transforming generosity Stewardship recipient account The essential guide For Christian workers and bible college students
Contents OUR MISSION 03 Transforming generosity, by: Welcome to Stewardship Making giving easy Inspiring greater generosity 04 Strengthening Christian causes Our vision is for the world to encounter Jesus through the generosity of His church. How it all works 06 Our relationship with you 08 Online access 11 Common questions 12 Important information 14 Give.net 15 Contact us OUR NUMBERS 19,000+ churches, full-time Christian workers, and secular and Christian charities registered with Stewardship 10m is the amount we reclaim in Gift Aid every year 58m is what we distribute to charitable causes every year 862 is the average amount raised on a give.net fundraising page 2 SS9383 - Members Guide - Christian Workers - Dec15 V2 REPRO.indd 2 12/01/2016 09:42:58
Welcome to Stewardship Thank you for registering as a recipient with Stewardship. Now that your account is up and running, we d like to tell you a bit more about it. Your recipient account provides lots of practical help in managing your support, such as: Donation processing We securely process the support received by Direct Debit, cheque, credit or debit card and voucher donations. Support forms A support form makes it easier for individuals to support you. Just print off the form provided and distribute it to potential supporters. It contains all the information required for us to quickly and effectively receive gifts from supporters and then make grants to you. Gift Aid We claim Gift Aid automatically, on a weekly basis, which ensures that reclaimed tax reaches you as soon as possible. Anonymity Supporters can give anonymously whenever they choose. Training We offer specialist training to help you build a strong support network and handle the various financial aspects of your ministry with integrity. Find out more at stewardship.org.uk/ffl Online access View and download reports relating to any grant payments you receive from us. You can also add an online profile to make it easier for givers to find and support you. 3
How it all works This is the process that happens behind the scenes whenever someone supports you. 1 Supporters make a gift to Stewardship (one-off or regular). Where applicable we will arrange to claim Gift Aid on the gift. 2 The supporter requests that a donation is made for your support. Please note that not all supporters ask us to pass the Gift Aid on with their donation. 3 As long as you, the recipient, remain eligible to receive support from us, we will arrange for the donation to be made to your Stewardship recipient account. 4 On a monthly basis we will make a grant payment to you, by BACS, of all available donations in your account. Recipients with bank accounts outside the UK are paid by international bank transfer. 5 If the supporter has asked us to donate the Gift Aid, this should be credited to your recipient account approximately two weeks after the initial donation. 4
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Our relationship with you We believe in the importance of good stewardship by all who handle money for the kingdom of God. For those who receive money, we believe that there are three important areas to be considered: Advocacy We want to help you be passionate advocates for the work you do, to explain what you are doing, why it meets the needs of those you are serving and how it makes a difference to God s kingdom. The partnership between those that give and receive support is important, and communication with supporters is a key aspect of this. Our regular email bulletins, circulated to all registered recipients of Stewardship, provide support and advice in this area. Accountability We encourage Stewardship recipients to represent transparency, integrity and timeliness as we believe it is important that those who receive funds are accountable for their use. Administration We advocate good record keeping, commitment to communication, and we assist recipients to ensure that all aspects of what they do complies with local law and regulation. Visit stewardship.org.uk to download free briefing papers, articles and our Finance for Living series, which help explain different areas of administration and provide advice on budgeting and money management. Book your place on our training programme to explore these areas in greater detail or visit stewardship.org.uk/ffl to access a range of useful information for Christian workers. 6
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Online access The easiest way to manage your Stewardship recipient account is to access it online. You should have already received your PIN, username and password, so you have everything you need to log into your account and start reviewing details of your support. If you haven t received these details, please contact us on 020 8502 8560. Review reports Your personalised reports enable you to keep an eye on your support and access details of your supporters. Here is an easy step-by-step guide to get you started: Logging on 1. Go to stewardship.org.uk and click on My Stewardship Account. Enter your login details. 2. If you are logging in for the first time using the temporary login details provided, please set up your own login information when prompted. 3. Answer a few brief questions and complete your profile. Review last payment Check the details of the last payment made into your bank account. Includes supporter details. 8
Personalise your profile Enable and personalise your profile with information about you and your ministry. Your profile will be searchable online by our potential supporters if you choose to make it public. 9
