Since you know exactly what the issue is (assuming your analysis is correct), maybe you could work on resolving that and see if it takes off. Here is the issue you identified:
It turns out that getting churches to initially part with their money isn't nearly as hard as convincing them that the investment of TIME is worth it for them and their members. Building an online community takes effort on the part of the church to promote it, and most give up within months. It's not unlike a forum or Facebook group; just sticking something out there doesn't draw in anyone.
Every time I see something like this, I wish I could figure out how to capitalize on (ie monetize) my ability to get conversation going and keep conversation going in online forums. My ability to do that is ironic since I actually suck at starting conversations of my own (see my submissions on HN for an example of how lame I am at that). Yet, I know how to respond to other people and shape the forum culture to make it warm and welcoming and encourage people to open up. I have had repeated experiences where I joined some existing list or forum which had very little traffic in spite of significant membership and within a few months of joining traffic and membership increased significantly. Typically, the owner then says something along the lines of "I have no idea what happened but all of a sudden we are growing". I know exactly what happened and never get credit for it.
Anyway, my only point is that it is possible to intentionally make community happen and increase traffic, usefulness, etc. Teaching members how to do that would make this stickier. And probably would take less time and energy than the three years you have already sunk into this.
There probably is a business in there for you if you want it! Call yourself a "community engagement strategist" or something similar. Build a platform - write a few online articles, maybe have a video on Youtube and a blog you write to about community engagement.
Plenty of people are building online communities and sinking lots of money into development, design, and content, but never getting over the chicken and egg problem.
I don't know if you have a software background, but the way to really go about making this a business would be to create a community analytics tool that you could use to quantify your success.
No, I don't have a software background. I think one of the problems that many forums run into is that the folks qualified to write the software and deal with the technical support are frequently not the best people for dealing with people. Then they try to come up with technical solutions to people problems and it really doesn't work. The other issue is that most people I have met who are both people-person's and highly socially insightful tend to be master manipulators. This will get you some initial success but in the long run it is a poison pill.
I don't meet too many people who are both highly socially observant and have no goal of manipulating and maneuvering people. Fostering community requires you to be socially aware and also good at respecting people's boundaries. Those two things seem to not coincide too often. So I am not sure how well I could teach people to do what I do (though I know I could put some info together to help others with this and have done so on occasion for previous forums I belonged to). I sometimes fantasize about having people pay me to join their forum for a few months (edit: or review what they are doing and give them feedback on improving it). My experience has been that once critical mass is achieved, the culture becomes self-perpetuating. I can breathe life into it but it does not die just because I leave. On one email list, I returned after a two year absence and cultural things I had started were still there. (Technically, that's the only place I ever got any significant recognition for what I do. I was a moderator and people very much noticed how the place went from a cold atmosphere with anemic traffic to warm and lively in just a week once I began moderating.)
Someone told me today I have "no business sense". That's probably true. I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn this into a business opportunity in spite of how frequently this type of problem gets discussed on HN (or rears its ugly head in various forums).
What it sounds like you want to do is be one step up from the "community manager" job.
It's definitely possible to self-create your own role here - I would imagine there are probably 50 people on this board who would pay you to do exactly that job on a limited basis. You just need to be out in front of them with exactly what you can do.
That takes a little self-marketing - what if you worked with the original poster here to turn around several of his largest customers?
I'm not a religious person, so I'm not sure how viable it would be to work with church groups. Maybe it would be fine. I just don't know.
It isn't that I want to be a community manager. It's just that community building is a little like raising kids: "Do as I say, not as I do" is one of the most ineffective (and even counterproductive) ways to try to pursue the goal. So what you see a lot of in public forums is that moderators and owners get frustrated with bad behavior and then publicly get all over someone's case for it in an effort to "improve" the situation. This typically amounts to putting out the fire with gasoline.
Anyway, the point is that giving people examples is the single most effective means to foster community. Way more effective, efficient, and fast than trying to tell people what to do. So I am not sure that it would be reproducible to simply put together an information packet or peruse the forum and critique what they are doing. Those might offer some improvements but the single most effective, efficient, long-lasting means I know of to breathe life into a forum and turn a little pile of twigs into an impressive bonfire is to just be there myself and do what I do. I have no idea how I would price that or how well that would work for forums on topics I have zero knowledge about.
But, yes, I have been seriously considering trying to find some means to turn this into a business opportunity because it does appear to be an unusual skill and there is clearly a "market" (ie people who need this and don't know how to do it themselves). Researching that and thinking on it is the real reason for this submission of mine: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126209
Since you know exactly what the issue is (assuming your analysis is correct), maybe you could work on resolving that and see if it takes off. Here is the issue you identified:
It turns out that getting churches to initially part with their money isn't nearly as hard as convincing them that the investment of TIME is worth it for them and their members. Building an online community takes effort on the part of the church to promote it, and most give up within months. It's not unlike a forum or Facebook group; just sticking something out there doesn't draw in anyone.
Every time I see something like this, I wish I could figure out how to capitalize on (ie monetize) my ability to get conversation going and keep conversation going in online forums. My ability to do that is ironic since I actually suck at starting conversations of my own (see my submissions on HN for an example of how lame I am at that). Yet, I know how to respond to other people and shape the forum culture to make it warm and welcoming and encourage people to open up. I have had repeated experiences where I joined some existing list or forum which had very little traffic in spite of significant membership and within a few months of joining traffic and membership increased significantly. Typically, the owner then says something along the lines of "I have no idea what happened but all of a sudden we are growing". I know exactly what happened and never get credit for it.
Anyway, my only point is that it is possible to intentionally make community happen and increase traffic, usefulness, etc. Teaching members how to do that would make this stickier. And probably would take less time and energy than the three years you have already sunk into this.
Peace and good luck.