Firstly, celebrate; it will no doubt have been a long and arduous process. So take time to celebrate both with your fundraising team and with the rest of the church community. Then plan a launch event, this will give you the opportunity to thank all who have been involved in the project in any way, don’t forget to invite all those who have helped with grants and funding as well as local press and your diocesan communications team.
Secondly, after the project has been completed you will need to evaluate the project; what has gone well? what mistakes can we learn from? can we demonstrate that funds from all sources have been used appropriately. Your evaluation will allow you to learn from both mistakes and successes and help you to succeed in future projects.
Finally, you’ve been so successful that you have more than you need. Any money raised for a specific purpose can only be used for that purpose and you may not without permission use it for other projects. In this situation you will need to write to your grant givers and let them know the situation, it may be that they will ask if you have anything else which the funds can be used for or it they will ask for the excess funds to be returned to them so that they can be redistributed.
By Charlotte McCaulay, Canterbury Diocese