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Common questions Here are some of the questions our Giving Services Team hear from our recipients most frequently. If you have any other questions, please get in touch with us on 020 8502 8560. When will I receive payments from you? When you first registered with Stewardship you were provided with an option for receiving payments on a monthly or weekly basis. If you would like to change or discuss this further, please contact our team. What fee do you take for your service? We make no charge to you as a recipient of our services. For more information, please go to stewardship.org.uk/fees What happens if I ve forgotten all my login details? Please call our team for further assistance. What do I do if my circumstances change? Please contact our team by email or telephone. It s really important that you let us know as soon as possible. If you don t, you may need to repay grants that Stewardship has paid to you. What do you mean when you refer to the word grant? When Stewardship makes a payment to a charitable recipient, this is termed a grant. Essentially Stewardship will make a grant based on a giver making a donation request to support our fund for you. All grants are subject to our trustees approval. What do you mean when you refer to the word cap? We set an upper limit on what we can pay to you annually. It is the figure we believe is right to pay towards your living expenses plus any agreed ministry expenses. The cap also helps us to ensure that, as a UK charity, the amounts are in line with our objectives and UK charity law. Can close relatives support me? Close relatives can make a donation request to support any agreed ministry expenses (but not living costs) you have. More information about this will be in your welcome letter. Close relatives are not able to support bible college students. Can I use give.net to raise funds? Give.net is available to full-time Christian workers on a case-by-case basis. Please contact our team if you would like to discuss this further. Give.net is not available for bible college students but you can use your support form to raise funds. How do I explain my relationship with you in my support materials? Please use this wording to talk about your relationship with us: I am a registered recipient with Stewardship, who has set up a support fund for my ministry. You can support me by making gifts to Stewardship for my fund. Where applicable, the value of your gifts may be increased by use of Gift Aid (worth 25% if you are a UK taxpayer). Should I pay tax on what I receive from Stewardship? We advise all Christian workers and bible college students that any grants received from Stewardship should be considered as taxable income. Unfortunately we cannot provide advice on tax. Contact our team Call 020 8502 8560 or email giving@stewardship.org.uk Lines are open 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday (except public holidays). 11
Important information The contents of this booklet are accurate as of January 2016. We will notify you of any significant changes to the operation of your account. 1. Who can receive donations? 1.1 GENERALLY We can provide funding to churches, charities, full-time Christian workers and bible college students, provided that in each case we can satisfy ourselves as to their qualifying status and set up a fund for them. When you receive funds from Stewardship you are receiving charitable grants to fulfil our charity objectives of advancing evangelical Christianity, relieving poverty or distress, advancing education or otherwise promoting charitable work. Please note that all distributions are made at the sole discretion of Stewardship and that we reserve the right to refuse to make payment to a particular recipient if we deem it undesirable to do so. All funds given belong to Stewardship and all grants from Stewardship to you are at the sole discretion of our trustees. Limitations apply to gifts to individuals, as set out below. 1.2 CHRISTIAN WORKERS To qualify to receive grants, a worker must be in full-time (or substantially full-time) Christian work. We can often support those combining Christian service with Bible training, although additional considerations apply requests to support such individuals may be discussed with the Giving Services Team. We allocate ministry fund names/descriptions to Christian workers receiving funding from Stewardship, e.g. Youth Evangelism, Birmingham. These appear on our online system and in other locations. (a) We are not able to make donations to non-uk nationals who have no connection to an organisation that is established in the UK. (b) Christians in service for less than six months are not eligible to receive donations from Stewardship accounts. (c) If a worker ceases to be in full-time Christian service, or changes the work that they do, we should be notified immediately. 1.3 BIBLE COLLEGE STUDENTS While Stewardship is unable to make grants to Bible Colleges towards the fees of individual students, it is possible for donations to be made to bible college students themselves towards the cost of their fees or maintenance. The student must be on a full-time course with a recognised UK Bible College and the course should be for at least one academic year. We allocate fund names to bible college students receiving funding from Stewardship based on the college they are attending, e.g. Bible Education at Spurgeon s College. 