A successful legacy giving program requires strategic planning and follow-through. It’s a delicate dance around money and the eventuality of death. It’s invested, enduring love — for a Sunday school program, a historic sanctuary, a beloved family member.

First Presbyterian Church of Fernandina Beach, Florida, blended all of the above to launch its legacy giving program in the fall of 2024. The program includes endowment gifts during the donor’s lifetime as well as in estate planning.

The church’s pastor, the Rev. Dawn Mayes, had worked with the Presbyterian Foundation at other churches she served. So when the endowment committee at the 600-member congregation in northeast Florida decided to move forward with creating a legacy giving program, she knew who to call.

Rev. Dana Waters, the Foundation’s Ministry Relations Officer for the Southeast, said the committee was interested in recommendations for a spending policy that would provide income to support the church’s annual budget. Committee members also wanted to incorporate a legacy program into ongoing stewardship work.

Waters met with the committee to talk about policies, best practices and communication strategies. They discussed how a legacy program could create a meaningful way for the congregation to make gifts to the existing endowment. They also decided to move their endowment funds to a customized portfolio with New Covenant Trust Company with the help of David English, the NCTC’s Assistant Vice President, Capital Markets and Investment Specialist.

Waters said First Presbyterian is a great example of how endowments and legacy giving programs can work together. “They have an income stream that will fund their ministry for generations to come,” he said.

A joyful opportunity

First Presbyterian launched its legacy giving program in conjunction with its annual stewardship campaign.

“Trying something new always comes with a little bit of trepidation,” Mayes said, “but we had people on the endowment committee who were passionate about this.”

One of them was longtime church member Ken Owens. In a Minute for Mission, he talked about his wife, Shirley. While the couple was on vacation in August 2022, Shirley broke her arm in several places, requiring surgery.

She was doing well after surgery, then suffered a stroke. Another surgery followed.

Then came a diagnosis of terminal bile duct cancer.

Two weeks later, and only three months after breaking her arm, she passed away.

“You never know what is going to happen, and you don’t know how much time you have to prepare,” Owens told the congregation.

Fortunately, the two had plans in place for legacy giving to the church and other organizations they valued. He encouraged the congregation to consider legacy giving.

“This church has meant so much to Shirley and me, our family and this community. We want to see it continue its mission and programs in these beautiful historic buildings,” he said.

Mayes said the committee framed the legacy giving program as an opportunity for people to continue their love and support of the church beyond their lifetime.

“This is our love for God, our love for the church. And what a joy it is to be able to combine our love for God with our love for the church in stewardship by making these gifts of gratitude,” she said.

Gratitude in the midst of pain

Shirley Owens taught Sunday School for 50 years at First Presbyterian and helped with numerous other tasks at the church and in Fernandina Beach. At the time of her passing, they’d known each other for 67 years (since eighth grade) and been married for 53.

“Shirley was the driver of our church connection,” Ken Owens said in a recent interview. Though he attended services, building his dental practice left little time for much else. A couple of years before his wife died, she persuaded him to join the endowment committee.

During those last three months of her life, Ken was overwhelmed by the love and support they received from the congregation. One night, while Shirley was under hospice care at home, there were over 100 people outside their bedroom window — children, adults, church members, community members — all of them singing.

After she died, “the church was a place for me, for healing,” he said. It was a safe place to grieve and know he belonged.

He doesn’t have to look far to see his wife’s love and faith living on in countless corners of the congregation’s life. These include Shirley Owens Hall — a renaming his wife resisted, he noted with a smile — which houses Sunday School, a choir room and a conference room.

Owens recognizes the reality of the church needing money to survive and thrive. Having studied the demographics of the area and church attendance, he knows talking about money can keep people away.

It’s also important to recognize the impact of a church’s stewardship on the wider community, he said. In Fernandina Beach, for example, feeding local youth and maintaining the congregation’s historic buildings affect people well beyond the church walls.

A bigger picture

Stories like these, Waters said, are a reminder that “often the best way to see how a congregation is making a difference in the world is to look at the positive impact they are making on people’s lives, both inside and outside of the church.”

Mayes said that in addition to its own programs, First Presbyterian’s legacy giving supports its work with local ministry partners and with Presbyterian churches in Cuba.

She advised any congregation considering a legacy giving program to start with prayer and seek out the resources the Presbyterian Foundation has to offer. “We are all working together for the same purpose and the same goal, and that is to do God’s work through the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”