Stewardship

Generously using all we have and all we are in faithful service to God, Creation, and humankind.

Essentials of Stewardship

MMFA provides Stewardship Services to help people of faith live more fully into our identity as stewards by inviting churches to pay more attention to these four essentials of stewardship.

In addition to helping you and your congregation assess these four areas, we can help your congregation identify:

click here to help you develop the essential areas of stewardship

“The support of the MMFA in stewardship services has been invaluable to our church’s work over the past few years. Laura Watson has guided us throughout the process of developing a stewardship team, and she continues to help facilitate our work. Her knowledge of stewardship and its practical application and scriptural foundation has been most appreciated by our church.

“MMFA helped to lay the groundwork for our board’s work in redeveloping our mission statement. They have also been instrumental in moving us to begin thinking about stewardship as a year-long activity–showing us how stewardship envelopes all of our actions as a church.”
– The Rev. Scott Rainey, Unity Moravian Church

Stewardship Services

MMFA offers a variety of in-person and online services — FREE OF CHARGE to all Moravian congregations in North America.

Ministry Develoment

As part of MMFA’s Stewardship Services, we offer ministry development that provides coaching and guidance to help your organization build capacity and make informed decisions about fundraising. We help you grow the resources you need to support and strengthen your church with capital fundraising by conducting feasibility studies and sharing capital campaign resources and best practices. We also partner with Moravian agencies and new and emerging ministries to strengthen their fundraising efforts — ALL FREE OF CHARGE!

Feasibility Studies

If your church or agency is considering a capital campaign, chances are you’ve already identified the projects you’d like to fund: new construction, renovations, debt elimination, new ministries. You may even know how much money it will take to accomplish your goals. But do you know how your supporters feel? Do you have a sense of their understanding of the proposed projects and their willingness to give?

MMFA provides feasibility studies at no cost to your ministry. We engage your supporters in conversations about the potential campaign to assess:

How they view the church/agency/ministry
How they view the proposed project(s) to be funded by the campaign
Whether the campaign goal is realistic
Whether the church/agency is ready to conduct a campaign
Whether there are people willing to volunteer for the campaign

More specifically, the feasibility study will answer some of the following questions:

Is the proposed project perceived as important?
Does the project make sense?
Are people who can make major gifts likely to do so?
How much money is the church/agency likely to raise?
What are the best strategies for the campaign?
Are there enough people willing to help with the campaign, and will they be dedicated enough to see it through to completion?
What is a reasonable timetable for the campaign?
What must the church/agency do to get ready?
What factors will be important for the campaign to succeed?

Beyond campaign-related data and conclusions, the feasibility study will also give insight into how people feel about the church’s/agency’s mission and ministries, their regard for the staff, and their hopes for the organization’s future.

From determining the right questions to ask to presenting the findings, MMFA guides every step of the study.

Click here to learn more about the feasibility study process with MMFA.

Capital Campaign Consultation and Resource Sharing

In addition to conducting campaign feasibility studies, MMFA:

Meets with leadership to assess campaign readiness
Develops a customized gift table to assist leadership with determining if the campaign goal is realistic
Shares campaign best practices and strategies for success
Provides a broad range of campaign resources, including:
- management timelines
- campaign chair and committee responsibilities,
- brochure, letter and pledge card samples
- campaign kickoff event basics
- major gift solicitation

Is your ministry or organization considering a capital campaign?

Here are five key questions to consider before starting the process.

Fundraising

We help Moravian ministries strengthen their support in a variety of ways, including:

Analyzing existing fundraising efforts
Creating a comprehensive development plan
Training staff and agency leadership on effective fundraising techniques
Sharing current fundraising trends and best practices
Providing resources for annual and special appeals, donor stewardship, major gift solicitation, and more

“MMFA helped Edgeboro talk about stewardship less from a mindset of scarcity and more from a mindset of ministry, which then helped Edgeboro’s Joint Board use and reclaim the word “stewardship” confidently again in meetings and worship. Each time Edgeboro has interacted with MMFA, our relationship has strengthened. Through receiving stewardship education from MMFA and doing the church business of moving Edgeboro’s memorial funds, endowment funds, and online giving activity to MMFA, the congregation has grown in comfort and recognition of MMFA and realizes it to be a vital ministry and service of the Moravian Church in North America.“

– The Rev. Dan Miller, Edgeboro Moravian Church (Former Pastor)