Designinated Giving

[Joe Haines]

Our church employs a unified budget. However we do have special appeals throughout the year for special needs (usually mission or service oriented).

Our stewardship ministry team has raised the idea of designated giving for the past several years. What experiences do other chruches have with designated giving? How has it worked for you? How do you deal with designated giving to ministries in excess of waht that ministry needs? What other problems have you experienced?

Thanks for your comments.

[Serena Sellers]

Hi,

St. Luke Lutheran Church in Devon does an annual designated gift campaign at Christmas time. They have developed beautiful Christmas Gift Cards so that contributions to local and global ministries can be given as gifts to others. It has been very successful for them. Bill Andrews presented the idea at our "60 Minutes" workshops this year. (You can contact him through this site!)

In general, opportunities for designated gifts are appealing to people because they can give to things that they care about and are meaningful to them. This is great for helping people get in touch with their generosity. The only problem is that for some people designated giving replaces "offerings and tithes", gifts given as acts of worship with no strings attached.

I think that many opportunities for designated giving are great as long as there is a good program of stewardship education in place in the congregation. People need to recognize that part of the leap of faith in stewardship is having the courage and generosity to really let go of the money they put in the offering plate.

What has been your church's experience?