Thanking people who remember a parish in their will

St. Thomas the Apostle in Ottawa’s Alta Vista neighbourhood has found a way to promote legacy giving. 

The parish stewardship committee had been including an insert about legacy giving in the church’s annual stewardship campaign each fall, but “rather than just reminding people once a year, we decided we would try to do something a bit more visible,” Derwyn Sangster, chair of the stewardship committee, explained.

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St. Thomas had the names of parishioners who had remembered the church in their wills going back to 1960. With approval from parish council, they asked a parishioner who is a skilled woodworker (but who prefers not to be named) to create a plaque that would feature all of the names and the year of their gifts. A small name plate is commercially produced for each person.

Once the plaque was hung on the wall, the parish found there was an additional benefit. “One or two people have since died and remembered the church in their will, so we have had a little mini-ceremony during the service where the name of the individual was read out and remembered and that person’s name was symbolically put up on a new little plate on the plaque,” said Sangster. “It was an opportunity for the priest to draw attention to legacy giving, this particular person’s gift and to talk a little bit about the value of legacy giving as an ongoing component of people’s giving.”