Best Practices

In addition to raising annual operating funds and building an endowment for the ministries we share as a Diocese, the diocesan stewardship ministry serves as a stewardship resource for all of our congregations and related organizations. With a focus on year-round stewardship programs that include annual giving, planned giving, time and talent giving, and preparations for capital giving, remembering always that stewardship is what we do with all we have – all of the time.

As Episcopalians, we do our work in community – in our churches, through our Diocese, and as part of the Episcopal Church. It is in community we learn, give, and receive; it is in community that our faith will grow by leaps and bounds; and it is in community that we use our wealth, wisdom, and work to build our ministries and touch lives in our communities, across the nation, and around the world.

When we combine our money, time, and abilities, together we do great things with love and transformative impact. As we care for the gifts God has given each of us, we feed others as we feed ourselves.

Year-Round Stewardship

Creating a culture of generosity doesn’t happen using a single stewardship sermon in the fall or even following your best annual giving campaign. Spiritual formation for stewardship and giving requires constant attention while people grow over their lifetime. As fewer people may come into our churches having learned stewardship principles at home, it can take longer to establish mature givers in your congregation.

Creating a Stewardship Calendar

It may seem daunting to think about expanding your stewardship focus from 2-3 months to a full year. This year-found focus on stewardship is an opportunity to tie into the seasonal, scriptural, and liturgical themes across the year and link them with aspects of your congregation life and context.

This Model Year-Round Stewardship Calendar will help you get your plan started. Incorporate the Ideas for Generosity and Stewardship throughout the Year to stimulate personal recognition of how the year-round process functions — touching lives and growing hearts.

Gratitude Plan

How have you been blessed?
What are the gifts in your life for which you are grateful to God?

Welcome packet for new donors

• When you first receive a donation from a new donor, there should be a tax acknowledgement that reflects date, amount, and reason for gift. If the donation was made online, the giving portal is usually set up to do this for you. If the gift was made by check or in person, you might combine the tax acknowledgement with the thank you letter.
• Next, everyone should receive a thank you letter. Even if they have received a tax acknowledgement, you can still include the date, amount, and reason for the gift. Also include information about how the gift will be used.
• Send them something after a couple of months. It doesn’t need to be expensive, just thoughtful. This will serve as a reminder of your ministry and the good work that you do.
• Before you ask for another gift, ask them to sign up for something – maybe your newsletter, or resources you’ve created, or to help with a project. Until they have chosen to join you in some way, don’t ask for another gift.

Saying “Thank You”

The goal of saying thank you is to make your donor feel appreciated and important. This is a wonderful moment to thank them for their generosity and to tell them what their gift is doing.

Because it should be less about you and more about them – about how important your donor is to your church – it’s helpful to think about how to best reach out to them. If they like to read mail or are older, then traditional letters might work well. If they are younger, perhaps they’d enjoy a digital message.

As important as it is to say thank you to our individual donors, it’s also important to say thank you to groups in our congregation who help us every day and as part of special events. Don’t forget to take a moment after a fantastic anthem to thank the choir and organist. Do you have super acolytes? If so, remind folks how their dedication supports the entire worship experience. And don’t forget to heap on some extra praise for the altar guild as they use their talents to enhance Eucharist, or with your children’s workers whenever you can!

What are some ways you can say thank you? Certainly, clergy can add a hearty thanks during announcements. Thanks can also be added to newsletters and social media posts. Don’t forget your regular Ministry Moment is a great time to thank a team or group in your congregation. Thanks can be added to bulletin boards, posters in hallways, or in the specific rooms in which folks attend meetings. It all depends on your culture and context.

Embracing Stewardship is a great resource for congregations. Authors Charles R. Lane and Grace Duddy Pomroy recommend your congregation develop this Sample Thank You plan to support your work.

Building Strong Annual Giving Campaigns

Much of the work that we do each year to build strong stewardship campaigns for annual giving is based on the best practices that we teach. Each year these key resources are updated and augmented for the new theme. You are welcome to look through these best practice resources as they are, modify them for your own context, or build on them.

Why is giving to your church not a priority?

Total charitable giving continues to grow, but giving to congregations remains on the decline. Parishioners give 70% of their charitable giving based on their religious values but on average they only give 20% of their gifts to their congregation.

What to know about giving in 2025

According to Giving USA, individual giving rose by 5.1% after adjusting for inflation. While this includes gifts from large donors, your church may have the equivalent of large donors as well.

Giving to churches increased by 1.9% in 2024, but it didn’t go as far because purchasing power declined by 1% when inflation is taken into account. So, even if your church saw an increase in gifts, those dollars did not go as far in ministry as they did the year before, which can make meeting the needs of your community feel harder.

This is a critical time for ministry leaders to measure both the giving and spending power in inflation-adjusted dollars, because this is what reflects your ministry’s capacity. Your own spreadsheets will soon reflect the shifts month to month among the generations worshipping in your church.

Annual Giving Materials

Proportional giving charts
Book recommendations
Stewardship with children – here and here
Annual giving evaluation
Prayer resources
Stewardship and Development Resources