From My Desk to Yours
How clear is your vision? Welcome back to another issue of the Stewardship Journal. I pray you had a great 4th of July and are ready to get back into action. We are ready with another Journal, picking up our theme of raising capital dollars for the future.
Mark Brooks, The Stewardship Coach, picks back up on his series on capital campaigns entitled Giving Away the Farm, which focuses on vision. In this edition, he has a post on vision entitled It Starts With a Vision. Mark gives practical advice and tips on why a vision is the first step for a leader before he starts his capital campaign. Mark writes that if you want to raise significant dollars in a capital campaign, you must realize that it starts with a vision.
Let’s Make a Case for Your Vision! is the title of Mark’s Bonus Section. Here, you will find a more thorough discussion on setting your vision and why it is important. Mark gives us his three C’s for vision as well as six key pointers for crafting your vision. These two posts will prepare you for your best capital campaign ever. And all that advice is free!
The State of Giving is the title of our final post. This post shares the results of the most recent Giving USA report on the state of charitable giving in America. It’s a sobering report that shows once again that giving continues to decline when factoring in inflation. In 2023, giving to Religion in dollars actually went up by 3%. Yet when you factor in inflation, it declines by -1%. What will this mean for your church? You will want to read this post to find out.
We believe that by reading and implementing our advice, you can make a budget and raise capital funds no matter the economy’s performance. That’s why we are making this investment to ensure you have all the tools you need to fully fund your church.
Remember, if you missed an issue of the Journal, all posts are accessible at https://stewardshipjournal.com.
Dr. Shawn Parker