. Learn more about giving statements.
1. View your statements.
To view your statements, select Statements in the Admin sidebar.
From here, you can click on the statements you wish to view in more detail (e.g., 2021 Q2 Statement).
2. Download/print all statements.
To download or print the giving statements for all of the givers who gave during the selected statement period in a single PDF, click the Download button (1) or the Print button (2).
3. Download/print statements for specific givers.
Alternatively, if you would like to download/print the statements for specific givers who gave during the selected statement period, first select the checkboxes next to the givers’ names.
Note: Remember that you can use the search bar to help find givers, or you can filter givers by contact information available (e.g., Has address, no email) using the filter menu. This is a great way to locate the statements of any givers who have not already received automated giving statements because they do not have an email address.
Once you have the givers selected, click Actions and select View Statements.
From here, first choose your desired format from the menu. This will format the statement so the name and address will fit the window of your envelope. Then, simply click the Download button (1) or the Print button (2) to generate a single PDF with these givers’ statements.
