PCC News

We are still in the very early days of adoption, and we hope to have some articles in the not too distant future. Many of you have friends who live in other Dioceses. Please feel free to ask them about how good PGS is.

The resource is being adopted by churches across the whole of England. At present 34 of the 42 Dioceses use this safe and efficient way to enable churches to improve their financial situation. As Christians we give in response to God’s love for us and PGS is a tried and tested way to ensure that our giving is planned.

We read in 1 Corinthians 16 verse 2: “On the first day of every week, each of you should set aside a portion of his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will be needed.”

If we prayerfully commit our giving PGS enables us to do this without any worry.

PGS, as per Doug’s article, is also helping parishes to save on their bank charges. Do you think it is right that the bank is taking a proportion of your gift before it reaches your parish bank account? With PGS whatever you give goes straight into your parish’s bank account for your PCC to decide what to do with it.

As an individual joining PGS you are reducing the work for your treasurer. PGS claims any Gift Aid that is attributable to your gift and that money comes into the parish’s bank account monthly which helps your parish significantly with cash flow because the money is coming in monthly. And do not worry if you are not eligible for gift aid, by using PGS you are still helping your treasurer and parish. Using PGS helps your treasurer plan the parish’s budgets and helps provide a clearer picture for your parish in these very uncertain times.

Please, please be assured that you remain in total control of your direct debit. PGS is a church organisation and under no circumstances will it amend your direct debit without your permission.

To recap:

• Free resource for your parish
• Using PGS can save your parish bank charges
• Saves work for your treasurer
• You may be helping cash flow in your parish
• You will help your parish plan for the future
• Total control of your giving.

As we said at the beginning of the article that it is still very new in the Diocese of Norwich, but here we have included some testaments from parishes in other dioceses. Some are very small, rural parishes with small congregations.

St Wilfrid’s Church, Burnsall

Robert Fort, Hon. Treasurer

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%.

St Cuthbert’s Church, Croxteth Park

Kristina Stoddern, Donor

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.

All Saint’s Church, Lightwater

Andrew & Chris

We have found the Parish Giving Scheme to be a really helpful way of managing our planned giving programme. It reduces administration for the planned giving co-ordinator and treasurer, is easy for church members to use and helps with cash flow too. We would recommend it to any church.

The Chase Benefice

The Revd Mark Abrey

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!