Encouraging Giving and Generosity

Encouraging giving in a parish can 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. Click here.

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

Resources for Nurturing Generosity: A page of clips, bible notes, blogs and articles to help you in your journey of generosity and to encourage others along theirs.

Reimagining the Offertory: A resource to help you review your practice with the offertory, with an aim to move from collection to offering, and to help generate a sense of joyful offering in response to God’s generosity to us. Click here. This includes some offertory prayershymns and songs, and some reflections on the benefits and disadvantages of passing a bag or plate during a service.

Digital Giving: This guidance shows you how to get started in enabling your givers to give through the web, by text or through their phone.  Click here to find out more.

Parish Giving Officers: It’s good practice to appoint someone to lead the work of nurturing giving in your parish. Find out more.

Nurturing Generosity amongst Young People is important. Young People Giving for Life is a resource developed in the Southwell and Nottingham Diocese, and Giving in Grace also contains some excellent material for young people.

Generosity at Christmas: a page of prayers and ideas for encouraging and sharing generosity at Christmas.

Money and Fresh Expressions: a short guide to thinking about the role of money and generosity in a new worshipping community.

Giving and Millennials: Those who are under 35, think and give differently. This short guide helps a church think through how it might need to communicate differently to enable them to give.

Reflections on Living GenerouslySeven reflections on living generously, based on the story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet.

A Generous Theology: As a church we often find talking about money very difficult, Jesus never stopped. Read this introduction to a generous theology.

GIVING PROGRAMMES & GIFT DAYS

See our overview page to helping people review their giving, including a short training video.

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

A Simple Giving Programme is particularly suitable for smaller or rural/village churches. It includes templates and support resources. Click here.

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. Click here.

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.

Gift Day: Giving for the Glory of God is a guide to running a one-off Gift Day – either for a special project, or to seek funding for one-off needs. This can also be used to seek to meet an urgent financial need.