Church reaches target — twice

When the Chinese congregation of St. John, Toronto, was assigned its Our Faith-Our Hope campaign goal of $220,000, it hoped to meet the target. What it did not expect to do was exceed that target by 211 per cent, raising $465,250.

What’s more, contributions came from just 82 families, the donors ranging from the elderly to young people who have not yet entered the work force.

St. John’s is located in north Toronto but its parishioners come from across the city. It provides two services each Sunday, one in English and one in Chinese, and attendance ranges from 130 to 150 people.

The campaign’s success, according to the Rev. Simon Li, incumbent, was due to two factors. First, he praised the methodology of the campaign, with its personal approach to stewardship, and the help offered by the diocese, especially when St. John’s wanted to fine-tune what they were doing.

Second, the campaign committee tried to understand parishioners’ personal situations, and highlighted the campaign’s connection to the diocese and its relationship to the parish.

A committee of only nine volunteers took on the task of raising the money, explains the chair of the campaign executive committee, Wilburn Der, and in the later stages of the campaign, which involved phoning parishioners, the nine decided they would do it all.

“We wanted a uniform, consistent message and approach,” says Mr. Der. “Rather than recruiting a large number of volunteers, we stayed with the same people as we began with, so there was ‘quality control’ in our approach.”

Mr. Li points out that it was also important to encourage the volunteers when they first began to encounter difficulties and some requests for donations were turned down.

The committee contacted 128 families and virtually everyone who regularly attends the church contributed. Some donations also came from further afield, from former parishioners who have retained an affection for St. John’s.

“They were happy to reconnect,” says Mr. Li.

The campaign team wanted to make the campaign and its causes as real as possible to the congregation, says Mr. Der, and to do this they asked two parishioners to give testimony during Sunday worship. One was a lay volunteer, who explained why she had joined the campaign committee and what it meant to her. The other was a young person who joined the workforce only a few years ago, who explained what led him to support the campaign.

The testimonials were successful and toward the end of the campaign, some people who had earlier declined to participate, came forward and said they would make a donation. “That was a nice surprise at the end,” says Mr. Der.

The other critical component in the campaign was the clarity of both the diocese’s needs and those of the parish during the next five years. “You have to have a good cause that people believe in, and see this as a cause that will further God’s work,” says Mr. Der “I think that’s really the driver.”

Parishioners wanted to support the diocese in its outreach and evangelism, and were very excited about this, he adds.

St. John’s had three goals for its share of the funds. It wants to develop further its English language ministry, and it wants to develop a specialized ministry for youth and, especially, children. The congregation moved into its current building four years ago, and made minimal renovations and upgrades at the time, and so the third goal is to make its facilities more welcoming and userfriendly.

Mr. Li explains that their plans during the campaign were vague because they did not know how much they would raise. However, having overshot the target, the parish will look at such things as a further upgrade to its facilities, increasing the parking area, repainting the parish hall and increasing accessibility for older people.

“We can do things so people can have a better experience when they worship,” says Mr. Der.