Are Consulting Fees Really Worth It?

By Stephen Anderson

Are consulting fees in a church building program really worth it?

When considering consulting services, the cost often becomes a subject of debate usually negatively influenced by a number of factors.  First, the church often does not like to spend money – it is typically frugally minded, sometimes to a fault. Secondly, hiring consulting services requires a change in how churches approach the problem. The church typically resists change and finds comfort in established patterns, even if they have not been the most effective in the past. Thirdly, many churches must put it to a vote of the congregation – a body that is largely unequipped by experience or training to truly understand the scope of the problem or the value of the assistance.

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.    John Ruskin

While stewardship demands due consideration be given to the cost of the investment, the church often does itself a disservice by unfairly focusing on the cost of the service and not fairly counting the value gained from the engagement.  Consider the parable of the treasure hidden in the field:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”  

Jesus - Matthew 13:44 NASB

The man unearthed a treasure hidden in the field and then did what he had to do (sold all he had) to buy the field because he understood the value hidden in the field.  He did not say to himself, “I would like to have that treasure, but I can’t afford it.”  He evaluated the find, counted the cost, and understood the value was worth the sacrifice – which he then made.

To help determine the value proposition on consulting, the church should objectively and honestly ask itself questions, such as:

• Do we have the training, experience, and objectivity to do this the best it can be done?
• What is the value of supporting and protecting the leadership of the church?
• What is the value of increasing unity and support for the building program in the body?
• What is the value of increasing the financial support for our building program?
• What is the value of bridging the gulf from “we think” to “we know” when talking about spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on a building program?
• Why did Moses and Solomon get outside help for their building programs? (Exodus 31 and  2 Chronicles 2)
• What is the additional price we will have to pay during construction for mistakes or oversights in the design of the new facilities?
• What is the price we may pay, for decades to come, for ministry space that may not truly meet our needs?
• How much is confidence and peace of mind worth to us?
• What is the value of even a 10% improvement in the building program? (Hint: 10% of $1M is $100,000)
• There is no right way to build the wrong thing; what is the value of objectively understanding what we need to build and why?

While some things are essentially priceless, the church should assign some dollar value to each of these and any other questions it may ask itself - then do the math. 

So, are church consulting fees with it?   If, at the end of the day, the engagement provides greater value than the cost of services, the difference in cost is the projected cost to the church to not engage for the services. 

The Most Asked Question in Church Construction

"How much will it cost to build the church?" is by far the most asked question we receive.

This is a very important question, and one worthy of an accurate response.  Everyone wants to know how much it costs per square foot to build a church.  The REAL answer is this: All I or anyone else, including your local builder, can do is guess (we professionals call this "estimating") - until there is a real set of church plans. Anything else is just a guess, and not one you can hold someone to, at that. 

Can an experienced church builder look at a concept drawing of a church plan and get pretty close on cost?  

Yes they can.  I have been blessed to be be uncannily close on several projects - simple because, like a builder, this is something at which I have experience.  However, when you talk to someone who does not specialize in church construction, or worse, someone who gives you a lowball estimate just to try to get a business relationship going, the church can end up in trouble.  There is no way most churches know if their builder is really honest and capable until it is too late. To make it worse, most architects don't really know what a church will really cost to build - ask just about any builder and they will probably tell you the same thing.

Most churches push their budget to the max in order to build all they can afford.  A church can easily into the design process and spend several ten's of thousands of dollars on plans based on a bad guess or deceptive estimate. When the church gets the real construction bids and find out they can't afford the building, they then have to pay even more to have the plans redrawn.  This is not only a waste of money, but of time and momentum.

There are two ways to solve this problem:

The first is to NOT do the tradional Design-Bid-Build approach where you don't find out how much the building will cost until after it is designed.  A better approach is to put together a team consisting of the architect, engineer, and builder to work the process together, getting pricing estimates all during the design process so that by the time the building is designed, it is also priced.  This is commonly referred to as the team build approach. Team build differs from design/build by virtue of the fact that both the architect and the builder work for the church, an important distinction.

The second way is through the use of a new church plan offering that allows churches to buy detailed plan sets from previous building programs for only $895.  Starting with any one of the 200 or so church plans on ChurchPlanSource.com, the church can find a plan that is very close to what they want to build in size and general seating capacity.  The church can then buy detailed blueprints in PDF format and submit them to a builder for pricing.  

Once the church determines it can afford the building, the changes to the plan are made to make it the church's own.  The key to making this work is to find a building that is as close as possible to what the church needs.  Non-structural changes to room layouts and reconfiguring space will not greatly affect the price of the building, so the church can have construction drawings completed with the confidence they know the final price.  Even if the building needs to be resized soemwhat, the cost per square foot for the church will be approximately the same.  If it cost $100/sqft to build a 10,000sqft building, it will probably be the same price per square foot to build a 9,000 or 12,000sf building based on the same plan. Personally, I find these sample plan sets to be very helpful.  All too often churches don't believe me when I tell them how much a building project will take.  They are always sure they can get it done much cheaper.  For churches with unrealistic expectations, this is a great way to confirm if they can actually build it for what they believe.  If they can, Praise God, if not, they have lost very little.  (I may not have been able to keep them from shooting themselves in the foot, but I did at least switch them to a lower caliber that made a smaller hole. LOL)

If your church is in a hurry for whatever reason, it can have church building plans in hand in days instead of weeks or months. The full sample plan set in PDF format can be used to:

Get an accurate cost, or better yet, a firm bid, from a builder.
Be submitted as part of your inital loan application package.
Used for a preliminary plan review meeting with your local building department.
Uses as a planning document to communicate desired changes, and much more...
Go to ChurchPlanSource.com for more information and pricing.

