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Organizing Your Campaign Committee

Church Campaign Resources

Overview of Church-Based Campaigns Church Representatives Organizing Your Church Campaign Committee Achieving Your Church's Goal Partnership Campaigns Ways to Financially Support the Campaign

The task of the Now for the Future campaign committee in your church is to plan and implement a campaign that will inspire members to achieve the campaign goal. Effective committees have a membership five or six of key church leaders, each with specific responsibilities for: campaign resources, publicity, organizing awareness and cultivation events, and cultivating soliciting major gift prospects.

Chair

This person will be the most visible promoter of your campaign and will:

• Recruit the campaign committee. Call and chair committee meetings
• Be the face and voice of the campaign. Make announcements about the campaign to your congregation. Encourage other leaders, committees and groups in the congregation to become aware of the needs for upgrading and renovating the facilities of Silver Lake and how those improvements can benefit ministry in your church.
• Ask your committee members to join you in making a proportionate and significant gift for the Campaign, and to commit to a challenging goal that is within the suggested giving ranges for your church.
• Ask your fellow members to join you in praying for God’s help and guidance in organizing and implementing a successful Now for the Future Campaign.

Campaign Committee

Tasks are planning, overseeing, and coordinating of the campaign.

In addition to taking responsibility for the specific tasks described below members will

• Solicit leadership gifts from other church leaders
• Establish a campaign time table and hold each other accountable to it

Printed Resources

• Become familiar with resources available from the Now for the Future Campaign steering committee. Share information with other committee members.
• Create other informational pieces as appropriate
• Provide resources as requested in appropriate numbers

Publicity

• Develop a strategy for frequent and uplifting messages to the congregation about campaign progress. Use bulletin inserts, newsletter pieces, and inspirational testimonies in church.
• Generate enthusiasm and plan publicity the broad-based phase of the campaign.
• Engage the youth of the church in appropriate ways to show their enthusiasm for Silver Lake. They can make posters and/or banners or perform skits.

Organize Awareness and Cultivation Events

• Organizing awareness events – Spread the word about Silver Lake: why it is a special place, and why it needs to be refurbished and rebuilt to serve the needs of churches for the next 50 years. Plan a visit to Silver Lake for members who haven’t been there.
• Organizing cultivation events – Find hosts for small groups of major donors and invite campaign presenters to participate

Major Gifts

Task is to take responsibility for raising 2/3 or more of your campaign goal

• Identify potential major donors and develop a plan for cultivating and soliciting each prospective donor
• Recruit several major donors and church leaders to be trained as solicitors
• Collect materials and create a major gift solicitation packet
• Develop a plan to match each prospect with the appropriate solicitor

With regard to major gifts please be aware that the Now for the Future Campaign has a state-wide Major Gift Committee that is taking responsibility in collaboration with local churches to raise half or more of the overall nearly 13 million dollar campaign goal. If you have a member or members with the capacity to make a gift that is a significant fraction of your church’s goal, please let us know. We would like to work with you in making an approach to such donors that could result in larger gifts than the donor would make to a smaller campaign.

The Now for the Future Campaign steering committee is committed to conducting the campaign in ways that strengthen the fundraising capacity of local churches and thereby revitalize the United Church of Christ in Connecticut.

Implementing Your Now for the Future Campaign

• Start by cultivating and soliciting leadership gifts. Such gifts confirm that the leadership of the church is strongly committed to the campaign. Solicit such gifts by asking your friends to join you in making a gift. Tell them why you have been moved to volunteer your time and energy.
• Build ownership through awareness events, visits to Silver Lake according to plan already developed.
• Cultivate and solicit major gifts according to the plan already developed.
• Use leadership and major gift pledges to inspire others. Report progress on a regular basis.
• Kick off the broad-based phase of the campaign with an event to generate enthusiasm and momentum.

This document in PDF format.