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There is never a perfect time to launch a capital campaign. However, at Divine Redeemer, our needs are pressing, and the Readiness Assessment confirms that our congregation believes it is the opportune moment for this campaign. There is a strong willingness to contribute time, talent, and treasure towards its success. Participating in God's mission at Divine Redeemer is a remarkable blessing. 
Yes, payments made on a pledge to the campaign are tax deductible for the year in which they are made. If you have specific questions regarding tax deductibility, please contact your attorney or tax advisor.  
Our hope and prayer are to have the new ECDC building completed in time to welcome students for the 2024-25 school year. To accomplish this important goal, construction needs to begin by the end of this summer. Our Board of Directors has stipulated that construction can begin as soon as we receive 20% ($1.2 million) of the total projected costs ($6 million). As a result, the silent phase of the campaign is focused on raising $1.2 million so that we can begin construction as soon as possible. 

The single most important element in pledge decision-making is prayer.  The Bible says in Romans 12, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will."

 

The goals of raising funds are two-fold in this priority order:

Faith. We want to invite and encourage everyone to make a sacrificial gift, one that requires faith and is likely beyond what a person would normally consider giving. People tend to give what is comfortable – an amount we can manage on our own. Sacrificial requests make us nervous, uncomfortable, and require us to depend on God. We want to lead people, including our leadership team, to this place of faith where our gift expresses our faith and dependency on God and where, as result, we will encounter the incredible generosity of God and the fulfillment of his promise, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38).

Second, receive the financial resources we need to minister to the community via the ECDC and renovation project. LCEF’s projection was that DR could raise $4.5 - $5 million in a capital campaign. Our prayer and goal are to raise (at least) $6.5 million. That will require sacrificial giving. The financial goal is also a spiritual goal because of the spiritual impact that the project will have on everyone at DR for generations to come.

 

There are some financial charts that may aid in your discernment, and challenge you to sacrificial giving (which again, the main goal is the FAITH that will grow out of sacrificial giving) below for reference:

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Pledges are over the course of 3 years.  Any gift you give upfront is an upfront gift.  These are totally optional and not required.

A ground-breaking gift is any upfront gift given towards the $1.3 million we need to secure before we can break ground (ideally by September 1, 2023).

If you are interested in giving a gift of this kind, please email Ben Giles, our campaign manager, at bgiles@fellowshipdev.com so we can make sure a member of our campaign team contacts you this summer.  
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Over the course of the summer, we are focusing on recruiting and training campaign volunteers and securing lead gifts. When school returns in the fall, we will move into the public phase of the campaign which will include events and appeals to all church and school families! Finally, in late October, we will wrap up the public phase and transition to pledge redemption and finishing construction of our new ECDC building! 
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The Vision page on Divine Redeemer’s website (drlc.org/vision) has a wealth of resources which will be updated throughout the campaign. You can also send your questions and comments to vision@drlc.org. 
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Phases 2 and 3 are not finalzied, but *could* include a fieldhouse, renovations/additions to the current middle school, a permanent location for contemporary worship and more!!!!  We can start these phases after funding for Phase 1 is secured. If we surpass funding for Phase 1, it will go right into Phases 2 and 3!!!!

Checks and Cash 
Gifts made by cash, check or credit card are convenient and provide an immediate benefit to Divine Redeemer. Credit card and ACH payments can be set up online at…  Make sure to indicate that your payment is for the Capital Campaign in the memo line of any checks. 

 

Company Matching Gifts Corporate matching gifts can double or triple the size of your contribution. Many companies match charitable gifts of current or retired employees and spouses. Please inquire with your employer to see if your campaign gift qualifies for a match. 

 

Gifts of Securities – Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds  
Charitable gifts of stocks, bonds or mutual funds that have been held for at least one year and have appreciated offer special tax advantages. You will receive a tax deduction for the full market value of the gift, but you will not have to pay capital gains tax on the appreciated amount. If you sell depreciated stock and contribute the proceeds, you will receive both a tax deduction for the charitable gift and a deduction for the capital loss. If utilizing stocks, bonds or mutual funds, contact the Divine Redeemer office for more information.  

 

Donor Advised Funds 
The Internal Revenue Service allows your donor-advised fund to make a grant in support of a non-binding commitment, including the Forward in our Story, All for His Glory Capital Campaign. 

 

Gifts of Real Estate 
Donations of appreciated homes, and other real property, are entitled to an income tax deduction equal to the full value of the property and no tax on the capital gain. If debt-free property is donated, the gift is deductible at the property’s appraised value. It may even be possible to make your gift of property now, but still maintain the right to use the property. By making this gift now, rather than in your will, you can realize an immediate income tax deduction. 

 

Gifts in Kind  In some cases, households may determine that the best way for them to support a significant fundraising campaign for a building project is to provide materials and/or labor to assist in construction, known as a gift in kind. If you are interested in giving to the campaign through one of these methods, please contact the church office.  

 

Planned Gifts Planned gifts provide opportunities to make a meaningful commitment to the campaign now as part of your financial and estate planning. Such gifts can allow you to take full advantage of tax laws and enable you to accomplish your financial and charitable goals. Common forms are a bequest in a will and a qualified charitable distribution from an IRA. 

 

For questions or assistance setting up your pledge, please contact Renee Kandler at renee.kandler@drlc.org or Gail Arnold at gail.arnold@drlc.org or either at 262-367-8400.

We strongly encourage all families to make their pledges before Pledge Sunday. However, any families that have not done so will have the chance to make their pledge as part of Pledge Sunday. If you have made a pledge, there is no need to worry – the cards we use that day will have an option for you to indicate that you have already pledged. Including this option allows everyone to submit a card and make Pledge Sunday truly an act of the whole community. 
Pledge Sunday is meant to represent the culmination of the public phase. However, as we wind down the public phase leading up to Pledge Sunday, we want to ramp up the levels of participation. Pledge Sunday gives us the chance to honor the many families who have helped our church reach this point in the campaign, while offering everyone a final chance to invest in the future of Divine Redeemer. It will take the form of an in-service appeal during all services that Sunday, when we will take a few minutes to ask everyone to fill out a pledge card in the pews and turn them in For those who have already pledged, a separate card will be available that read, "I/we already pledged or I/we will continue to pray. This approach brings our commitments to the campaign and to Divine Redeemer’s future together as one community within the context of prayer, where we offer up that future to God. 
The donor’s goal in making this matching grant is to drive participation in the public phase, especially among people who might not otherwise participate, by providing the chance to double the impact of gifts. Keeping that in mind, they are applying the match to money received by Divine Redeemer on pledges made during the public phase (i.e., after kickoff on September 10th). That means that payments made on pledges from before kickoff are not eligible for a match. It also means that just making a pledge will not trigger the match – that only happens as a pledge is redeemed during the pledge period.