how does your congregation raise money?

[cellio]

I'm interested in answers from all religions/denominations. (Please identify which you're talking about.)

I grew up going to a Roman Catholic church. Collection baskets were passed at Sunday services -- once for the church and, often, a second time for a special purpose (ranging from helping $disaster victims to buying a pipe organ). Members of the congregation were issued envelopes with an identifying number (not name) on the outside, so you could put cash in and still get a tax receipt at the end of the year. Children in religious school were also issued (small) envelopes; they were also numbered and I assume our coins were tallied with our parents' envelopes, but I never asked. Of course, some people (like visitors) just put cash directly into the basket, too.

This always struck me as dicey; how could an organization with regular expenses like heat and salaries and a building manage finances that way, other than by assuming that this year will be like last year? It occurs to me now that there might have also been a pledge system that I, as a child, never saw, but I'm just guessing here.

One of the things I found really refreshing about synagogues is that they have dues. When I found out about this I did a little happy-dance. Yay, no more guesswork! Join the congregation, get a bill, pay it, and everything's good. Right? (Aside: we couldn't pass a basket at Shabbat services even if we wanted to, because doing business and handling money are forbidden on Shabbat.)

Now that I've been part of congregational life for a while, though, I've realized that that's not the end of it by far. There are still special appeals, of course (we help $disaster victims too, after all), but there are also endowment campaigns, special appeals to supplement dues, fancy fund-raising dinners (with ad books, to draw contributions from non-members/businesses), and a myriad of other fund-raising activities. (I know that some congregations have a building fund with its own rules for member payments; we don't, so I don't really know how this works.) There are also fees for certain activities; the biggie here is religious school, which is a separate payment on top of dues.

My congregation -- and I assume this is true pretty much everywhere -- never turns anybody away for lack of ability to pay dues. We'll negotiate a reduced rate, sometimes quite nominal. Some of the other fund-raising is specifically to offset that. A draw from the endowment each year also offsets some expenses. I don't know if the proportion of our expenses paid for by dues is public information so I won't say, but we try to reduce that proportion by building the endowment -- through fund-raising, of course.

All of this makes me wonder when we risk hitting the point of "fund-raising fatigue" for members (I didn't grow up with this as normal so my perspective is unreliable), and what the mix of dues to fund-raising tends to be like elsewhere, and what other (fiscally-responsible) approaches are out there. What do others do? Are synagogues unique in having dues, or do churches have that too (perhaps packaged differently)? If you're a member of a church, does someone sit down with you and say "we expect you to donate $X this year"?

So, readers who belong to congregations of any sort, how do your congregations pay for expenses?

Comments

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

In the Mormon church, we pay 10% tithing (it's supposed to be 10% of increase, but how you define it is up to you; you'll find contentious debates online on whether that means net or gross income and that sort of thing, but the only official thing from the church is 10% of increase, so use your own best judgement and thought and prayer about what that means to you). There are envelopes in a little cubby thing that is usually next to the bishop's office, so you just grab one and fill out a little form and hand it to the bishop whenever you cross paths with him (I usually track him down in the hallway after church) or mail it to him. [I'd love it if the church would set up an easy way to do it online; tithing is the only thing I write checks for anymore ;-)] There's no assessment or anything like that, so it's just up to you to pay or not or pay some. In addition to tithing, there's other things like a fast offering, which is however much you want to donate during the monthly fast to help the poor and needy within your own congregation (this was the fund my bishop pulled from to help me get above my medical bills last year). Those two, tithing and fast offerings, are the most common ones, but there are other things too, like the humanitarian fund (like for disaster relief stuff), or missionary support, or smaller things like summer church camp for the congregation's teenagers. All of those go in the same envelope with the slip filled out showing how much should go where.

[cellio]

Thanks for sharing. I think I only know two Mormons and appreciate getting that perspective.

Does the Mormon church call for 10% specifically to the church? If so, are you also taught to donate to other charities (and is there a recommended amount)? Or do you fulfill your humanitarian (etc) obligations by donating to the church which then spends some of that money for that purpose?

The fast offering is interesting. On fast days our rabbis encourage us to donate whatever we would have spent for nice meals that day to hunger organizations instead, but I don't know if this is common or just something he does. "Donate the money you would have spent eating" seems like it would be a powerful model, especially if you have a monthly fast (often enough to form habits).

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

The fast offering is exactly like that: donate what you would have spent eating, but we're encouraged to donate more if able.

The 10% is specifically to the church, but we are also encouraged to donate (money or time) to other charities/organizations. There is no recommended amount for that, though. It just falls under the teaching to go out and do good in the community.