Spring 2026 Virtual Binder - St. Thomas Episcopal Church

Thank you for your graciousness, as we’ve cancelled the live trainings this Spring due to low participation from congregations. Hopefully, watching these videos, following along, and engaging in conversation with your team will be a rewarding experience for everyone at St. Thomas. Recognizing that some people learn best by taking notes, we offer guided notes pages that we encourage individuals/teams to print out and have on hand for our meetings.

Helpful Tools & Resources:
Printing color documents in black and white (Windows)
Fonts in documents: Bitter, Fira Sans

Week 1 - Sunday, February 22

Homework:

1. Your Whys: Why (individually/yourself) invest the time/energy/resources in stewardship/development in your own diocese/church?

2. Release: How do you presently think about, describe, and understand fundraising? What do you need to release, reimagine, and/or practice to view fundraising as a ministry?

3. Dreaming Together:

   1) What is your church’s “Why”?

   2) If a million dollars was the result of a focused effort of stewardship at your church, what would that look like? (this question is vague on purpose!)

Week 2 - Sunday, March 1

Homework:

1. What are the generational characteristics of your church?

   • Who are in your pews?

   • Based on your data, what messages need to be heard?

   • What would a letter look like from your parish?

Week 3 - Sunday, March 8

Homework:

1. Development of theme for annual giving

2. Begin creation of your year-round calendar

Week 4 - Sunday, March 15

Homework:

1. Set SMART goals together

2. Update your year-round calendar with additional steps

Week 5 - Sunday, March 22

Homework:

1. Fill out your constituency model (page 7 of Virtual Binder)

2. Role Play by teams of 2 (page 14 of Virtual Binder)

3. Create a list of major gifts/dream list

4. Create a list of individuals with connections to passions and your congregation’s needs

Taking Project Resource Further

The following questions should be explored with your team to keep Project Resource at the front of mind and will help you implement a new culture of stewardship in your church and diocese:

1. Establishing metrics: How will we establish baselines and analyses?

2. Accountability and transparency: How will we make this ministry a priority in our church/diocese?

3. How will we set measurable goals for systems change and increased giving?

4. Where might we experience barriers?

5. What new habits will we implement to live into a new narrative?