Cutting back the veil of mystery and making stewardship campaigns do-able for even the smallest churches helped drive creation of the Stewardship Navigator website five years ago.

Today, more than 2,670 users from about 1,640 congregations regularly use the website and that number continues to grow. The project kicked off before the COVID pandemic – and then blossomed during those dark days when much of the world shut down, including churches and stewardship campaigns.

Confused about where to start? The site provides:

• An annual stewardship calendar, with ideas to share with church members throughout the years to keep generosity top of mind
• Tips to plan and organize the annual giving campaign including a checklist
• Templates for the narrative budget
• Y elementos que cada iglesia debería incorporar a su kit de mayordomía.

“When we started this project, we held to three principles. We wanted the site to be simple, be accessible and be beautiful,” says Rev. Dr. David Loleng, Director, Church Financial Literacy & Leadership. Stewardship Navigator was funded by a generous grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

“Pastoral leaders weren’t taught a lot of this (stewardship campaigning) in seminary, and they often don’t have people in their circle who can jump in and do it, especially in the smaller churches we originally had in mind. Our website is a resource to help them figure things out and move forward so they can focus on what they do best with their churches.”

Unlike many websites, this website features easy-to-use templates and web pages that users can download and start using immediately. It’s not just tips and tricks; it is ready to go documents.

Under the tab for Stewardship Resources, for example, users can download and customize solicitation letters, thank you notes, pledge cards, a line-item budget, narrative budget and mission statement – all in a few clicks.

The narrative budget builder helps present the church’s budget by showcasing the program areas rather than a line-item budget – it tells a word story rather than a numbers story, which resonates with more people, Loleng says.

Using the online tool, the narrative budget can be presented in up to six categories and can focus on the mission and vision of the church rather than on specific financial expenditures found in the line-item budget.

As one church leader put it, “A contributor (to their narrative budget) brought up a mission area I hadn’t thought about in the same way.  Then it became an area we focused on as one of our highlights – and at the same time we had to let go of an area that was more of a dream as opposed to a reality.” In their case, the narrative budget helped shape strategic planning.

If you want brochures, bulletin inserts or posters for the church campus, those are available on the website, too.

“During the pandemic, people couldn’t attend conferences to learn about stewardship tips, and this online option really filled a void. Moving forward out of the pandemic, we are finding the online tool also mitigates the green costs of people flying and driving to conferences,” Loleng says.

Want to learn more? Visit https://stewardshipnavigator.com/ or go to the Presbyterian Foundation’s website and click RESOURCES to find the Stewardship Navigator.