1. Participate in Your Parish’s Gift Certificate Program. The number one way in which you can be a good financial steward does not really cost you any money. All it requires is a little planning a head. Almost every parish sells gift certificates after Mass on Sunday (and some parishes even offer them throughout the work week). It is really simple way for a parish to make money. You buy a certificate for a store or restaurant that you are going to for face value (for example a $25.00 gift certificate to a grocery store costs you $25.00) and the parish receives a percentage of the sale of the certificate from the vendor. All that is required of you is some planning.
2. Pray & Plan Your Giving. Prayer should always be the first thing you do but I put the gift certificate program as #1 because it does not cost you anything. When making out your budget take time to ask yourself what it is that you wish to give to your Church, do not simply allow it to be whatever is left over at the end of the month. Remember God is never outdone in generosity.
3. Step Up and Volunteer. While not everyone maybe able to give monetarily to support their parish everyone can devote some of their time and skills to help their parish. Pastors and principals are always looking for people to volunteer their time. Fundraisers do not take place without the help of dedicated volunteers and volunteers can often do many things that if not taken care of will eventually have to be done by someone who wants to be paid for his or her services.
4. Participate in Parish Fundraisers especially those revolving around food. Growing up I looked forward to the Spaghetti Dinners and Pancake Breakfasts because they were not only fundraisers but a chance to meet other parishioners.
5. Teach Your Children. A child is never too young to learn about the importance of charity. Take the time to help your child about giving and help them through your example. Let them know why you are putting that envelop into the collection basket each Sunday.
6. Don’t forget St. Vincent DePaul. Your parish St. Vincent DePaul society helps so many of the needy in the area. They can only serve Christ in the poor with help from you. This is another great organization in which volunteers are needed.
7. Buying A Step Down. When purchasing a large product like a car, television, or appliances first figure out what is the best product you can buy and then buy a step down and then give the money you saved to the poor. For example if you can afford a 42inch television buy a 32 inch instead and give the extra money to the Church or to the poor.
8. Special Family Collections. During Lent and Advent set a container (like a rice bowl) in a prominent place in your house. After praying together as a family take time to ask your family to put their change in it for a certain period of time. At the end of that time take it as a family and give it to the Church or to the charity of your choice.
9. Sin Jar. I have run across a lot of people who have a jar in which they put money into every time they do something that consider a bad habit like using fowl language.
10. Support those who Support Your Parish. If you know of a restaurant or business that is advertising on the back cover of your parish bulletin or donating a lot of stuff to your parish make an effort to support them and then let them know that the reason why you are supporting them is because you want to thank them for supporting your parish.Money will buy
A bed but not sleep;
Books but not brains;
Food but not appetite;
Finery but not beauty;
A house but not a home;
Medicine but not health;
Luxuries but not culture;
Amusements but not happiness;
Religion but not salvation;
A passport to everywhere but heaven.
- Original source unknown
Prayer is the radical starting point of fundraising because in prayer we slowly experience a reorientation of all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves and others. To pray is to desire to know more fully the truth that sets us free (see John 8:32). Prayer uncovers the hidden motives and unacknowledged wounds that shape our relationships. Prayer allows us to see ourselves and others as God sees us. Prayer is radical because it uncovers the deepest roots of our identity in God. In prayer we seek God’s voice and allow God’s word to penetrate our fear and resistance so that we can begin to hear what God wants us to know. And what God wants us to know. And what God wants us to know is that before we think or do or accomplish anything, before we have much money or little money, the deepest truth of our human identity is this: “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. With you I am well pleased” (see Luke 3:22). When we claim this truth as true for us then we also see that it is true for all other people. God is well pleased with us, and so we are free to approach all people, the rich or the poor, in the freedom of God’s love. Whether people respond to our fund-raising appeal with a “Yes,” a “no,” or a “maybe” is less important than the knowledge that we all are gathered as one on the holy ground of God’s generous disposition toward us. In prayer, therefore, we learn to trust that God can work fruitfully through us no matter where we are or who we are with.
As our prayer deepens into a constant awareness of God’s goodness, the spirit of gratitude grows within us. Gratitude flows from the recognition that who we are and what we have are gifts to be received and shred. Gratitude releases us from the bonds of obligation and prepares us to offer ourselves freely and fully for the work of the Kingdom. Where we approach fund-raising in a spirit of gratitude, we do so knowing that God has already given us what we most need for life in abundance. Therefore our confidence in our mission and vision, and our freedom to love the person to whom we are talking about donating money, do not depend on how that person responds. In this way, gratitude allows us to approach a fund-raising meeting without grasping neediness and to leave it without resentment or dejection. Coming and going, we can remain secure in God’s love with our hearts set joyfully on the Kingdom.
Nouwen, Henri: The Spirituality of Fundraising (Richmond Hill, Ontario: Upper Room Ministries, 2004)