Testimonials

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!’

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%.

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.

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.

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.

The Parish Giving Scheme is simple and easy to set up, saves on administration within the Benefice and, with the additional advantage that donors can increase their giving by inflation automatically each year, safeguards against static giving. But the real advantage for us, during this period of ‘lockdown’ and the suspension of public worship, has been that our regular planned giving has remained the same! This has been an unexpected blessing and we are so grateful to be part of the scheme. We commend it without hesitation!