For the Love of St. Olave’s
In February 2017, St. Olave’s Vestry passed a motion to establish a committee to look at our giving habits, with the eventual goal of increasing annual offerings and eliminating our deficit. (For the Love of St. Olave’s opening presentation.) The three-year campaign was led by Don Weston and was successful in increasing giving, engagement and attendance, until the pandemic arrived.
2019 Narrative Budget | 2018 Narrative Budget
The Halo Report describes the socio-economic impact St. Olave’s has on the community.
In 2020, Martha Drake became chair of the stewardship team and despite the pandemic, our parishioners and supporters helped us achieve our highest givings to date. Martha updates the parish on stewardship news in a separate e-blast each month.
In 2021, a collection of parishioner testimonials was published in a booklet entitled What St. Olave’s Means to Me. The booklets were mailed to parishioners with Advent appeal letter.
In 2022, we set a target to increase our givings by 10% and exceeded it, raising 18% more than in 2021. Read our impact report.
Stewardship Goals for 2023
As we continue to renew our routines traditions after the pandemic, we have set a modest givings increase of 5% over 2022.
We are also supporting initiatives to encourage people to return to worship and are targeting an average attendance increase of 15 people per Sunday (all Sunday services) in 2023, and 2024. This will return us to our average Sunday attendance in 2019.
What can you do to help us meet our goals?
Consider adopting a Rule of Life, six spiritual disciplines that are found at the end of the Catechism or Confirmation teaching in the Book of Common Prayer (p. 555):
- Attending church
- Praying at home
- Following Jesus
- Talking about faith
- Serving the church
- Giving to the church