Benevolence & Financial Assistance Requests

Question: How do churches treat requests for financial assistance?...from non-members and members? Often they are requesting things such as food, rental assistance, attorney assistance, utility help, eviction prevention assistance.

Answer: At Grace Covenant there are several community resources that we give to each month. When non-members come to us we direct them to those agencies/ministries. They provide centralized screening that prevents individuals from abusing the generosity of churches by going from one and then to another repeatedly.

For members who fill out an application (they must make the request to us) for assistance, we assist them with up to a predetermined limit. Amounts are paid on their behalf. No funds are paid to them directly. A pastor works with all of these matters and a policy lets us be consistent. Exceptions to that must be some higher approval (Sr. Pastor or Council).
o Related to housing, we make no more than one payment. If more is needed to prevent eviction or foreclosure then we do not assist in that way. That sounds harsh but the reality in foreclosure or eviction is that 99% of the time one monthly payment will not solve the problem and then the funds are gone.
o For food we give them gift cards.
o We assist with utility bills.
o We don’t assist with legal bills. Attorneys all do some pro-bono work or have another way to work with their clients.