Stewardship Conversations

In our previous blog, we spoke about creating a culture of giving. We recommended that leaders create an intentional plan to explore the meaning of giving. We suggested that by initiating conversations about giving, you can introduce the topic and reinforce the concept until it becomes a part of your congregation’s life. In this blog we will talk about initiating these stewardship conversations.

Conversations about giving can be initiated in many ways. Use the pulpit, guest speakers, the newsletter, the website, the worship service, and committee discussions. Convene small groups before or after the Sunday service for several weeks. Invite the finance committee to participate in a conversation with congregants about the meaning of spiritual stewardship in contrast to the meaning of fundraising. Make “giving” a major theme at annual budget drive orientation workshops. Prepare visiting stewards (the term we prefer instead of canvassers) to discuss the concept of giving during their conversations with donors.

You may also want to invite a fundraising consultant to facilitate a Mission and Giving Retreat. Focus on these questions during the retreat: What is the difference between stewardship and fundraising?

  • What relationship can we construct among giving, compassion, and community?
  • In what ways can we grow and invest the gifts we have received?
  • How can we return and restore our gifts?
  • What does generosity mean to us? How do we define the term? How will we know if we are being generous? What will it look like?
  • What will we do with increased giving? What difference will it make?
  • How can we make spiritual stewardship a year-round conversation?
  • How can we frame conversations to focus less on the need for money and more on giving as a way to implement our mission?
  • How can we help our society move away from an increasing culture of materialism?

Helping congregants discover their own personal generosity will create joyful givers. Joyful givers will help create healthy congregations that view spiritual stewardship as a vital component of their ministry and that believe that sharing one’s gifts, call, and spiritual vocation is an act of worship.

Creating a Culture of Giving






Need Some Stewardship Support?







Are you telling stories of transformation or just asking for money?



Why we give to charity




First Unitarian Society in Madison & Microfinancing







A New Definition of Generosity?

I have been thinking a lot about the definition of generosity. Recently, my colleague Ian Evison wrote:  “I think we are going to enter into a time when the idea of getting people to be more generous is going to need to be much more balanced by focusing on sustainability—even what people will be generous about will be more about sustainability.”

Seems to me that since so many congregants have lost jobs or are currently under employed, that our congregations may be faced with flat annual budgets that reflect the new generosity.

For example, if a congregant had previously contributed $1,000 to the annual budget, and that same congregant is now unemployed, maybe a $250 annual pledge is even more generous than her previous pledge. Maybe you have a dozen other congregants, or more, facing the same dilemma.

By extension, it is quite possible that your annual budget might even be smaller than the previous year and could reflect even more generosity than the previous year.

Maybe a new definition of generosity is needed. Maybe we need to correlate generosity with sustainability. Maybe the idea of getting congregants to increase their generosity means that we focus on sustaining those most important aspects of congregational ministry, rather than expanding into new programs.

The Coming Death Tsunami, written by Lovett Weems and shared by Rev. Brian Covell of Third Unitarian Church in Chicago, pursues this issue. Take a look and see what you think. I would love to begin a conversation about this issue.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Helpful and Amusing DVD on Stewardship




Here is a video preview of the DVD:

Guaranteeing Success?

I occasionally get inquiries along the lines of:

“How much money will we raise if a stewardship consultant guides us through an annual budget drive? How much more money will we raise than if we conduct the drive without a consultant?” What will be our ‘return on investment?’

Seemingly good questions, yes? Well actually, not so much.

There is simply no way to prove a direct link between your congregation’s annual budget drive success and the person who has led the drive, whether that person is a lay leader or a stewardship consultant. People who espouse this line of thinking believe that the ‘right’ person, using the ‘right’ technique will guarantee success. If that were the case, fundraising would be quite easy.  Positive results could be guaranteed.

Unfortunately, there are just too many variables. For example, the amount of money raised can be effected by any one of several uncontrollable scenarios; a major congregational conflict, the sudden resignation of your minister, the death of a major donor, an economic crisis, an upcoming capital campaign, just to name a few.

So if there is no way to guarantee monetary success, what can a stewardship consultant promise?

  • A stewardship consultant will help you frame an annual budget drive in term of abundance, rather than scarcity, thus setting the stage for a culture shift.
  • A consultant will broaden the definition of ROI beyond a simple definition of how much money is raised.
  • A consultant will introduce (or reinforce) the broad concept of stewardship, rather than a narrow focus on fundraising.
  • A consultant will organize a drive so that you will prevent getting the cart before the horse.
  • A consultant will help to create a clear, compelling case to justify the ask and answer questions like: “What difference will my financial commitment make? How will we be better able to fulfill our congregational ministry if I contribute more than last year?”
  • A consultant will use the Suggested Fair Share Giving Guide to help donors create their own definition of fair share

Here’s how I framed this issue in Chapter One of Beyond Fundraising:

“We need to replace [the old tapes of scarcity] with positive, more accurate statements of abundance, such as ‘Our congregation has a clear mission, we are publicly passionate about that mission, and we will secure enough resources (people, time, and money) to successfully implement our mission.’ A congregation with a culture of abundance believes in the reality that there can always be enough. They believe that diligent stewardship will provide everything needed. The glass is at least half full. Sometimes there are several glasses. Sometimes they even overflow.

Focusing on abundance requires a new vocabulary, one that emphasizes the reality of abundance by diminishing our focus on money. This vocabulary puts fundraising under the umbrella of stewardship. Rather than discussing the goal of raising money, congregations should discuss money as no more than a means to an end. Money is most meaningful when we can move from thinking of it as a way to pay the bills and regard it as a way to fulfill the ministry of the congregation. . .

Some of today’s healthiest faith communities focus more on stewardship than fundraising. While fundraising refers specifically to money-raising efforts, stewardship is an attitude that is reflected in all of the congregation’s efforts. Fundraising emphasizes the need of the recipient; stewardship addresses people’s spiritual need to give. Stewardship must precede fundraising.

Healthy faith communities see stewardship as a vital component of their ministry. They understand that stewardship is an act of worship. Worship includes the joyful sharing of gifts (aptitude, ability, and money), call (willingness to proclaim the congregation’s spiritual message), and spiritual vocation (willingness to take up volunteer efforts to support the faith community). Note that gifts have a wider meaning than money exchanged for the programs and ministries of a faith community. For example, one’s gift to the faith community might be to serve on the finance committee because one has a good understanding of financial matters. Or a member with landscaping ability might agree to become the caretaker of the memorial garden. All kinds of gifts should be valued and considered meaningful.

Stewardship, then, is the growing, nurturing, promoting, and building of the gifts, call, and spiritual vocation of the members of a faith community. Stewardship is not necessarily the things people do, but the spirit that influences the things they do.”

Culture of Abundance versus Culture of Scarcity

The Law of Enrollment Meets the Ask
By Laurie Herrick, Kathleen Dowd, and Rachel Kuhn


