.Stewardship Goal 1:

The spirituality and practice of stewardship have been integrated into worship and promoted on a regular basis as a part of life long faith formation for St. Camillus parishioners among Spanish, English, and French-speaking parishioners and across various age groups.

Stewardship Goal 1, Proposal  1:

The process of developing a detailed plan for an Annual Stewardship Renewal is already underway.  Early in the first year, the Stewardship Committee will have prepared a detailed plan for an Annual Stewardship Renewal effort.

Proposal rationale:

The message of stewardship - like other messages in Scripture and the teachings of the Church - need to be presented to people on a regular basis.  Stewardship is an ongoing process requiring regular nourishment if our parishioners are to grow spiritually and embrace stewardship as a way of life.  Renewing a commitment to stewardship gives parishioners the opportunity to take the next step in the spiritual growth by increasing their giving of time, talent, and treasure.  Lastly, given the fact that St. Camillus continues to attract new parishioners, we need to engage people regularly in stewardship and hold up the importance of sacrificial giving.

Action Plan:

• Decide on a specific model for stewardship renewal of time, talent and treasure (a two-weekend renewal effort.)   Make the plan available to parishioners.
• Identify the people who will do lay witness talks.   Assist them in preparing a written text of their talks (refer to Stewardship: Disciples Respond – A Practical Guide for Pastoral Leaders by the National Catholic Stewardship Council).
• Work with leaders of the Spanish, English, and French-speaking ministries of the parish to identify and help eliminate barriers to stewardships.   Develop a document that explains to our multicultural community how the Church in the U.S. is supported financially.
• Develop effective parish-based stewardship materials in different languages - brochures, prayer card etc. - and have them available in English, Spanish and French.
• Integrate stewardship into sacramental preparation, especially confirmation and marriage preparation.
• Develop a budget for the above plan.

Stewardship Goal 1, Proposal 2:

Designate a Welcoming Sunday quarterly when, after some English, Spanish, and French Masses, new parishioners are invited to be officially welcomed and become registered members of the parish. (This proposal is most fully developed in the Evangelization chapter.)  The Stewardship group is particularly concerned to see a stewardship component to the welcoming process.

Proposal Rationale:  It is important to nurture stewardship throughout the year and create opportunities to engage people who have recently started attending the parish.  The BPP process has made our parishioners more aware of the need to do more than make announcements at the end of the masses, recognizing a new person with applause.  We have to find other opportunities to show the newcomers that not only their presence is appreciated but also their time, talent and treasure are needed to carry out the important mission of our local faith community.  Early on, we need to make our expectations clear that St. Camillus not only offers wonderful liturgies for people to enjoy, but that our parish is also eager to engage people in its mission through stewardship as a way of life.  When the newcomers take that first step, they need to be publicly recognized and celebrated.

Action Plan:

•      Work with the Evangelization group to establish a Welcoming Committee.

•   Assist the leaders of the Welcoming Sunday teams from our three major language groups in on how to engage new parishioners effectively: helping them to register in the parish and briefly speak from their personal experience about the value of getting involved in the ministries of the Church and practicing the financial aspect of stewardship by using offertory envelopes.

•    With permission of the newly registered parishioners, take their individual or group photos and put them up on the parish website under the heading: new parishioners this month, listing their names as well.

•     Develop a budget for implementing the above plan.

Stewardship Goal 1, Proposal 3:

Better inform parishioners of opportunities for volunteering and gift giving.

Proposal 3 – Rationale/Explanation

St. Camillus is well known for its generosity.  The Parish has a long tradition of gift giving, e.g., the Angel Tree.  Additionally, the last two Advent giving campaigns for Haiti and the Congo, demonstrate the size of Parishioners’ generosity.  Providing focus to gift giving could enhance this generosity, better connect it to justice activities that address the causes of poverty, and address broader issues of materialism in the US American culture.

Stewardship Goal 2:

St. Camillus has a well run facility whose maintenance is managed by an integrated team of paid staff, outside contractors and volunteers, and which doesn’t require significant involvement of the pastoral staff.

Stewardship Goal 2, Proposal 1:

Management of St Camillus Church and St. Francis School is likely to require a reorganization of maintenance plans.  The possibility of such reorganization will be explored before the end of the Strategic Plan period.

Stewardship Goal 3:

St. Camillus has added a position of Director of Stewardship as a new staff member.  

Stewardship Goal 3. Proposal 1:

St. Camillus will hire a Director of Stewardship/Development Director who will work closely with the Stewardship committee, the Lifelong Faith Formation team, the parish staff and other lay leaders of our parish to promote stewardship as a way of life among our multicultural faith community.  That person will spearhead and oversee the creation of a comprehensive stewardship plan for the English, Spanish and French-speaking members of our parish.   The list of the areas/tasks she/he will be asked to be involved in could include the following:

•      Serve as the staff liaison to the Stewardship Committee;

•     Monitor and coordinate the implementation of the comprehensive Stewardship program;

•     Assist our lay leaders in welcoming new members to our parish and engaging them in the sacrificial giving of their time, talent and treasure;

•     Offer training to our catechists and other lay leaders and be a resource for them on the issue of the spirituality and practice of stewardship plan;

•     Provide the parishioners with a variety of ways to give of their time, talent, and treasure;

•     Attend the meetings of the Finance Council

•     Work with those who are in charge of the Communication ministry of our parish to further improve the awareness and understanding of the financial needs of our parish among our members while ensuring that this kind of information would be easily available in a way that creates a greater sense of transparency and accountability among our multicultural faith community;

•     Assist in developing fundraising strategies to support our ministries.

