Wrapping up your Stewardship Campaign

Our May 31, 2024 Friday Forum, attended by about 20 stewardship leaders, was all about wrapping up your campaign or major phase, formally marking the end, celebrating, listening to feedback, and thanking all of the participants.  The wrap-up phase, which is sometimes overlooked or minimized, is essential for laying the groundwork for future campaigns.

The slides from the session are available here: Slides.  There are four key elements to an effective wrap-up:

• Communicate – be sure to let the congregation know the results and any key lessons learned, especially any positives. And you want to make clear that the campaign or phase is over; you don’t things petering out.
  
  
• Celebrate – invite all of the participants to a party to thank them, hear their feedback, and most of all have fun together. Use this to generate enthusiasm for future stewardship work as well as to learn how you can do things better.
  
  
• Anticipate – analyze the feedback and results, comparing them to recent past campaigns, and use all this info to start planning for the future. While of course you want to take some time off, you also want to process the info while it is fresh.
  
  
• Appreciate – thank everyone! Campaign participants again, and everyone else: staff, ministers, lay leaders, and the entire congregation.  You can’t overdo it when it comes to thanking people.

As always in these forums, people shared terrific ideas and experiences about campaign wrap-up activities including ice-cream socials (multiple congregations), a pizza party with music and dancing – free to everyone who pledged, custom-design  cards with church photos used to send personal thank-you notes, and more shared in breakout rooms.

That’s all there is to the wrap-up.  This phase is essential, easy, and fun!