The Parish Giving Scheme is an excellent way to encourage greater generosity within your church. PGS offers significant benefits compared to other forms of giving:
- Givers can choose to automatically increase their giving by the rate of inflation every year. This tackles the problem of 'static giving', where people’s giving ordinarily remains the same year on year, while the costs of the church rise continually, due to inflation.
- Gift aid is automatically processed every month, reducing admin for church volunteers and improving cash flow.
- Adopting the scheme as part of a generous giving strategy often leads to an increase in giving.
As at January 2021, over 320 parishes in our diocese, from across both rural and urban backgrounds, have signed up to the scheme - more than any other diocese in the country! To find out more about how the Parish Giving Scheme could help your church watch the films below or get in contact with us as generosity@oxford.anglican.org.For parish registration forms see the Further Information section at the bottom of this page.
If you are an existing donor wanting to make changes to your direct debit, please contact the Parish Giving Scheme directly on 0333 002 1260 or by email on info@parishgiving.org.uk
Introducing the scheme
More videos
Gift Aid small donations scheme (GASDS) eligibility
In any tax year GASDS eligibility is 10 times the amount of donations for which the church submits a Gift Aid claim to HMRC. This excludes donations received through the Parish Giving Scheme so to be eligible for GASDS all PGS churches will need to submit at least one direct Gift Aid claim each tax year. To be able to claim the maximum amount of GASDS (£8,000) the church will need to submit a claim for Gift Aid on £800 of donations (800 x 10 = £8,000).
Testimonials
Our experience of the Parish Giving Scheme has been very positive. As a volunteer Treasurer it is very helpful to have someone else do the admin and apply the gift aid to giving and the regular income is incredibly helpful for planning and budgeting. The online portal is very easy to use – an access problem early on was quickly rectified by the PGS team. It has been very useful to direct people to this scheme while services are suspended and is, in my opinion, preferable to using collection plate.
Paul Linsey
Treasurer, Ss Michael and John, Barford
We launched the Parish Giving Scheme as part of a recent Stewardship Campaign across all four parishes of our rural Benefice. So far we have seen an amazing increase of over 50% on pledged giving for the coming year. PGS is simple and easy to set up, saves on administration within the Benefice and, with the additional advantage that donors can increase their giving by inflation automatically each year, safeguards against static giving. We are delighted with the scheme and commend it to other parishes.
Revd Mark Abrey
Rector of the Chase Benefice
The Parish Giving Scheme has revolutionised giving within our parish. We have been really pleased with the number of people who have adopted it - both existing regular givers and new supporters. With the automatic collection of gift aid it has made life easier for our Treasurer.
Revd Helen Kendrick
Rector of the DAMASCUS Parish and Area Dean of Abingdon
With so many bank branches closing, PGS has been especially useful for elderly members of the congregation who now find their local branch closed and can't easily cope with telephoning their bank. Gift Aid rebates are received monthly, which benefits cash flow. And, with nearly 50% of current Stewardship donors moving over to PGS, there has been a considerable reduction in work for the Stewardship Recorder.
Peter Bridges
Project leader, St Peter’s Wolvercote