Every parish treasurer knows the feeling. The roof needs attention. The outreach program is growing faster than the budget. A vision for a new community hub has captured the congregation’s imagination, but no one quite knows how to begin turning prayer into a plan. Ministry is abundant; the practical tools to sustain it, too often, are not.
That gap between aspiration and capacity isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a familiar season in the life of almost every faithful congregation. And it’s the gap that the Anglican Diocese of Toronto Foundation has moved to close. The foundation’s new Parish Fundraising Toolkit arrives at a pivotal moment – equipping congregations to raise money not as an end in itself, but as an act of faithful discipleship.
A diocese discerning its future
The timing isn’t accidental. The toolkit emerges from one of the most significant seasons of collective discernment the Diocese of Toronto has undertaken in years. Through Cast the Net, a visioning process that engaged more than 1,000 clergy and lay leaders, parishes surfaced a shared longing to embrace God’s future together with courage, creativity and concrete action. That process yielded 20 Calls to Action, a living map of how the diocese intends to grow, serve and plant in the years ahead.
Following Cast the Net, the diocese launched a diocesan-wide Planning Feasibility Study in 2025, inviting all Anglicans to offer feedback on a preliminary case for support. The study asked a profound and practical question: are we, as a community of faith, ready to resource the mission God has placed before us? The response revealed parishes brimming with vision and hungry for the tools to make that vision financially sustainable. The toolkit is the foundation’s answer to that hunger.
A practical companion
The Parish Fundraising Toolkit is a pastoral resource as much as a practical one. It was designed to meet congregations wherever they find themselves – whether a small church preparing its first capital appeal, a suburban parish seeking to deepen its annual giving culture, or a large congregation cultivating relationships with legacy donors in anticipation of a major gifts campaign.
The foundation deliberately avoided the language and logic of the corporate fundraising world. Instead, the toolkit frames every act of giving as an expression of faith – a response to grace, a participation in something larger than any single congregation. It draws on the deep Anglican tradition of stewardship as spiritual formation, and it speaks directly to the clergy, churchwardens, council members and lay leaders who carry the practical weight of sustaining parish life.
“Parishes are not lacking in vision. They are lacking in practical companions for the journey. This toolkit walks alongside them, from the first conversation about a campaign to the final word of thanks to a legacy donor,” says Mary Lynne Stewart, the foundation’s executive director.
The toolkit is comprehensive without being overwhelming. Its six components work together to support a complete fundraising ministry.
The campaign planning guide provides a step-by-step framework for launching and managing a parish fundraising campaign from beginning to end, opening with vision-casting and prayer, moving through donor cultivation and solicitation, and closing with the kind of thoughtful stewardship that builds lasting relationships. Parishes don’t need prior campaign experience to use it; the guide assumes nothing and explains everything.
The case for support templates give parishes customizable frameworks for articulating their unique mission, community need and anticipated impact. A well-crafted case for support is the heart of any campaign, and these templates help parish leaders find their own language – local, specific and compelling.
The donor communications kit removes one of the most common barriers parishes face: knowing what to say and when to say it. Ready-to-use letters, bulletin inserts, email templates and pulpit scripts accompany every stage of a campaign, each written in a way that is warm, honest and worthy of the Anglican tradition. The legacy and planned giving resources add seasonal materials and pastoral framing designed to normalize legacy conversations, inviting donors to see a bequest not as a transaction but as a final act of faith and love for the community they have served.
The stewardship program guide takes a longer view, offering year-round practices for cultivating a culture of generosity that doesn’t begin and end with a campaign. And the training and workshop modules give clergy and churchwardens facilitated session materials they can deploy directly in their communities, grounding the whole effort in shared learning and shared commitment.
Rooted in a 25-year mandate
The Parish Fundraising Toolkit reflects something the foundation has been doing since its incorporation in 1999: resourcing the diocese and its parishes as they plant and grow bold strategic initiatives for the future of God’s Church. In the past five years, the foundation has distributed more than $3 million across its key funds, supporting clergy formation, Indigenous ministry, liturgical music, lay education and the work of FaithWorks. Today, the foundation stewards more than $14.8 million in assets in service of that mission.
The Rev. Adrienne Clements, the foundation’s board chair, has spoken of the toolkit as a natural extension of what the foundation exists to do: not merely to hold and distribute funds, but to actively build the capacity of parishes to be financially healthy and mission-focused.
The toolkit also positions parishes well for the conversations ahead. Parishes that have already begun cultivating a culture of generosity – and that have the language and structures to support a major campaign – will be far better prepared to participate meaningfully in whatever the diocese discerns together as its next steps.
An invitation to begin
No parish is too small, too stretched or too uncertain to begin. The Parish Fundraising Toolkit asks only that a congregation bring its honest sense of calling and its willingness to have the conversation. Whether a parish is wondering how to make payroll or dreaming of a building that serves the whole neighbourhood for another century, the foundation wants to walk alongside that discernment.
Mary Lynne Stewart and the foundation team warmly welcome enquiries from clergy, churchwardens and lay leaders across the diocese. Reach out to learn more, request access to the toolkit or explore how the foundation can support your parish’s fundraising journey. Together, parishes and the foundation are sowing seeds for a future that belongs, first and always, to God.
The Anglican Diocese of Toronto Foundation is the key charitable arm of the Diocese of Toronto. Connect with the foundation at [email protected] or visit www.toronto.anglican.ca/foundation.
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