The Parish Giving Scheme (PGS) is a fantastic story. It has developed a quick, secure and user-friendly way of enabling people to give to their local church so that the church receives all the money and any Gift Aid without having to do any Gift Aid claims of their own. It’s absolutely a case of what’s not to like.
We must give huge credit to the Diocese of Gloucester for having the idea of PGS in the first place and then gifting it to the wider church. It really is diocesan innovation at its best. But we should also give huge credit to the parishes, clergy, treasurers and Gift Aid secretaries in the Diocese of Liverpool. We now have over 4,000 regular givers using PGS and collectively they give over £4 million to their local church. We have consistently been one of the dioceses at the top of the PGS league table for the number of churches and number of givers. And of course being the Diocese of Liverpool the giving is generous and sacrificial.
PGS has now grown to c. £85 million a year from 75,000 givers. And it is still growing. And there’s been over £2 million in one-off gifts since that scheme was launched 2 years ago. Of this £85 million nearly 50% is inflation-proofed, so the local church doesn’t lose out year on year as people forget to update their Standing Orders. In the Diocese of Liverpool that is probably worth c £100,000 a year of giving that might otherwise be lost.
So thank God for PGS. Thank God for the Diocese of Gloucester’s vision and perseverance. Thank God for all the hard work of explaining and encouraging and reassuring that our treasurers and Gift Aid secretaries have done to get the scheme going so well here. And thank God for the on-going generosity of so many committed givers across the wonderful Diocese of Liverpool who through their sacrificial giving make mission and ministry possible. It really is a very, very good news story.