Generous Giving

In this video, nine clergy from eight parishes reflect on their different journeys of generosity giving, offering helpful insight to encourage you, no matter where your parish is starting from, to start a journey of generous giving. This valuable resource is over 20 minutes long but every minute is great value. Watch here

A Prayer of Thanksgiving to our Generous God

"Generous God, by your grace you have given all that we have, and all that we are; help us to be faithful stewards of that which is entrusted to us; time, talents and wealth, and to consecrate gladly to your service a due proportion in gratitude for all that you have given to us, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen."

Vision for Growth

We encourage churches to support and encourage parishioners to welcome people and engage in mission and ministry. To do this they will need money and people resources to make this happen.

Many churches engage in events in the locality specifically designed to raise funds for their ongoing running costs. However fundraising events on their own cannot pay for the full extent of parish ministry.

Stewardship is important to the on-going life of our churches to meet their running costs and to resource their mission. Running costs include but are not simply the cost of clergy; they are all the expenditure needed for churches to impact the lives of their parishioners and welcome newcomers into God's kingdom.

"According to their power and yes, beyond their power, they gave of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the grace of taking part in the service to the saints.... See that you also excel in this grace of giving."
(2 Corinthians 8: 3-7)

Being Good Stewards of our God-given Resources

Stewardship is about using all God-given resources, to grow our churches and increase their impact in our communities. God has given all necessary resources, including our wealth, time and talents, to enable us to sustain our churches and enable the ministry to grow in all ways.

If your church is planning a stewardship campaign, intending to inform people of the church's impact in the parish and the need for more giving to achieve this; why not contact your Parish Adviser to discuss how you might proceed? We can provide you with ideas and resources to approach your stewardship; including communicating how your church needs plentiful financial resources additionally to all the personal giftings that God gives His people.

Generosity Review

As part of your PCCs planning for the future set aside some time as a PCC to reflect on your overall strategy for your church’s mission in its parish. How can your church make an impact? Can you identify parishioners or groups of people who could really benefit from the support your church could offer them?

Some churches give out care packages to local students, others give food parcels to the elderly. How can your church make a difference in its local area?

The mission of the church should lead its budgeting, but the budget should never lead its mission. Budget-shaped mission is a recipe for contraction, but mission-shaped budgeting encourages growth: growth that is funded by mission-shaped generous giving.

As part of the process of reviewing your missional vision and strategic planning for outreach, download the Giving Generously Review.

Regular giving

We all really appreciate regular giving through standing orders or the envelopes in the offertory; however, this method is time consuming.

The simplest and most efficient method of regular giving is the Parish Giving Scheme. Presently it is not possible for a PCC to join PGS by logging into their website. If your PCC is thinking of joining PGS, please go to our PGS page to apply to join.

By joining PGS your church receives your regular giving and the administrative burden is carried by the Scheme and not by anyone in your church. This frees important people-resources for other important tasks. You can download the PGS Regular Giver Information Booklet to read how the scheme works and Parish Giving Scheme has more information on how the Scheme operates.

And if you are hoping to download and print copies of the Donor Gift Form please be aware that PGS only accepts original copies which must be obtained from Church House. Please contact your Parish Adviser with the number of forms and any explanatory leaflets that you require.

One-off or irregular giving

Cash is the easiest method of giving when regular giving isn't an option; but cash is becoming less used by the younger generation of donors

The chart below reveals that in 2017, use of contactless methods overtook cash as the favoured means of payment; and the gap has continued to widen. Many institutions expect contactless giving to be most used by almost everyone by 2026.

With cash and cheques being virus-spreaders, if your church still hasn’t attempted to use digital giving perhaps now is the time to re-think that strategy.

If our churches are to continue to receive one-off spontaneous giving, we need to have implemented suitable methods for our donors to use. It is also reported that donors using contactless methods give more generously than those with only back-pocket change.

Contactless has overtaken cash as a means of payment

To enable more effective giving in our parish churches, and for future sustainability, we all need to consider enabling newer methods of giving.

The Church of England's Parish Buying Scheme has negotiated some very reasonably-priced contracts for using contactless devices in our churches. For further information please go to our Contactless Giving page.