2022 Donor Report

As we close in on the end of another year, many of us consider our capacity for year-end charitable donations. Each year, we want to make sure that we communicate how your contributions have been used by Commons Church and provide insight into how the church is doing financially. We have also launched our annual Advent Campaign; you can read more about our efforts here. This year we are increasing our Advent goals as we work to help our neighbours in need.

2022 has reminded us just how grateful we are for a supportive and generous community. The last few years have been challenging for a lot of us personally and certainly for organizations like Commons. This year we made the difficult decision to close our Inglewood Parish officially. Over the years, we made many meaningful connections, friendships, and contributions in Inglewood, and though our relationship with the neighbourhood has changed, we are still imagining ways we can be present in parishes across the city. I am grateful for Scott’s kind and mindful leadership in this area.

This year we saw a slow and steady return to in-person services, and it’s been a joy to see your presence here with us again. We even hosted our first Stampede Breakfast in years, with well over a thousand people in attendance. Amazing. At the same time, we also know that rhythms have changed for many of us, so we continue to invest in new ways to stay connected with your story. This year another 876,491 minutes were watched on our YouTube channel, and another 27,903 sermons were downloaded through our podcast. We also released the book Dirt and Stardust as a gift to the community, and I was able to publish my latest book Upside Down Apocalypse with Herald Press. Bobbi is currently in the early stages of planning a second prayer book for the community. We also made significant changes in our Commons kids programming, rolling out a new in-house curriculum that our team is building to better align with our values at Commons.

In 2022. we continued to see a downturn in our finances, with donations decreasing just slightly from 2021. However, we entered the year with a conservative budget that has allowed us to stay within our projections. We expect to see donations level out in 2023. Still, we have met ALL of our Local and Global Development commitments for the year, with over 17% of expenses so far going outside our doors to support people and causes we care about (and that’s before the additional $60,000 we hope to raise through our Christmas generosity).

We look forward to a new year which will undoubtedly provide new opportunities, learnings, and changes but one in which God’s goodness and this incredible community’s support will be evident.

Jeremy Duncan
Lead Pastor

Below are some highlights of the year and a breakdown of how your donations were used in 2021. Thank you for being part of the Commons story, and please consider how you might contribute before year-end.