Encouraging Giving

ENCOURAGING GIVING AND GENEROSITY

Encouraging giving in a parish can be feel daunting, but it need not be so. Some simple tasks can set the right climate for people to review their giving and levels of generosity. When these are done well, a number of important objectives are achieved. Church members then :

connect their giving with their faith, seeing their giving as a response to the giving of a generous God.
understand that their giving enables mission and ministry, rather than simply paying the bills.
feel that they, and their gifts, are valued by the church

Giving for Life

In 2009, General Synod commended the 'Giving for Life' guide to parishes for prayerful discussion and action. This outlined four key tasks to establish the right climate and context for giving within a church. Find out more.

Resources

There are a range of resources available to support parishes.....

GIVING RESOURCES

Preaching and teaching effectively is key if church members are to set their giving (of money, time and more) in the context of their discipleship rather than the church's financial need.

Giving for Life: There are a range of resources, talks and leaflets; all available for download.

Giving Insight is a project carried out in 2011 to explore what givers think about their giving; their habits and attitudes. The report is available online for free.

It's good practice to appoint a "Parish Giving Officer" to lead the work of nurturing giving in your parish. Find out more.

Other resources include bible readings with a stewardship theme, offertory prayers, hymns and songs, and some reflections on the benefits and disadvantages of passing a bag or plate during a service.

Check out your giving with our giving review tool. We're grateful to Homer Cox in the Diocese of Chichester who developed this.

GIVING PROGRAMMES

A Parish Funding Programme. This programme is a complete giving review. There is a full manual and downloadable templates.

The Rural Giving Programme is designed particularly for smaller, rural churches. This is part of the Stewardship Toolkit for Rural Churches.

Give 10 is a resource for parishes who want to teach tithing. It provides a pack with background information and biblical resources for leaders, sample magazine articles, FAQs and all-age resources.

TRIO (The Responsibility is Ours) is not currently available on-line, but binders can be ordered from the Southwark Diocesan office.

Giving in Grace. Developed and maintained by the Diocese of Liverpool, Giving in Grace offers on-line all of the resources for running a major program, or for an annual review.

THE FOUR KEY TASKS

Parishes are encouraged to carry out four key tasks to provide a healthy environment for nurturing giving in the local church:

Preach Giving and Generosity: Provide a context for our giving which is linked with faith and discipleship. We seek to live generously.

Link giving with mission and ministry outcomes. It's good collective stewardship to give account of where the money has been spent - not only in terms of costs, but in what has flowed from that spending.

Say thank you once a year. This values givers, and provides another good opportunity to link giving with outcomes.

Help givers review their giving once a year. There are a range of programmes provided to help with this. (See left)