The key work of the Finance Team has been the review of the diocesan budget — more generally referred to as The Plan for Ministry.
However, in addition to reviewing what is being spent the team is also looking at how funds are raised. In particular, the team has been reviewing the Project Resource 2 initiative from the Episcopal Church Foundation and the College of Bishops. At the Diocesan Gathering, Fr. John Spicer (St. Andrew’s Kansas City) and Mark Gallus (Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Kansas City) discussed new approaches to raising diocesan funds.
Project Resource provides the tools to inspire radical generosity and engage faith communities in this life-changing work. Project Resource is an initiative:
- adapted to enable an entirely new culture in all aspects of financial development: spiritual, organizational, and managerial.
- designed to train leaders how to return to their diocese to lead others within the diocese’s culture, geography, and cultural realities as they develop leaders and raise money.
- configured to teach effective use of model documents archived online for easy teaching access.
Project Resource provides teaching, focus, and resources such that a team may return to their diocese equipped to teach and lead locally in areas of resource development. Project Resource does this by:
- gathering the best resources, which not only deal with raising money, but which gets at societal shifts, organizational change, and leadership challenges.
- providing diocesan teams time to interpret the content, session by session, within the realities and particularities of their own diocesan, cultural, and regional situations.
- Empowering each team to leave with a working plan, with measurable objectives, tailored specifically for their own diocese.
Project Resource seeks to change churches’ culture and systems around financial development in the worldwide Episcopal Church. It seeks to instill and install effective financial development in diocesan teams of leadership.
