Offer regular and systematic teaching on stewardship; increase monthly financial support.
Dear Parish Family,
I am so blessed to minister among you. After twelve years as your pastor, I can hardly believe that this will be the final budget I present to you. May God bless you abundantly for all your support and generosity as we continue to live out our mission to Know, Grow, and Go and to activate our strategic plan for the parish.
At present, the financial backing is not yet in sync with the action we have taken to move forward in our strategic plan. It was necessary to take some important first steps in implementing the vision by hiring a manager and a discipleship and evangelization team leader in August 2022. Our hope was to put the staffing structures in place that would allow us to carry out our vision while also facilitating the transition to a new pastor in July 2023. However, parish revenues have not had a chance to properly catch up to this new expense, and, as a result, we ran a deficit of $23,500 in 2022.
Thankfully, we are not in debt. We made two withdrawals of $40,000 from the savings in our diocesan investment account, which allowed us to cover our expenses. This coming year, we hope to replenish some of these savings and break even operationally by running a tight budgetary process.
The budget that I put forth will be closely monitored by the Finance Council each month to assess our revenue targets. This way, if the vision and strategic plan aren’t being adequately funded, we will make necessary cuts and adjustments around the third and fourth quarter as needed. This is to ensure that we do not run a deficit two years in a row. The Finance Council and I are committed to staying on budget.
We present this desired budget as a tool in realizing our parish vision, with the hope and confidence that it will be fulfilled through the generosity of each of you, our parishioners. We know that this budget functions as a vote of confidence in what we can do together as a parish community. But we also have full confidence in the vision that the Holy Spirit has inspired in us for our parish and community. The Lord will use each of us to help make this vision our reality.
This year’s budget is substantially higher than in previous years. During my twelve-year tenure, we have run a budget of roughly $600,000. While inflation has led to a significant increase in expenses, our average weekly giving has remained constant at about $14 per family. We need our budget to reflect our current times and reality and to account for inflation.
Last year, we tried to set aside $3,000 monthly from our operations to add to our capital
account. The hope was that we could avoid separate collections for capital and set aside $36,000 each year towards any future major projects or repairs. This year, we will return to monthly collections for capital expenses, which will go into our savings at the archdiocese. We still hope to achieve monthly collections of $3,000 and will continue to update you in due course.
The Finance Council plans to launch specific initiatives geared to increase our current levels of giving. We have determined that we would need our 493 regular donors to contribute $31.60/weekly to meet our financial needs in 2023. Realizing that this is a big ask, our goal is to offset these numbers by inviting new donors to partner with us and encouraging regular giving from one-time or occasional donors.
Fr. Marcus and I are sincerely thankful for your ongoing commitment to giving to the vision of our parish and we invite you to prayerfully ask the Lord how you might increase the generosity of your giving so that we can make our desired budget our lived reality.
Blessings and prayers, Fr. Tim
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give,
not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:7
A TITHE is a portion of income given to the Church and her various ministries and charitable organizations. Traditionally, tithing is giving 10% of gross income. The spirit behind tithing, however, is to choose any set percentage of your earnings and contribute it towards the Church and other charitable causes. Many of you give generously to multiple ministries, charities, and causes, and we do not expect everyone to contribute solely to our parish. We do, however, invite you to consider increasing your level of giving to St Maurice. See the chart below for suggestions of what regular tithing might look like for you.
“My husband and I both come from families that taught us the importance of generosity, and it’s something we want to instill in our children. Supporting the new vision means more people can encounter God and be welcomed into the vibrant faith community at St Maurice Parish. Through tithing we are able to thank God for His provision in the past and trust Him for the future.”
Kaelynne Makan
We saw the share of people giving by electronic funds transfer and Tithe.ly rise between 2021 and 2022 and we invite you to consider switching to these forms of regular, pre-authorized giving. Giving through email money transfers rose during the pandemic and subsided once pandemic restrictions started to lift.
