Communicating your church’s need for more giving
One of the lessons of the pandemic is that reliance on church hall bookings can lead to a significant fall in church income. So don’t be caught napping:
what is your church’s strategy for increasing regular congregational giving?
- Regular and online giving are fantastic mechanisms that can enable a huge range of people to give, but they are simply mechanisms. In order to be successful, we need to make it clear why we need people to give
- Communicate the impact of giving not the cost of the Church, but tell everyone what we are doing with the money that people give and how giving is enabling the mission and ministry of our Church
- Tell people why we need them to give. During the Covid-19 crisis, many churches have lost income usually received from collection plates, visitors, regular giving and church hall lettings. More giving enables us to come out of lockdown and provide flourishing mission and ministry to our communities
- Enable people to trust us as a church. We must be transparent about how we handle the money given to us, and about how it is managed and spent.
Let’s remember that clergy ministry isn’t free. It is paid for by the combined giving of all of our churches’ parish shares. Chichester Diocese currently spends a large portion of its reserves to maintain parish ministry, but reserves run out eventually.
Does your church’s strategy include encouraging regular worshippers to recognise their part in providing increased regular giving, by giving generously through the Parish Giving Scheme?
PGS continues to be a very good method of receiving regular donations from church members. Churches wanting to join the scheme should first view the information on our PGS page. Look for the section on the summary of steps to get started.
Once the church has joined PGS, donors can even sign-up by telephone if needed.
See below for a Guide for Churches on the code of fundraising practice by the National Giving Team: