Everything about church fundraisers
Youth Pastor Jessie gets his head shaved due to demand from a fundraising event from a Sunday morning to raise funds for Summer Camp for the Walnut Grove Youth Group.
The good sir who deserves credit for shaving Pastor Jessies’ head is Travis who is a staff member of the youth group and plays guitar for the youth group worship team.
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http://thesmartgiver.com – How churches can attract major gifts.
People who need to reduce income taxes or pass assets on to the next generation with the least tax impact can use a lead trust to do both while also benefiting your church fundraising efforts.
The current poor economy provides a climate for some planned giving techniques to yield greater benefits than any time in recent history. One example is the charitable lead trust.
A lead trust is normally funded with income-producing assets. In one model, the trust pays a stipulated percentage for a certain number of years to a charity. At the end of the designated time frame, the trust assets either revert to the donor or are passed to children or grandchildren.
If you are a church leader interested in church fundraising, you’ll want to pay special attention because lead trusts are funded with an average of five million dollars.
What could your church do with an income stream of 5-10% on 5 million dollars paid for 5 to 20 years?
A lead trust can be a solution for people who have specific problems or goals. For example…
–They’ve received a large bonus or just sold a business and need a large current tax deduction.
–They have a stock portfolio that has decreased substantially in value but feel certain that the stocks will rebound in time.
–They have a large estate that will be taxed at 50%+ and they want to pass their estate on with little or no inheritance tax.
–They have a large estate and don’t want to dump significant wealth all at once on children who may not yet be financially responsible.
So why is a lead trust such a good deal now?
One of the components of the formula that computes the income tax deduction a person gets is the Applicable Federal Rate, AFR for short. Due to the decline in interest rates, the AFR has reached record lows. The lower the AFR the higher the tax deduction.
Charitable lead trusts have many applications and can simultaneously create major gifts for your church.
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First, we must define what we mean by “fundraising.” The Bible is clear that the giving of “offerings” is commanded and blessed by God. God loves a “cheerful giver”—one who gives abundantly out of a heart of love for God (2 Corinthians 2:8-9). Paul provides instruction and a great deal of discussion about giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9. He also shows great appreciation to those who gave to him at various times to enable him to continue his ministry (Philippians 4:14-20). You also find records of generous giving in the early church (Acts 4:32-37). Fund-raising, then, is something other than the normal giving of a congregation toward the work of the Lord.
If a church does decide to raise additional funds for a specific need, the following cautions are in order:
• Be honest about what the money is for.
• Avoid excessive profit.
• Don’t allow the fundraising to communicate to others that God’s people are not being obedient, therefore the church is hitting up unbelievers for money.
• Be sure the congregation understands it is in addition to, not in place of, normal giving.
• Be considerate of those that have convictions against fundraising — you cannot prove biblically that it is OK, so it could be a doubtful thing for some.
On the other hand, there are benefits to depending upon giving rather than fundraising: (taken from above passages)
• People learn to give because it is a blessing (actual fruit added to their account), not to get something.
• Depending upon gifts of God’s people allows a ministry to learn to work in the framework of contentedness and obedience.
• It is a clear way to give God glory. Fundraisers can bring glory to products or personalities.
• Depending upon the giving of God’s people can strengthen our faith.
Alternatives to supplement tithing:
• Establish special funds with particular goals. Some people will give to special projects above their regular giving.
• Encourage faith commitments through a banquet (not selling meals — but expressing need — accepting gifts) or other challenges.
• Encourage members to take a certain amount of money and invest it over a particular duration – some might put it in a CD, others might buy ingredients for something and then sell their product; the individuals then would all bring their personal gifts as an offering. This avoids the stigma of the church doing a fundraiser, incorporates people, and allows them to use a great deal of creativity.
A Scripture account that might be used to discourage fundraising would that of Jesus and the money changers in the temple (Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17). Some may conclude that the reason He called it a “den of thieves” was that Jesus was against profit being made off ministry. However, the passage could more easily be understood that He was condemning the dishonest practice of the greedy, hypocritical, and corrupt religious leaders. We also need to take into account that we no longer have temples that involve animal sacrifices; therefore, it would be difficult to compare that ministry to that of the current church model described in Acts and the Epistles.
One should not take lightly the degree of anger expressed by Jesus as He chased the profiteers out; however, it doesn’t necessarily provide a solid proof text against what we consider fundraising.
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Police say burglars broke into a Green Country church, vandalizing the property and stealing equipment.
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http://web.goxft.com What if you had a fund-raiser product that saved people money when they purchased from you? What if they could benefit from it’s use over and over again? If you are a Church, group, charity or foundation Syntek XFT will change the way you think about fund-raising.
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