How To: Estimate a Church Building Program Budget

"What man would build a tower without first counting the cost?? - Jesus

Millions of dollars every year are wasted on church building plans that churches cannot afford to build. Many churches let the church building project define the budget, instead of letting the budget drive the design of the church. This simple transposition of steps in the process takes a toll on churches in terms of cost, time, effort, enthusiasm, and support for the project.

Design is part of the building process. Counting the cost does not mean sending your plans to the builder for an estimate. Counting the cost means understanding what you can afford before you begin.  There are a great number of church building plans available, and any number of church architects that will create more, but knowing what you can afford is a necessary step before you concern yourself with design.

In my book, Preparing to Build, I discuss this in great length, but below is a basic formula that any church can use to get an first approximation of their budget for a building program.

There are 4 basic variables in determining your budget.  Those 4 variables are added together to determine the preliminary budget.  Often, early in the process, the church will have to use estimates for these values and refine them later in the process.

The four variables:

1. Cash on hand:  This is the amount of money available which can be applied to the building program. This would include whatever amount of money in checking, savings, money market or CD's you want to use.
2. Money you can borrow: The maximum that any church can borrow in a loan or bond program is 3-4 times its current income; and is often less. Borrowing ability is based primarily on cash flow, not the value of assets.
3. Money you can raise from the sale of assets:  This may be your current location (if you are moving), a parsonage, or real estate. If you owe any money on the asset you are selling, it will be the net cash to the church after paying off the debt.
4. Money you can raise before construction: This is typically money raised in a church capital campaign.  In a 3 year capital campaign, churches typically raise between one and three times the current amount of their annual tithes and offerings, with around two times income being the average.

Our formula then becomes:

Cash on hand ___________

+

Money that can be borrowed _____________

+

Money from sale of assets _____________

+

Cash that can be raised before construction _______________

=

Your budget _____________________

If your church needs assistance in answering the budget questions and/or defining what it truly needs to build, I would suggest downloading this pdf file about a Needs and Feasibiltiy Study.

If your church needs a capital campaign, we can help.  Our church capital campaign consultants can provide everything from a full-blown capital campaign to a do-it-yourself capital stewardship campaign that you run in-house.

Need a Church Architect or Church Building Plans?

If your church is in the market for a church architect or church building plans, you will want to check out this new web portal, ChurchPlansource.com

This new portal provides access to stock building plans from experienced church architects. Visitors are able to view church building plans by building size or seating capacity. If a church desires, a free consultation to help identify the most appropriate plan for a church's needs and budget is available. If the church desires to purchase one of these stock plans, an order can be placed with the church architect that supplied the plans.

Most of the plans on the site may be purchased "as-is" from previous building programs and then brought up to local building code (for fee) either by the church architect that originally designed the plan, or by an architect of the church's choice.

As one developer put it, "this is a real blessing to the church and will save a great deal of time, and effort, not to mention money." In addition to allowing users to download preliminary plans, the site offers referrals to church building and capital campaign consultants, financing sources, and builders.



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Save on Church Design Using Pre-developed Plans

Churches can save 50% or more on the cost of church design services by utilizing church building plans from previous building projects. Churches today have the option of buying existing plans from church architects at huge savings over custom designed plans. While options like this have been around for several years, this is a concept that is just coming into its own.

For a brief explanation of why church design costs are often unnecessarily high, see this explanation on this church architect's web site. The long and short of it is that architects often price church design projects as if they were doing all the work from scratch, when in many cases, they are taking plans from previous projects and, due to the wonders of Computer Aided Design (CAD) they are able to make changes and save the revisions without having to do everything from scratch.

Several firms now offer stock church plans for as low as $5,000, but don't think this is going to be the total cost of your church design. While these are wonderful prices and will save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in design, any set of stock plans will need to be modified to meet local, state and federal building codes. Changes to the floor plan to alter the layout to the churches desires will also add to the cost, however, with all these changes, the church can expect to save 50-80% over the cost of custom plans.

Stock church plans will certainly not include site plans or civil engineering; and what is offered for the price varies from firm to firm. For instance, as of this writing, both DigitalChurchPlans.com and ChurchPlansforLess.com offer as-is, uncertified plans with prices starting at little as $2,995 while ChurchDevelopment.com offers plans that are customized to the churches specifications and approved through the permitting process for a cost that is significantly less of customized building plans. With the uncertified plans, the church purchases the building plans and has the them modified to their needs, either by a local architect or the firm providing the plans.

In addition to saving huge amounts of money in the design process, the church will save weeks or months in the design process. The as-is, uncertified plans offer an additional benefit in that the church can submit plans to contractors for bids much earlier in the process and for a much lower investment in time and money. This is especially important as most churches underestimate the cost of construction, so getting a price based on actual plans that are very similar to what will actually be built will give the church a reality check before they spend (typically) tens of thousands of dollars on plans that they cannot afford to build.

For information on a service that will take the church's building needs and search all available sources of existing plans, I offer a church building plan search.