Using a gift intent card or form can help provide clarity from the donor about their wishes. It can help the organization plan their budget, and it helps maintain institutional knowledge. Here is a sample you can download and adapt for your own organization.

Use something like this to invite your non-donors in the congregation to make an end of year gift.

Congregations need to take a more institutional approach to congregational stewardship than they have in previous decades. For us, this means that we begin with case development. Rather than asking people to tell us what they will give and then figuring out what ministry we will do, we need to inform and motivate the congregation around the ministry that we strive to do and need their increased gifts to support. This cultivation needs to happen during the stewardship appeal, but also year-round. Year-round cultivation happens as we share outcome stories of the impact that our ministry is having on our members and across the community and world.

The next step in your strategic planning work is to form the actionable portion of your plan. The leveling of the plan from the Macro through the Micro, will help you to better communicate the plan to constituents, and better manage the plan internally. We suggest the plan have three levels.

“The reason we came to Epworth was because my mother wasn’t financially secure and we constantly moved and missed school. One day we stopped moving from house to house and began moving from hotels to motels. My mother sat me down one day and told me that we were going to live without her for awhile until she got back on her feet. My mother didn’t tell me she was taking us to a group home though.”

As you enter this portion of the work, here are a couple of key strategies to remember.

Strategic Planning is cyclical, there are seasons of Visioning, planning, and assessment. Good plans build continual assessment into the plan.

Use this script and tracking sheet to conduct the follow up for you annual stewardship appeal.

2) Leadership people . . . people who have their fingers on the pulse of the communities, businesses, churches.

3) People of influence who may not have financial resources or be able to give but are able to influence others and their gifts (i.e. “opinion makers”)

Fundraising ventures are most always undertaken with one central focus – to meet the financial goal of the effort and thereby meet the needs of the organization or agency that are dependent on the receipt of charitable gifts. The greater the financial need and the proposed goal to meet it, the higher the stakes for success and, possibly the higher the degree of uncertainty regarding the viability of the goal. A feasibility/readiness study (herein referred to as “feasibility study) has as its primary goal to determine potential to meet the proposed financial goal.

Churches and non-profits have expertise in positively influencing individual lives along with the community at large and even beyond. They are mission, vision, and values driven and their basic existence is predicated on improving the human condition and doing the right thing.

But every organization will face a crisis at some point. A crisis can be a single event.