Testimonials

Phil Johnson, Partnership Secretary

St John's Egham

In our local area, we’re grateful to have a congregation of around 300 individuals that attend our church regularly, and 120 individual members of the congregation or families (encompassing 185 people) give through PGS. We’re an incredibly vibrant church, with activities going on seven days a week including three services on a Sunday, playgroups and food kitchens.

We registered with PGS in 2015 and there was lots of material that helped us launch the scheme in our church. It’s the modern way of giving and it certainly eases the strain on our finance team; it’s easy, safe and effective for our congregation.

The finance team led the launch of PGS in our church and we announced it in our Sunday services, which we followed up with a letter to our givers to explain how to set up their accounts and their gifts. Ever since we launched, we’ve had really positive feedback from givers and an uptick in gifts.

All of our regular gifts are processed through PGS. Between the ease of giving and the excellent customer service, I’d call it heroic work from the PGS team. We’d be lost without it!

Phil Johnson, Partnership Secretary
Dave Pope, Planned Giving Co-Ordinator

Parish of Morpeth

Since we joined in 2017, the Parish Giving Scheme has become vital to our parish’s income stream and cash flow. We started with just two people giving through PGS, but uptake has been steady and continuous to date, and we now receive regular gifts from 79 givers. Continuous gentle campaigning has made an annual increase to the Planned Giving budget feasible, and to date, it has always been exceeded.

The PGS has had the greatest effect on cash flow, as Gift Aid is recovered monthly instead of twice a year. The administrative load on myself and the Gift Aid secretary has been reduced by half, which has helped enormously, and the treasurer finds the monthly reporting invaluable.

‘If I was to offer one piece of advice to a church that is new to PGS, it would be to sign up now – you won’t regret it!’

Dave Pope, Planned Giving Co-Ordinator
Robert Fort, Hon. Treasurer

St Wilfrid’s Church, Burnsall

We had planned to launch PGS to the congregation at our APCM in April. When this was postponed, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we instead approached key donors directly (we are a small parish, so this is not difficult!) We also persuaded 7 of our 15 regular Gift Aid donors to switch to PGS and attracted one new donor. This has had two positive effects: a) 5 of the 7 increased their committed giving by a total of 24% and b) with the addition of the new donor, our total regular monthly income has increased by 28%.

Robert Fort, Hon. Treasurer
Kristina Stoddern, Donor

St Cuthbert’s Church, Croxteth Park

From a donor point of view, I feel that the scheme is very user friendly, as you don’t have to carry cash with you to the service and then you won’t forget to donate. You can also budget for the payments. All in all, so much more hassle free! I would highly recommend to any other parish.

Kristina Stoddern, Donor
Revd Nicholas Mercer, Rector of Bolton Abbey

The Priory Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert

Bolton Priory signed up to the PGS in January 2020. I wrote to every single parishioner, enclosing a PGS leaflet, and asked them to join the Scheme. The response has been superb, with just about half of the congregation signing up. In these uncertain times, we need to have the certainty of a regular income, and people really bought into that. The PGS itself is very straightforward to sign up to as a donor, and from the church’s perspective, it is clean and simple to operate. I could not recommend it more emphatically.

Revd Nicholas Mercer, Rector of Bolton Abbey
Marie Ness, PGS Project Manager

Parish of Falstone with Greystead and Thorneyburn

Setting up the PGS was very straightforward. We contacted our Diocesan PGS advisor and she guided us through every step. I was pleasantly surprised there was an option to set up the donor registration by phone, as many of our potential donors are not online. I found the telephone service easy to use and quick to set up. I chose the option to automatically increase my giving each year in line with inflation, to sustain the value of donations into the future.

Marie Ness, PGS Project Manager
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