St. Anthony de Padua Parish at 2114 E. Jefferson Blvd., South Bend, IN 46617 US - Ideas for Successful Stewardship
| Ideas for Successful Stewardship |
If you didn’t log onto the ICSC Web Forum in the last month, you missed some pretty interesting information. Here are two ideas for how to increase your offertory by almost 25% and a great source of additional stewardship resources. These included: Ø We use only the Business Reply Envelope at St. Thomas More, instead of the regular offertory envelopes. Our offertory jumped by 22 percent when we started in February 2001, and it continues to climb. I never imagined this result, because our offertory is quite high and did not think it would go any higher. Why is this effective? Because people will send their offertory in the mail even when they can't make it to church. They can mail (stamps are needed of course) it anywhere and it will still get to their church. If you're not convinced I'll be happy to talk to you more about this if you wish. . Mila Glodava, Ø If you are looking for good resources for stewardship, check out the Diocese of Rockford page at www.stewardshiprockford.com. Click on the link titled ICSC presentation for a massive collection of stewardship resources. Might be the best one on the web, thanks to Bob Pfundstein and his staff. I even donated a few. Ø People not using envelopes for 1 year are removed and then we send them a special business reply envelope once a month. It allows them to send a donation to the parish but also to tell us to remove their name from our roster, that they are presently not practicing the faith but please keep them on the mailing list, or to restart the weekly envelopes, as well as space for other comments. It also has a special monthly message (e.g., in November it talks about remembering our loved ones in the Book of Life and remembered during Mass every day that month). We call it our 'evangelization envelope'. Response has been 22% we send it to now use it monthly. Pat Schiro, St. Marcelline Parish Schaumberg Also, some questions are still looking for you to share your answers – a long time stewardship parish that is having trouble finding new witness speakers, and someone looking for easy tools for time & talent discernment. Log onto the ICSC Web Forum today! The forum - a benefit of ICSC membership - can draw on the expertise of hundreds of ICSC members. It's like being able to ask your stewardship question of any of the experts at the conference at any time! Dedicated stewardship professionals on the ICSC Committee for Parish Stewardship Education and Services now are participating actively and regularly on this Forum. COMMITTEE FOR PARISH STEWARDSHIP EDUCATION AND SERVICES International Catholic Stewardship Council Telephone: 202/289/1093 Facsimile: 202/682/9018 Electronic Mail:icsc@catholicstewardship.org Web Site:www.catholicstewardship.org
If you have a stewardship question or concern and want a timely response simply log on to the "Members Only" section on the ICSC web page (http://www.catholicstewardship.org/Member/login.cfm?toURL=%2FMember%2Findex%2Ecfm). The user name is ICSCMember and the password is SODALITAS. Then click "Discussion Forum," register and set up your user profile by clicking "Join." It only takes a minute and you will be on your way to responses from national leaders in the field of parish stewardship. Check out the Discussion Forum today!