Why a pledge over 26 months? How do the 4 years (2019-2022) of giving impact my charitable deductions?

Pledging over a 26-month period enables us to take advantage of four tax years for charitable contributions. (December 2019, 2020, 2021, and January 2022)

Tax deductions got a bit more complicated as of last year. The standard deduction may require that some givers “bunch” charitable giving in one year to gain a better overall tax benefit as opposed to dividing the total into smaller amounts over the four calendar years.

This is another opportunity for creative planning with your financial advisor to both ease your tax burden and benefit the church. If you are interested in learning more about managing your finances and don’t already have a financial advisor, we would love to help you get connected to one.

What if I am not able to fulfill my pledge?

Our church is a place of grace. No one will be made to feel bad or pressured about their giving. The finance office will remind us periodically of the progress we are making toward our original amount, but never in a punitive or reprimanding way. We are expecting great stories of God enabling people to give in ways they may not have anticipated!

What if we don’t raise the money we need?

We are operating in faith that God will provide. At the same time, we know that it will take the voluntary sacrificial gifts of many contributors for us to hit our target. If we raise less in pledges than we targeted or if our funds fall short of what was pledged, we may need to modify our plan and discern a way forward that is both feasible and still worth the cost. We will be updating our givers and the rest of the church periodically on our progress.

What if we raise more than our target?

Since there is modest borrowing involved in this project, any funds raised beyond our target may be used to reduce the amount of mortgage debt we carry. It may also enable us to complete a feature of the building that was removed when we reduced the initial scope of the project. Or we may even be in a position to do both! If we find ourselves in that fortunate situation, we’ll talk through our options at a Campus Conversation meeting.

How does this apply to people who will be attending Highrock Lexington?

We encourage people who are considering being a part of Highrock Lexington to participate fully in the More Stories campaign. The Mill St. building project will provide a base of operations for all of our campuses, benefiting and serving them all in various ways. However, the Arlington and Lexington campuses will be more closely linked in particular, with many overlaps in staffing and shared programming. Due to our close proximity, we anticipate that our new Mill St. buildings will be used well by ministries and groups from both congregations.

Are we going to give some of the money raised in this campaign to support missions?

No, the money raised for this campaign will only go toward the building project. We listened to feedback from our congregation and decided to keep this campaign straightforward and focused on the project for which we are raising funds. However, we will continue to support missions as part of our church’s regular giving to our mission partners locally and globally.

We did a building campaign a few years ago (New Stories). Where did that money go?

Those New Stories funds allowed us to purchase the Mill St. properties; our current More Stories campaign allows us to renovate these spaces.