Enthusiasm carries parish past goal

Sometimes all you need to run a good fundraising campaign is a strong boost of positive energy. At least, that is the experience of St. Augustine of Canterbury, Toronto.

When the Rev. Canon John Wilton, priest-in-charge, found out that the Leaside parish was due to start its Our Faith-Our Hope campaign in May, he knew right away that the timing was bad.

The parish had been going through a two-and-a-half-year visioning process to determine its future, and the culminating conference in that process was to be held in mid-October.

Canon Wilton and the churchwardens petitioned the diocese to start the campaign at the end of that month, and the diocese agreed. “I wanted to wait until the conference was over before I asked people for cash, because the future of the parish was kind of uncertain,” Canon Wilton says. “It worked out well because the parish conference generated lots of creativity and energy and that just flowed straight into the campaign.”

The conference was intended to provide a weekend for parishioners to talk about St. Augustine and its future. But rather than talk about problems, participants followed the “appreciative inquiry” model, which looks at the things that are going well. They talked about what was good about the parish, and discussed what they wanted to see it doing successfully.

People emerged from the gathering believing that St. Augustine did have a future, although there was some hard work to be done. Work began right away on drawing up a ministry plan for the next three to five years.

At the end of that month, Our Faith-Our Hope was launched, with a goal of $210,000. “I was very skeptical,” says Canon Wilton. “I thought that was a lot of money for a small parish and we were stunned by that goal.”

But once the campaign started, success came almost immediately, to everyone’s surprise. Within six weeks, St. Augustine had not only met its goal, but had exceeded it by $64,000.

There was nothing unusual in what the fundraising committee did, says Canon Wilton. It simply followed the plan that the diocese had laid out. But the parish’s energy for the campaign seemed boundless. There was no shortage of volunteers, and they were filled with enthusiasm.

“What’s happened is that people have seen how well we did in the campaign and that in itself has become energizing and has just added to the energy that was at the parish conference,” says Canon Wilton.