As your Treasurer it is my responsibility to monitor the finances of St. Michael’s Church. One of the challenges that we have consistently faced over the years is cash flow. While we are truly blessed with a faithful congregation committed to tithing and financially supporting our Church, the overall receipt of those donations and tithe contributions is spread inconsistently throughout the year. We typically receive strong donations and tithe contributions in the Spring and Fall with a lull in the Summer and a peak at year-end. However our operating expenses for payroll, utilities, insurance, etc. do not fluctuate seasonally. In a way to help both you and the church budget your giving on a regular basis throughout the year, we suggest EFT. What is EFT? Ecclesiastical Financial Transformation? Evangelists For Tithing? No, Electronic Funds Transfer!!
Many of you probably already use EFT in one of its many forms already. Whether using your bank’s online Bill Pay to submit payments electronically or using PayPal online to donate to a charity, you are already familiar with the EFT tools. What you may not realize is that both of these EFT examples are available to you today right here at St. Michael’s Church. If you could use one of these EFT tools for your regular tithe or donation to the Church, and schedule that electronic payment to occur on a regular interval, it would go a long way towards solving our cash flow issue. You could do this by using your bank’s online Bill Pay to send a weekly or monthly electronic payment to St. Michael’s, or by using PayPal to draft from your credit or debit card to send funds to St. Michael’s. In doing so, you could save both yourself and our Bookkeeper time in the weekly ritual of writing and depositing manual checks. More importantly, if your annual tithe and contributions are split evenly over the full twelve months of the year, St. Michael’s will be in a much better position to fund our ongoing expenses throughout the year.
You may have concerns with this concept. Let me try to address a few right now.
1. With EFT I’m locked in and can’t change if I need to – not true! You can change your online Bill Pay schedule or amount at any time.
2. EFT will not allow me to designate payments for Generation-to-Generation (Capital Campaign) giving vs. regular tithe payments — not true! You can set these two payments up separately with different schedules and amounts. You can designate them with the memo feature commonly available with online Bill Pay.
3. If I use EFT for all my giving then I won’t have anything to put into the plate on Sundays. I certainly understand the Spiritual component of giving that is associated with the physical act of giving the gift on Sundays. If you feel called to place something into the plate each Sunday, there are options available to you that would still allow you to use EFT. Whether it is simply pulling a bill from your wallet or purse to supplement your giving through EFT, or the slightly more complicated option of splitting your gift through a combination of EFT and checks in the plate, you can find a way to do both.
Please understand we are grateful for the generous financial support from each of you. If you’d consider using EFT for your regular giving to St. Michael’s it would help us greatly by saving processing time and ensuring a regular cash flow to meet our regular expense commitments. Please feel free to see me or contact Brenda Georgi, our Chief of Administration, if you have any questions about EFT and the options available to you for electronic giving. Thank you.
~ Scott Cave