Diocese of Chichester

Helen James is the Diocesan Parish Adviser (Finance, Stewardship and Governance) and she recognises the difficulties for parishes when they start to look into these devices and whether they are worth the effort. She said: "This project loans a simple contactless donation system to a parish for a limited period of 8 weeks. At the end of the period, the parish can choose to buy the system, or return it to the Diocese. Either way, they keep all the donations made through the device during that time."

Tom Savage at St John’s Hove was very excited to become involved in the scheme. Not only is it proving an alternative way for church attendees to contribute to the collection at services, but the team have also used it as a way of taking donations for refreshments at fundraising events.

In the third week of their loan period, they have already taken over £200 of donations and are very pleased with how easy the system is to set up and use.

St Michael’s Newhaven was the first parish to be involved, setting an initial target of raising £80 through the 8 weeks, and almost doubling that amount through the donations generously given through the system by church attendees and visitors. They have chosen to buy the device outright and continue to enable digital giving in this way.

Several other parishes have also expressed their interest. By the end of May, two more giving systems will be on loan to different parishes, with another four parishes on the waiting list.

However Helen urges interested parishes to wait on a further development. On 30^th May applications will open for another even more exciting project, the Digital Giving Rollout. Here, the diocese will be working together with the National Giving Team to make 50 contactless giving systems available to successful applicant parishes, with the hardware purchase price completely free of charge to the parish. These giving systems will be of various different brands and makes, and you can see these on the Parish Buying website at https://www.parishbuying.org.uk/categories/giving-and-payments/solutions .

The National Giving Team describe the project: “With card having overtaken cash as the preferred form of payment in society generally in 2017, we know that having the ability to accept digital donations is going to be key for many churches in the years to come. In 2021 alone, churches across the country received digital donations and payments of almost £5m. That’s why the Church of England’s National Giving Team is embarking on a three-year project to help thousands more churches get started with digital giving.”

Watch out for our further communications on this from 30th May, when we will share further details of the application process and how your parish can get involved.