Creative designers, graphic designers, web app developers, and other creative positions are highly beneficial to any organization’s success — and yet, the approach that most churches take when hiring them is outdated, expensive, and above all, completely impractical.

A creative position is a grueling one, with high thresholds for the talent required and the time commitment needed. Have you been handling your church’s media needs by yourself? Maybe you’ve tried using online library resources where you can pick graphics to download to make it easier, but have found that it still takes up too much of your time because you’re the one that has to put in the work to use it. Maybe you’ve started getting overwhelmed by the demands of your church’s media and things have started falling through the cracks.

Maybe you’ve realized that it’s time to delegate the work to someone else.

First of all, congratulations! Coming to this realization is crucial to the growth of any organization. Next, continue reading as we discuss the good, the better, and the best approaches to hiring creatives at your church.

The Good Approach: Delegate to a Volunteer 

The first approach is the most common one: delegate to a volunteer at your church. Churches tend to have volunteers of all kinds, and it makes practical sense from a financial perspective: why pay someone when someone else is willing to do it for free? This is technically not hiring at all but is still effective for certain situations.

Delegating can work for areas such as: 

• Audiovisual operations for your worship (handling the lights, soundboard, etc.)
• Church online interactions, like using chat features.
• Content editing and proofreading for a blog.
• Photography or video shoots. 

Getting a volunteer to at least partially fill these positions is great, but a key part to making it work is doing your research beforehand. Be willing to ask them questions about their experience or ask for their portfolio in the case of photography/videography. You want to avoid situations such as someone going, “Oh, I’m a photographer, I can do it,” and then have them show up on the day with only their iPhone. While some people can indeed take great photos with just their phone, it might not be the quality you had in mind for your church. Don’t blindly give away responsibility because you might end up in a worse situation in the long run.

Now, the fields that you should NOT delegate to a volunteer are: 

• Primary design and branding of your church.
• Website/app design and development. 
• Any leadership position providing oversight or vision for creative content.

In most cases, the more distant or detached a designer is, the better. One important thing to remember is that you can’t fire who you didn’t hire. For something as important as the overall branding of your church, you will want to ensure that if whoever is in charge of it drops the ball and doesn’t perform satisfactory work, then you can let go of them and move on. If you truly do want to involve a volunteer in a leadership position, consider giving them part-time pay with term limits or contracts. 

Leaving your primary creative responsibilities to a volunteer can put you in a position where your church is limited in its capabilities for excellence. While there is a lot of value in delegating to volunteers, many creative services are best left to a true professional. 

The Better Approach: Hiring an In-House Position

The better approach, and truly the dream of most church leaders, is to be able to reach a point where you can hire an in-house “graphics guy” or a “media team,” because “that’s what the mega-churches do!” However, it’s important to consider your current reality, and whether you truly are in the position to hire a full-time professional. To help you with this, we’ll break it down into the two breeds of creative professionals. 

Trained Professional

The trained professional is the one that’s got the education and the experience to be really, really good at the job. Hiring the right one could easily take your church’s media to the next level by revolutionizing your outreach and marketing to help your church grow. 

However, this does come with some downfalls, and one of the biggest is the price tag. Here is a summary of the salary they may be expecting:

• Graphic Designer
  • $30,000-50,000 (Under 5 years of experience)
  • $53,000-58,000 (Over 5 years of experience)
• Web/App Developer
  • $50,000 (Junior)
  • $75,000 (Average)
  • $125,000+ (Experienced)
• Videographer/Producer
  • $45,000 (Entry-level)
  • $75,000 (Average)
  • $100,000+ (Experienced)
• Social Media Manager
  • $45,000 (Average)
  • $80,000+ (Experienced)
• Creative/Media Director 
  • $88,000 (Average)
  • $158,000+ (Experienced)

Often, the trained professional enters a career in creative media because they want to make a high income while pursuing their passion. This passion usually also comes with pride, as they know that they are good at what they do, but it can lead to them rejecting feedback and executing their vision over yours.

