This is the fourth in a series of messages provided by the Project Resource Team to support your summer Stewardship planning. We hope you continue to find this series useful. See the whole series here.
“Recurring gifts that donors offer through online giving allows the church to generate a more consistent revenue stream while providing a convenient, secure way for parish members to offer their contributions.”
How to Give Online, Pledge, & Track
This email highlights material about Online Giving, Pledge Forms and Tracking Responses, and adds additional tips and stories from you and other members of the growing Project Resource community.
Online Giving
- Online giving is a method of giving that adds value to the church and to the donor. Many churches have experienced declining attendance during the pandemic closures. Your in-person church attendance (and in-person giving) may still not have returned to previous levels.
- Personal experience has shown that the recurring gifts that donors offer through online giving allows the church to generate a more consistent revenue stream while providing a convenient, secure way for parish members to offer their contributions.
- Reliance upon cash and checks is becoming less prevalent among people of all ages. By providing the online giving opportunity, your church will simplify the accounting process by providing donors with a familiar experience as they use their debit or credit card which they already use to make many of their household purchases. Your Treasurer’s team will also gratefully acknowledge the ease and speed of counting the weekly collection.
- How does online giving work? There are a number of third-party platforms that provide fee-based services to collect and account for your contributions. Parishioners can authorize a direct debit to a checking account or a charge to a credit or debit card. Gifts can be made on a recurring or one-time basis. An online giving page can be set up on your own website. There is software available that will allow you to place a form on the for your members to offer a contribution. The Diocesan website has excellent resources for online giving that you can access from the following link: E-Giving Resources
- My home parish (Good Shepherd, Pitman) utilizes Vanco, based upon the recommendation of Fr. Dave Snyder who was our Interim Rector a number of years ago. At that time, we were entirely dependent upon in-person giving through the use of numbered envelopes. We started online giving with seven participants. We eventually called a Rector and basically continued with the envelope process. Father Dave returned five years later for his second interim appointment and promptly took steps to encourage the expansion of online giving. By the time the pandemic shutdown began, we had increased to twenty-five participants with a substantial amount of weekly and monthly recurring gifts, Father Dave’s foresight regarding the advantages of online giving was a blessing to us as we were able to continue operating without financial duress during this extended time period.
Pledge Forms
- Sample pledge forms
- Good Shepherd, Pitman has the pledge form located on our website. There is a section identified for Stewardship with a link to the “Estimate of Giving Online.” There is also a section that lists the methods of giving to Good Shepherd.
- Sample Pledge Cards
- Project Resource WOW! Card
Tracking Responses
We’ve established a form to track pledge responses during and after your campaign. Here’s a sample of what can be done to track responses. There’s even the option to incorporate and track other kinds of ministry information.
MORE RESOURCES
- Summer Stewardship Email Series
- Summer Email Series Resources
- “Use Summer Well for Your Fall Pledges and More” Recording & Slides
- “Keeping In Touch With Parishioners During Covid & Beyond” Recording & Slides
- Online Project Resource library
- TENS Website – https://www.tens.org/ (password available here)
- Reimagined Consecration Sunday
You may also contact us for one-on-one support to you, your team, vestry or clergy, by emailing us at ProjectResource@dioceseofnj.org.
In closing, Stewardship is giving thanks to God, in community. We give thanks in our prayers for your faithfulness, your thankfulness, and your sense of ministry. These gifts will see us through again and again.
Together in Christ,
George
Project Resource:
The Stewardship Commission of the Diocese of New Jersey
