6 February 2026
James Anderson, Churchwarden at St Mary the Virgin Church in Shenfield, shares how St Mary's has used the Parish Giving Scheme (PGS) to enable people in their church community to give generously.
James writes:
"Despite being a large congregation situated in a relatively affluent part of West Essex, we in the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin Shenfield have struggled financially for many years. Paying our parish share has been difficult, and we have consistently recorded a significant deficit.
"Under the leadership of a new Rector in 2024, the PCC decided to make a concerted effort to repair our shaky finances. There were a number of actions we put in place around cost reduction, but we also realised we needed to grow our income substantially.
"We had used the PGS for quite a number of years, but giving had dropped off, and we had fewer than 100 regular givers on the scheme. We decided to make a concerted effort to improve that.
"We focused on a small number of key messages to communicate to the congregation and the wider church community:- The financial challenge the church was facing would not go away and posed a significant threat to the church as a sole occupancy parish.
- We were grateful for all giving, but strongly encouraged people to consider signing up to the PGS.
- The PGS offered some important advantages over other forms of giving: for the church, a regular and predictable income to enable better planning; for the givers, the knowledge that their money was going straight to the church with no commission, and that Gift Aid was handled for them. In addition, givers retained full control over the money they chose to donate.
- The process of signing up was easy. There were cards in every pew with the QR code, posters at the back of the church, and we stressed you could also sign up by email or telephone if you were less IT confident.
"We communicated these messages through multiple channels: the church magazine, social media, and from the front of the church in our regular services. We have continued to repeat them consistently for over a year now, and also give updates on the progress we have made as the months have gone past.
"That progress has been absolutely fantastic! We have now doubled our number of givers to over 200, and the money we receive is nearly 70% up on two years ago. This has made huge inroads into the financial deficit, and alongside other, sometimes difficult, decisions we have made, gives us the real prospect of a financial surplus in 2026."
More information
Find out more about PGS at one of our upcoming webinars
Our Parish Giving Advisers regularly run webinars (lasting approx. 30-40 mins) to explain how the PGS scheme works and answer any questions you may have. To find out more about PGS and book for one of the upcoming webinars visit the PGS page of the diocesan website or contact our Parish Giving Advisors via email giving@chelmsford.anglican.org.