The Diocesan Offices were awash with a festive atmosphere earlier this week, as the Generous Giving Team celebrated its first birthday.
The team, Jo Beacroft-Mitchell, Sammi Tooze, and David Smallwood, have had an incredible first year setting out their ambition to grow a culture of increasing generosity across the Diocese of York. They’ve visited all 21 Deaneries and presented at training events across the Diocese as well as working directly with more than 50 parishes.
“The highlight of my year has been supporting so many treasurers and radically increasing the number of parish returns we receive” said David. “Data can seem a bit pointless and boring to some, but we can use it to help parishes tell their story and get to grips with what they need to nurture and grow their mission.”
Sammi, meanwhile, has spent her year working with clergy colleagues on the theological understanding of what it means to be Generous Christians, as well as producing the team’s first pack of dedicated resources. The fruits of her labour, ‘First Fruits’, is available for any parish to use to underpin their talk of giving with inspiring study, prayer and worship.
But what next for the Generous Giving team? “The coming year is going to be really exciting” said Team Leader Jo.
“We have a couple of legacy advice events coming up which inspire people to think about how legacies have impacted in the past and what a difference legacies can make today. Our training programme is now open for anyone who wants to register, with sessions on teaching and preaching, on encouraging parishes to tell their story well and for treasurers and clergy on understanding and managing parish finances.
“We’re expecting to see huge growth in contactless giving, and we are just putting in place the final arrangements so that we can launch the Parish Giving Scheme to churches which will offer a brand new professional package to allow givers to give via direct debit, manage their giving more efficiently and opt to increase their giving by inflation, thereby protecting our parishes cashflow and income for years to come”.
“Nationally we are about to launch a new strategy which will hugely increase our ability to offer support, training and advice as well as practical solutions. Locally, the team have been so well received that we’re expecting to run at least 60 dedicated parish giving programmes in 2020.”
As parishes begin to gear up for Autumn giving programmes, the team are out and about throughout the Diocese, supporting parish volunteers to tell their story and to engage with people about how their giving makes a huge difference to their church.
To learn more about the team and what they can do for you, click here.