We are beginning to develop our plans for the 2021 Stewardship Campaign. As many of you know, we consider Stewardship in everything we do at Good Shepherd. We’d like to share:

The Goal
The Plan
Capital Projects

The Goal

In 2021 for the Stewardship Campaign we hope to have 170 Pledges for $500,000. This compares with 2020 when we had 160 Pledges for $463,172. In 2021 we hope to gain 8-10 pledges from the 60 families that call Good Shepherd home but for various reasons have not pledged in the past. We also hope for a 2% increase in our average pledge in 2021.

The Plan

We hope to begin our 2021 Stewardship program in early October with our major ingathering of pledges in early November and conclude our Stewardship program by the middle of December. We are working on the theme for the stewardship program right now and hope to have that out by the middle of September. You will be receiving a brochure talking about the 2021 stewardship program in early October with a pledge card. We are asking all parishioners to mail back their pledge card even if they are not able to pledge this year. We will stamp all the return envelopes to help in mailing back the pledges. We are asking the Vestry, Stewardship Committee, and the Finance Committee to pledge early as the leadership of Good Shepherd.

We will have 20 Ambassadors to contact parishioners, to make sure they have received all the Stewardship Campaign information and answer any questions. We also believe that prayer is an important part of the Stewardship work and we will have a 15-member prayer team praying daily for our stewardship program.

Capital Projects

For the last five years we have attempted to raise enough money with our stewardship campaign to allocate $25,000 to $30,000 per year for ongoing capital projects at the church. For five years we have failed to raise this extra money for much needed capital projects. In 2021, we plan to have $25,000 to $30,000 in our budget set aside for capital projects.

What are these capital projects? In 2021 we would like to pay off or at least ½ of our debt which stands at $26,000. Over the last 10 years Good Shepherd has reduced our debt from $750,000 to $26,000. Wouldn’t it be great to pay off our debt? This would save us about $4,000 per year in our budget for principle and interest on our debt. In 2021 we need to resurface our parking lot and that cost is about $10,000. This was planned for 2020 but the coronavirus delayed our plans. Depending on our resources and our success of our stewardship campaign we will allocate the money for capital projects in the best interest of Good Shepherd.

What capital projects are down the road? We are looking at replacing our carpet in the Parish Hall and the hallways in the next few years. We need a new AC unit for the Sanctuary in the next couple years. We have a proposal to reconstruct our handicap parking area to create more spaces and reconstruct the area, so water does not accumulate (turns to ice in the winter) in the handicap parking area. As most of you know, capital projects come along that none of us can anticipate right now.

IN SUMMARY we have a goal, we have a plan and we will go into more detail next month. These are exciting times at Good Shepherd, and you are the most important part of that excitement.