•     Act as a liaison between the Finance Council and the Stewardship Committee

•     Assist in coordinating issues of children’s stewardship (see subsequent proposals)

Proposal Rationale:

Having a capable Director of Stewardship as a full-time staff person is one of the main and indispensible keys to a long-term success and viability of St. Camillus parish and its ministries.

Our faith community is continually growing in numbers and its ministerial outreach.   The recent Best Practices for Parishes Ministerial Assessment process has expanded our vision of what is possible in terms of the faithful Christian stewardship, generated new ideas and created a new level of excitement – and expectations – among our parishioners.

At the same time, St. Camillus parish remains grossly understaffed and overextended.  This has to change.  Our parish ought to be able to invest sufficient financial resources to address those serious deficiencies in the number of staff.  However, even from a strictly financial standpoint, many of the parishes attest to the fact that having a full-time Director of Stewardship frequently becomes a financial net gain to the parish as quickly as within a year or two.

Our Sunday offertory did improve significantly, following the Annual Offertory Campaign.  Yet, we need to be able sustain it over the long-haul and, indeed, further increase and integrate our stewardship efforts.  The strategic three-year stewardship plan outlined above proposes many innovative and powerful ways we could promote stewardship and sacrificial giving among children, youth and adults of the Spanish, English, and French-speaking members of St. Camillus Church.

However, it would be unrealistic to expect our lay leaders on the Stewardship committee to carry out those new, extensive tasks without a support of a full-time Director of Stewardship.  In fact, we may run the risk of overburdening our lay partners in ministry with too much expectation, and even see them pull off from this very important ministry when they find the challenge to maintain a balance between their busy professional and family lives and the church involvement nearly impossible.   Yet, having a full time Director of Stewardship collaborating with the Stewardship committee would empower their English, Spanish and French speaking members to work more effectively in their respective communities on implementation the Stewardship Strategic plan without being overwhelmed.

Lastly, having a Director of Stewardship would be very helpful to our diverse faith community.  Most of the new comers to our faith communities come from some of the poorest regions of the world where the concept of stewardship is generally not well known – especially the idea of regular, financial support of one’s parish – or quite often hardly possible.  A full time Director of Stewardship would be a big help to our predominantly immigrant community in overcoming many obstacles that our parishioners face in their process of adopting stewardship as a way of life.

Action Plan:

•        Within the first two years , define the duties and responsibilities of the Stewardship/Development Director, develop an estimate of the costs associated with this position, establish a search committee, announce the job and conduct the hiring process.

Stewardship Goal 3, Proposal 2:

In the third year of the plan, a well-done children’s Lay Witness presentation will be incorporated into the Sunday liturgy of the parish.

Proposal rationale: Just as the adult Lay Witness testimony is one of the most effective means of presenting the stewardship message to the adults of the parish, a presentation of this kind done by children can be an effective tool in communicating the stewardship message to children.  These kind of talks, given either in a context of a shared homily or after the communion, have helped the children in other parishes to become cheerful givers of their time, talent and treasure.  Besides, it’s been reported that a child stewardship witness can also have a profound effect on adults.  Lastly, our BPP survey groups have revealed a desire on the part of many of our parishioners for a greater and more active participation of the children in the liturgical life of the parish.

Action Plan:

•       The Director of Religious Education and St. Francis International School will identify families whose members exhibit Christians stewardship both in the parish and civic community – the youngest members of these families might be good prospects.  In selecting the children, we may want to look for those children who are already active in practicing good stewardship in the parish serving as altar servers, lectors, and choir members etc.  The children who will offer Lay Witness Testimony must include those that are Spanish and French-speaking.  They need to be articulate and comfortable speaking before large groups.   In addition, these children – and their parents - would need to be willing to work with the friars, the CRE, the CHSC, or others in preparing the stewardship talk.

Stewardship Goal 3, Proposal 3:

The Stewardship Director, together with the Director of Religious Education will develop proposals for what resources are needed to assist the children in adapting stewardship as a way of life.

Proposal rationale: The children’s practice of using their envelopes stimulates the offertory portion of the Liturgy and brings about a renewed spirit of almsgiving.  It also illustrates that gifts other than money can be offered to God and that they are equally sacrificial.  By encouraging the children to use their redesigned offertory envelopes, the parish and the school will be helping to shape the children into strong disciples of Jesus Christ.  Other stewardship-oriented activities such as the Children’s Stewardship Corner will help to demonstrate children that they their participation – in and outside of the church – is valued and recognized.  This will reinforce the children’s commitment to stewardship as a way of life.  Hopefully it will foster development of a new generation of Catholic leaders that are even more committed to the Church and its mission.  The Stewardship group hopes to see proposals including the following:

•        By the third year of the plan, at least 50% of the children involved in the Religious Education will be using on regular basis their special envelopes.  This would need to be preceded by the following: the initial class on stewardship offer to the children; their participation in the contest to help design children and youth offertory envelopes; and a special letter from the pastor to the parents of the children in the school and the Religious Education.

•   By the third year of the plan, our parish bulletin and website will feature Children’s Stewardship Corner.  It could either list the children’s weekly contribution in terms of time, talent and treasure (there are many creative methods of doing it.) 

Stewardship Goal 4:

The Parish has a high level of transparency to all parishioners about finances, provides regular reports on Parish contributions, expenses, and budgets.  Parishioners know who makes financial decisions and on what basis.

Action Steps:

• Reports via the bulletin are now delivered to the parish community annually, which gives an account of total parish expenditures.

• The Parish Council will strive to develop a better understanding of the budget.  Member of the Finance Council are listed on the website.

•  Parish expenditures follow the priorities of the Strategic Plan.