They will also likely only want to work in their field, so this will not be the ideal choice if you’re looking for a more multi-purpose employee.

Self-Taught Volunteer/Staffer

So, if you don’t have the budget to hire a trained professional at the salary they expect, then the solution is hiring someone who is more self-taught. This is someone that has taught themselves through YouTube, Google, or just figuring it out on their own.

The advantages of hiring a self-taught professional are that they will work at a more affordable rate, and likely be more willing to take on more responsibility. This is because they’ll be learning on the job, and would be receptive to broadening their skillset. 

However, the flip side of that willingness is that they may be prone to take on too much responsibility, and consequently overwhelm and overwork themselves. Another risk is that because they’re learning on the job, the quality of their work may not turn out great. Now, some people do discover natural talent through this and end up excelling. This can turn into a downside, though, as when someone discovers they have the talent and are burnt out from the workload, then they may decide to resign and seek better opportunities.

You also have to keep in mind that as a church, your volunteer/staffer is serving in one of two domains:

1. Ministerial – front-facing activities like teaching/preaching, greeting, worship music, kids/student ministries, counseling, etc.
2. Operational – areas like creative media/marketing, finances/budgeting, human resources, administrative/office, organization/scheduling, technology/IT, etc.

While there is overlap between these two, it’s ideal to hire exclusively for one or the other. If you need someone for both, then hire them as an overseer or director so that they can delegate the work. 

When hiring a trained professional, ask yourself first if your church can afford the salary of a trained creative professional, and if you expect them to oversee or do. However, the truth is that 99.5% of all churches will never need a full-time hire for their creative media. So, who should you hire? 

The Best Approach: Outsource to a Creative Professional or Team

Since delegating to a volunteer doesn’t work for a position that requires certain talent and skillsets, and hiring someone full-time can result in hiring someone too expensive or too inexperienced, then the best approach is outsourcing. Here’s the rundown:

• They work remotely, which means less emotional attachment — they’ll be passionate about executing your vision rather than theirs.
• More turnaround time is required, but it comes with higher excellence in quality — you’re hiring professional services.
• Higher hourly rate but less overall costs — no employee benefits or insurance, only pay when you have a project. 

While outsourcing still has some downsides, the benefits more than make up for it. What once required a full-time, on-site position 10 years ago can now easily be a remote contractor that you pay as needed.

Now that you’re interested in outsourcing to a creative team, you might be wondering about the cost. Most freelance creatives still charge by the hour with minimums, and while it may seem expensive, in truth you are paying them for the product, not their time. If someone took 10 hours to produce what another could do in 10 minutes, would you pay the second person less if the quality was the same? Some examples of costs in this model are:

• Graphic design: Up to $100/hour, minimum 3 hours. 
• Custom web development/design: $2,000+ set-up cost, with additional billing for ongoing support.
• Videography: $1,500-$3,000 for a short video, with additional costs for advanced editing, animation, etc.

Aside from the hourly model, there is an up-and-coming style of charging for a monthly subscription. This often requires a 6-12 month contract, but billing is still calculated by the hour with additional billing for overages. 

Here at ChurchMediaHQ, however, there are some things we do differently. We will never bill you by the hour or lock you into a contract. We can design anything from sermon graphics, to logos, to multi-page brochures, or even produce podcasts, sermon clips, video announcements, and more. Whether you only need a few designs a year or up to 5 deliverables a week, we have a pricing plan for you. Turnaround for your requests can be as little as 24 hours, and you can even schedule calls with us so we can coach you on your projects. 

Most importantly, you can now start a new project for free — with no upfront cost required. Just send in your requirements and pay only if you like what you see from the designs we send back. Be sure to use the code HIRE25 to get 25% off and start for free at ChurchMediaHQ.com.

Hopefully, with this article about the good, better, and best practices for hiring creatives at your church, we’ve given you the knowledge to achieve excellence in your media and marketing. If you found this article helpful, then help out someone else by taking a moment to share it with them. Until then, stay innovative, keep dreaming, and don’t ever stop creating.