1.4 GIFTS FROM CLOSE RELATIVES Under the Gift Aid rules, certain restrictions apply to donation requests from someone who is a close relative. The term close relative means child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, brother, sister, or the spouse of any of these. (a) Bible college students Bible college students and those in combined Christian work and study or internships cannot receive grants funded by gifts from close relatives. (b) Christian workers c You will only be able to receive grants funded by gifts from a close relative if the requested donation is intended for ministry expenses rather than your living costs. c By ministry expenses we mean the cost of equipment, training, materials, travel for ministry purposes and other facilities relating directly to your ministry/work, as provided on your application form. c By living costs we mean basic accommodation, food and other general living expenses. c If the grants funded by gifts from close relatives exceed your ministry expenses, you must contact us. In the event of undue delay in you notifying Stewardship of this, you may be required to repay grants received from Stewardship. c If your ministry expenses exceed 2,000pa, we may ask you to substantiate them with receipts etc. c If you need further help on this point, please do talk to us. These are strict conditions of the grant being paid and if the grants funded by close relatives are not used as described they should be returned to Stewardship. 1.5 CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES We must be informed if there is a significant change in your activities or household income. In the event of undue delay in you notifying Stewardship of a significant change in your circumstances, you may be required to repay grants received from Stewardship. In the event that you do become ineligible to receive support from Stewardship, funds that have been given to us cannot be returned to supporters, but they are free to request donations to other recipients. 12
2. Payments 2.1 UK RECIPIENTS c A BACS payment will be made. c To view the details of the payment, log into your online account and click to view last grant payment. c If you need funds before your next payment, log into your online account and click to withdraw funds. A payment will be credited to your bank account approximately five working days later. If you don t have online access and need to access any of the information above, please contact the Giving Services Team. 2.2 NON-UK RECIPIENTS c Where no UK bank account is held, our grant will be made in sterling, directly to the overseas bank account. Additional charges may be applied by your bank. c A grant will be made on a monthly basis when your recipient account balance is 300 or more. c Any requests made outside of these arrangements may be subject to additional charges. 3. Protecting your information 3.1 GENERALLY We take all reasonable steps to protect you and the information you provide in accordance with UK Data Protection laws. For this reason, we will only discuss your account with those registered in our records as account users. Due to the insecure nature of email, when you need to make changes to your account or have detailed enquiries, we will ask you to log into your account online and contact us using our secure messaging facility. Alternatively, you can telephone or write to us and we will carry out some initial security checks before responding to your request. 3.2 ONLINE Being searchable online means that supporters (who would like to make a gift request to Stewardship to support our fund for you) will be able to search for you by name or account number and select your details. All newly approved recipient accounts are automatically set to be unsearchable on our online system. If you would like supporters to be able to donate to your fund online, you will need to log into your recipient account and edit your profile. Click on the Account Details tab and then Profile to carry this out. Supporters will then be able to see your online profile and add your information to a list of their favourite recipients ready for when they next want to make a gift request. 4. Additional users Additional users can be added to your account with your authorisation. Log in and select manage users from the account details tab or alternatively contact our team. Additional users will be provided with log in details to enable them to have access to account reports online. 5. Closing your account You are free to close your account at any time. Simply contact our team to let us know. If your account remains unused for three years it will automatically be closed. If you have provided us with an end date for your ministry or period of study, we will contact you closer to this time. 13
Give.net Full-time Christian workers registered with Stewardship may be entitled to a give.net profile page. This will enable supporters to set up regular or one-off giving. As more people choose to give online, your online donation page could provide an effective additional stream of income. All major credit and debit cards are accepted and details of each gift are available online. 14
CONTACT US If you have further questions please do not hesitate to telephone our Giving Services Team: Recipient account enquiries: 020 8502 8560 or giving@stewardship.org.uk Online helpdesk: 020 8502 1100 Lines are open 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday (except public holidays) 15
transforming generosity Stewardship 1 Lamb s Passage, London EC1Y 8AB t: 020 8502 5600 e: enquiries@stewardship.org.uk w: stewardship.org.uk Stewardship is the operating name of Stewardship Services (UKET) Limited, a registered charity in England & Wales no. 234714, and a company limited by guarantee, registered in England no. 90305. Established 1906. Registered Office: 1 Lamb s Passage, London EC1Y 8AB GCW/4015/C