LINCOLN (SNR) – As parish churches across the nation sat empty the last few weeks as the world began to navigate the coronavirus pandemic, parish coffers are starting to look rather empty, too.
While some parishes have long-established e-tithing procedures, many depend on weekly collections to keep running, and the parishes of the Diocese of Lincoln are not immune. To help pastors stay on top of payments for employee salaries, utilities and other expenses, the finance office of the Diocese of Lincoln created a format for online giving, to allow parishioners in parishes that do not have their own online giving site to make donations through the diocesan website in a secure platform.
Kevin Ostdiek, special projects coordinator, said creating the fund is the diocese’s attempt to “help the smaller parishes augment their income by giving their parishioners another way to make contributions to the parish without having to leave their homes.”
“We hope that this will especially be a benefit for those who are older, or have compromised immune systems, who may be under greater pressure to stay home and not go out, even to send a contribution to their parish,” he explained. “We know that many of our smaller parishes are not able to afford to create an online giving website of their own…. They rely on the collections each Sunday to pay their monthly bills.”
He said many of the diocese’s larger parishes have their own online giving sites which, while not completely replacing the offertory collections, do allow them to maintain some sort of regular income during the pandemic, but members of those parishes could use the diocesan site, as well.
The link on the diocesan website – https://www.lincolndiocese.org/diocese/giving – went live March 27.
“One of the first donors to the fund added a note on their contribution saying that they were making their payment in the place of someone who would be unable to make any contribution to the parish,” Ostdiek said. “Maybe this will inspire other people to make a donation to a parish or in honor of someone who is struggling to make ends meet, or who needs to stay home under self-quarantine, or just out of necessary precautions for themselves or their loved ones.”
