Congregational Consultation from CFG
Fully fund your ministry and mission. Get a generosity profile of your congregation. Put trust-building best financial practices in place. Learn how to tell your amazing story to inspire, encourage, and grow the resources that empower your church to live its vision and serve with the transforming power of the Gospel.
Hear what others are saying about Generosity Plus
This program is field tested and proven to be effective. Listen to congregations from the Ohio Region reflect on Generosity Plus after they participated in a pilot program.
Frequently Asked Questions (and our best answers!)
What is Generosity Plus?
Generosity Plus is a partnership with your church and its leaders. It provides a comprehensive look at all aspects of financial practice within the congregation. It is designed to achieve a deep awareness of stewardship as spiritual discipline and to engage in best fiduciary practices in order to grow your capacity to fund mission and ministry. Our goal is help you live out the vision God has given you.
Is Generosity Plus a fund-raising program?
Generosity is about more than money for operations. It is about passion, conviction, and discipleship brought into clear focus. Stewardship is spiritual practice. Generosity Plus begins with the biblical understanding of God’s sustaining provision and our faithful response to manage well all that has been entrusted to our care. We recognize that stewardship is holistic in nature, including the care of Creation, the observance of Sabbath, self-care and nurture, sharing the gospel, and resource management.
How does it work?
When you choose us to become your partner, we begin by having you provide detailed information about your congregation. We want to understand your vision, your current and past financial practices, your congregation’s attitudes about money and mission. We want to know what you think works in your context; and just as important, what isn’t/hasn’t/doesn’t seem to work! We create a profile of your current donor base to establish your generosity potential in this moment as well as your ability long-term.
What does the Center for Faith and Giving provide?
Our Generosity Coaches bring decades of practical experience and proven success in creating congregational cultures where stewardship practices can flourish. They understand the transforming power of living a generous life and the core conditions that must exist in your church for the support of ministry and mission to flourish. They can help you craft effective policy, help you tell your story in a way that inspires, move people from modest support to commitment and investment, safeguard your resources, and develop new streams for financial support. We know we don’t have all the answers – but we do know the important questions! We will walk with you, side by side for every step for up to 18 months. From your first bible study to the completion of your successful annual campaign.
What do we as a congregation provide?
Generosity Plus partners must provide a willingness to risk failure in order that they will succeed! You bring your best effort to respond to and implement what we discover together will be the best practices for your context. It takes a village – meaning this can’t be just the minister or just the lay leadership that agrees to participate. Key leaders must be “all in together” to achieve critical mass for the best possible outcome. Leaders must be willing to “do things different than the way we have always done them”. They must also be committed to reflect on their own practice of generosity. Ideally, your congregation becomes a living laboratory for the working of the Holy Spirit.
The application asks you to share information about your church, its mission, its donors, its hopes, its expectations, its history and its dreams for the future. We understand and deeply respect the confidential nature of the information we ask you to share with us. We also delineate the difference between an environment of confidential trust and opaque secrecy. One of those models is healthy and one is not! Our best counsel requires information to help your understand your donors and your future generosity potential.
What does it cost?
What does Generosity Plus cost? Essentially, your investment is what you believe the service is worth. We will share with you our estimate of the commercial value of services we provide. We will then (through a formula we will show you) calculate a discounted rate that becomes your target investment, which includes an adjustment for your contributions to either Disciples Mission Fund (DOC congregations) or Our Churches Wider Mission (UCC congregations). You then choose between $1 and the target investment. There is literally no risk to you. The more generous your donation, the more congregations we can provide with similar services to what you will receive. For those donating at or above 50% of the estimated commercial cost, you may take up to two years to complete your investment, paid quarterly. We request those contributing less than 50% of the target rate to complete their gift within one calendar year (may be paid quarterly).
While we think there is added benefit in being with you in your context, we can deliver all our services on-line. If we travel to be with you on site, we ask you to cover our actual travel costs. You invest your time and your desire to grow your capacity for generosity.
No, really, what does it cost? A congregation with an operating income of $250,000 that contributed $25,000 to Disciples Mission Fund could expect at “target investment” of approximately $10,000. So the cost really is between $1 and $10,000; plus any travel expenses incurred by the Center for Faith and Giving generosity consultants.
How do we know if this is right for us?
If you have all the money you need to fully live the vision God has given your congregation, we’re not going to be a very good fit! However, if you have a passion to increase your mission and ministry to fulfill the call God has placed on your church and you need more financial resources to make it happen (and you are serious about it!), the odds are we are a good match for a Generosity Plus experience. The program is not geared toward simple survival since we believe the mission of the church should be more than keeping the doors open until the last one left out turns off the lights. Generosity Plus is designed to support growth in churches committed to the transformational power of the Gospel.
Learn
Discover the areas of policy and practice we will provide resources for the leadership in your congregation
Apply
Fill out an application to receive Generosity Plus Services and begin your journey to a culture of generosity
Your Story
See what information we need to power your ministry forward on the path to living your God given mission