Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

86 THE PASSIONATE STEWARD
meet its expanding needs, this method was, as it was promoted in its
day, “… the financial salvation for a Church in need.” 35
The attraction of the gift chart method lay precisely in the fact
that it was process-driven. It was easy to understand, and was
naturally appealing to those individuals and communities who
lacked stewardship skills. People knew exactly what was going to
happen in Week One, Two or Three of the campaign, and if they did
their work correctly, the outcome promised to be exactly what they
expected. For secular fundraisers, who were used to implementing
gift chart methodology in the secular non-profit sector, its adoption
by the Church opened up new markets for professional fundraising
which had previously been inaccessible because of the special
skills, pastoral understanding, faith, and commitment the Church
needed and had heretofore expected and demanded of itself. In the
end, knowing how the gift chart method worked became a substitute
for understanding the Church, faith and stewardship. And for North
Americans who were welcoming electric toasters, self-cleaning
ovens, and other conveniences that made life easy and care free, the
gift chart matched their newly embraced values: it was efficient,
time saving, and easy.
It is long past time, however, to revisit the gift chart method
in light of our Christian values and convictions. Unfortunately, the
financial “success” of these campaigns has become embedded in
the collective memory of the faithful, leading many to conclude,
mistakenly, that the gift chart model must therefore also be “good.”
Effective though the gift chart may be in the secular arena, it is
utterly inappropriate for use in the Church. True stewardship is a
measure of more than dollars, and methods like the gift chart
deprive the faithful of such other “goods” as community building,
personal development and adherence to Gospel traditions.
35 1958 Marketing letter of the Wells Co., a fundraising firm that was active in
the 1950s and 1960s.