A Study In Collective Might: MarginKC, One Year Later

Kansas City is home to over 2,100 churches, ministry leaders, and city leaders who are passionate about serving their communities. Two years ago, leaders came together to see what could happen if they combined their collective might.  Here's what happened...

The Goal

In the fall of 2019, over one hundred churches engaged in a city-wide initiative called Margin. The goal was to create more “breathing room” in people’s finances and time through a biblical approach.

The Approach

Randy Frazee, the Teaching Pastor at Westside Family Church, led the initiative. Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace was used as the common curriculum for financial strategy. Rosanne and Randy Frazee’s book, Real Simplicity, was the study guide for managing time and life.

What happened?

Nearly 4,000 families took up the challenge for nine weeks. A pre- and post-assessment was used to measure the outcomes.

The results were substantial:

• $17,656,000 of total debt was paid off
• $4,696,000 of total finances were moved into savings

The financial turnaround equated to a staggering $22,352,000 in total aggregated margin for participants. 

In God’s timing, this margin was created just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. What a beautiful example of what can happen when churches across a city focus their collective effort toward a common goal. But the story does not end there.

Most leaders would be satisfied to call the experiment a success and leave it at that. But the Kansas City leaders wanted to know if the effects were sustained. So one year later, in the fall of 2020, the participating families were surveyed again. The data tells the story:

If we took these results and calculated an estimated total impact for at least 80% of the participating households, we would expect the following: 

* Projected turnarounds are based on an extrapolation of the turnaround based on a 4,000 household participation estimation. The results are consistent with Ramsey’s national data.

Who could have imagined there could be a financial turnaround of $64MM going into the Margin KC series?

As significant as the financial turnaround is, the impact on marriages is also notable: Ken Singletary, Relationships Manager at Ramsey solutions, shared these statistics gathered one year later:

• “76% of marriages agree they have a better understanding of what the Bible says about money since starting FPU. 
• 84% agree that FPU provided content that’s helped them in their spiritual life.
• 38% of those surveyed feel they are more connected to others in Kansas City because of Margin. 
• Before FPU, only 50% had at least a $1,000 emergency fund. After FPU, approximately 90% had a $1,000 emergency fund.  
• A year later, 90% report an improved financial situation because of FPU even in the midst of COVID-19.”

The Takeaways

Coming together around creating margin gave leaders new learnings in how to work together as a city collective. Here were some of their insights:

1. The Power of the Collective. There is exponential impact in a city when churches work together. Moreover, when Churches unite, it strengthens their witness to the community.
2. Measuring Outcomes Matters!  Using assessments and surveys to see measurable outcomes helped leaders to know if the effort was successful. It also helped leaders to look at outcomes in a common way, creating a shared view of the initiative's impact. 
3. A Good Idea Scales
   A city collective done well inspires other cities. in 2020, Tampa, FL, implemented their own version of Margin. In the fall of 2021, San Antonio plans to host a Margin series. The value of a city collective goes beyond the initial benefit through the ripple effect of shared learning. 
4. Be Prepared for Sacrifices and Gains. There is always something to give up when you collaborate but the gains outweigh the sacrifice. Aside from just creating margin, the collective church was better prepared for the pandemic. 

The Margin KC initiative showed leaders in Kansas City that the “big C” Church could come together and mobilize its collective might. And when they did, the results weren’t simply additive, they were exponential.