Are your materials focused on your mission? | |
- Walk in Love Annual Pledge Campaign resources ready for download
- Tips and Hints for Mission-Focused materials
- Webinar wrap-up - Planning and Running your Campaign
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Dear Davey,
What do your campaign materials say about your mission and ministry? When members or visitors pick up your tri-fold brochure or your campaign case for support, do they have a sense of what your community cares about and how they care for the world?
Your annual campaign and newcomer welcome efforts will be greatly enhanced by well-written, articulate, colorful materials that showcase how your congregation goes about growing God's kingdom and changing the world. During the campaign, and, indeed, all year-round, we want to draw a clear connection between the gifts of time, talent, and treasure that our members provide and the work we do in the world around us. As you prepare to roll out this year's annual campaign, here are a few practices to do, and a couple not to do.
Make certain you:
- Describe your members. Showcase your diversity, highlight your vitality. When words are not enough, use photos - they really do communicate more than words!
- Define your work in the world. Articulate the many ways that you seek and serve Christ in your neighbors through your ministries. Don't forget how you care for each other in your commitment to pastoral care.
- Talk about the future. Explore the world that will be possible when your ministry is well-funded and supported through gifts of time and talent. How will your community benefit from what you do and from who you are?
- Use budget narratives to underscore the truth that there is no wasted money in a church budget -- every dollar, every volunteer hour, every good idea is needed, and put to its best use for mission. That is the very definition of stewardship.
Avoid doing these things:
- Talking only about funding a budget. Numbers and dollars are important to talk about, but only as they relate to the work of growing the God's reign.
- Highlighting rising costs of insurance, salaries, supplies. We all know that life is more expensive this year than last. Focus on the mission, instead.
- Do not use transactional or manipulative language. We don't "give 'til it hurts," or "give back as we've prospered," Instead we share our time, talent, and treasure with our neighbors because our love knows no bounds and our abundance knows no limits.
With these tips in mind, I hope that you will write letters, create materials, and describe your fundraising needs in forward-thinking, passionate language. And don't forget the photos!
All good gifts,
Cn. J. Davey Gerhard III
Executive Director
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Writing a Great Case for Support
The TENS Resource Library and webinar archive has a few resources to help you reimagine your campaign materials.
Writing letters that communicate!
The personal letter from clergy and church leaders that often accompanies pledge forms can be a powerfully persuasive tool, or it can quickly fall flat. Make sure that your letters focus the spotlight on your volunteers without whom your ministries would be impossible. Talk about the impact of your ministries, as well - how many people are served and how you serve them.
Everything You Need in one webinar
Watch our webinar to learn about making a case for support and supporting documents for your pledge campaign.
Narrative Budgets Tell Stories
This year, consider creating a narrative budget for your congregation. Illustrate in stories, pictures, and graphs how your money is raised and how it is spent. Narrative budgets spread the fixed costs of your budget - salaries, building maintenance, utilities - across your program areas. By doing so, you demonstrate that every dollar goes to mission.
Clergy involvement in the campaign
One of the most frequently-asked questions I field is about how the clergy should be involved in the fundraising efforts of the church. Campaigns should be lay lead - a committee of members dedicated to stewardship efforts can create wonderful opportunities for authentic storytelling and campaign energy. However, our clergy know their members deeply through long relationships and pastoral work, and therefore have invaluable insights into how to approach your members. Learn more about the fundraising relationship between clergy and members in this helpful article.
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2024-2025 Annual Pledge Campaign Resources are ready for Download!
In nearly every Episcopal liturgy in which I have participated the celebrant quotes from Ephesians 5:2 to invite the offerings of our time, talent, and treasure to be placed on the altar. “Walk in love,” the offertory sentence begins, “As Christ loved us…” These words are said at the pivotal moment in our liturgy as we move from the reading of and response to the Word into the sacrament of Holy Communion. It is poignant to observe that we mark this moment of transition with an invitation to walk in love.
When we walk in love, there is clarity and purpose. We move in alignment with each other and with our values. Walking in love is also something we cannot do alone - by definition it implies connection, community. Whether we walk with our children or our spouse, or form an orderly line, or rely on the help of a friend or a neighbor to come to chancel we carry with us all with whom we are in communion and they carry us with them. Our journey is one made by millions, over thousands of years. A cycle of sharing and invitation.
What a way to bring our gifts forward: first the bread and wine followed by the offering plates, and finally ourselves - walking in love! When we gather in love, bless, break, and share our gifts and ourselves with the world, we bring healing and transformation to our world.
This year you are invited to join in the timeless call to walk in love as you share your wealth, works, and wisdom with a world in need. Download the annual pledge campaign resources today, and begin planning for your fall campaign!
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Order Your TENS Merch Today!
TENS Merchandise adds depth to your campaign. Use these affordable banners, mugs, and water bottles to reinforce the theme of your annual stewardship campaign. Banners, designed to be used inside or out, tell the world about your annual campaign. Mugs and water bottles make great gifts for campaign leaders and members. TENS partners with Printify to produce and deliver these great products.
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Bulk Order These Giveaways!
Use these affordable buttons to give to members who have made their pledge to the campaign. They are a great way to recognize givers and inspire others to join the campaign.
TENS also offers pens and magnets to give away to members as a way to promote the theme of this year's Stewardship campaign. TENS partners with VistaPrint to produce and deliver these wearables and small gifts to your church in any number you want.
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In the Green and Growing Season
by the Very Rev'd. Matthew Woodward
Walk in love…” is in my neural pathways now. It’s worn in, if I say those three words the rest of the offertory sentence flows with little conscious effort. It is almost pre-linguistic: a reflex.
You could argue that the idea has become rote. That is what people say about liturgy often repeated. It means nothing. But I don’t think that is the case. I think that the idea has now been
written into my brain so deeply that it has become a part of me.
“Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God.”
My walk is meant to imitate Christ’s walk. My walk should emulate his self offering. My walk is a reminder that everything I have and am comes from God, and living life with that attitude reminds me that I should walk through life as though it is a gift, not a possession.
I know this most in the summertime when I go for long walks with my dog, or hike with friends. The first 10-15 minutes of any walk my mind is often turbulent, chundering and fussing about the stresses of the day. But at some point I will bear a bird, or see the sun breaking through a leafy branch. My attention will shift and I will take a slightly deeper breath. My mind will still, and my walk will become one of love. This is the moment I remember I am a beloved child of a loving God. This is the moment when I become me. This is the moment I become generous.
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Is your Online Giving Ready for your Pledge Campaign?
TENS member congregations and dioceses get deep discounts on the VANCO Faith platform. Before your fall pledge campaign starts up, make sure that your online and mobile giving is ready for the challenge! New members receive:
- 49% off of the monthly rate (from $49/mo to $25/mo.)
- 23% off of ACH processing fees (from 39 to 30 cents/transaction) and a 44% discount on ACH processing rates (from .90%/transaction to .50%/transaction)
- 23% off of credit/debit card processing fees (from 39 to 30 cents/transaction) and 15% off of credit card processing rates (from 2.65% to 2.25%/transaction)*
- A text-to-give add-on reduced from $10/month to $5/month
Visit the website to get a demo and receive your discount before your fall pledge campaign begins.
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