Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

Recovering Christian Stewardship from Secular Fundraising 143
secular practice of segmenting households for the purposes of gift or
pledge solicitation in accordance with perceived socio-economic
status or ability to give. This approach can be extremely harmful to
the parish’s sense of communitas, since parishioners are led to believe
that their value to the community is contingent not on generosity, but
upon their social standing and ability to bankroll the organization.
Campaigns need not follow the secular pattern of reaching
50% of the campaign’s goal before the campaign is even made
public. This strategy virtually requires that parishioners of greater
financial standing be visited first, in order that a few large gifts be
secured. This commences the cycle of segmentation. There is no
self-evident or compelling reason to administer campaigns in this
way. On the contrary, there is great dignity in visiting all
parishioners at the same time, inviting both rich and poor, weak and
powerful equally into the Church’s life, and receiving their gifts on
the same “holy ground,” as God intended. The Church can give the
lie to the assumption that wealth drives charitable giving, and return
instead to our ancient conviction that stewardship is driven by
gratitude, witnessed by generosity and perfected by grace. This can
be visualized in the following diagram: 55
55 This graphic was developed by the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, and is
used with permission.