Pre-Authorized Debit Offerings
For many years our Diocesan Office has provided the ability for us to debit parishioners’ bank accounts for their offerings to the church. Many of our parish family took advantage of having their chosen offering automatically deducted from their bank accounts and credited to St. Andrews.
From your personal perspective that has meant no searching for your giving envelope, writing a cheque or finding the right denomination of a bill every Sunday to enable you to support the work of the parish that you love. Whether you were in church or away, your contribution was made regularly and when you were in church you could focus on worshiping God rather than searching for your envelope or lamenting that you forgot.
From the parish perspective it has meant more consistent giving and a much easier job for the volunteers who count the collection, deposit it and enter it in the church records to ensure you receive your tax receipt.
The Diocesan office has decided to terminate this service at the end of February, so we have been searching for and analyzing our options to replace this. The Parish Council recently endorsed using Canada Helps to replace this service.
Canada Helps is a registered charity whose prime mandate is to help other charities. The advantages that they offer us are;
1. The ability to process the transactions on any date that you choose, coinciding with the time when you normally have the funds available.
2. The ability to have the choice as to whether offering comes directly from your bank account or from a credit or debit card of your choice.
3. Any future changes can be easily made by the envelope secretary directly in our account before the next transaction is to take place.
Those who have been using the old Diocesan service had completed a form to authorize us to provide your banking information to the Diocese to enable the current service to happen.
As we begin to move to the Canada Helps service, we will be approaching you to authorize us to set up the Canada Helps software by providing the banking information you provided in the past, or to use your credit card if you prefer.
For those who aren’t using this convenient service, please consider doing so. If you have questions or concerns, please email the Treasurer. (phone the office for the email address)
This Canada Helps website link can be used by those who want to self-manage their giving.