I wanted to send you a short note to thank the consultant personally for the support he provided to myself and the rest of the Capital Campaign team. My role as the Kick-Off Party Chair was indeed challenging and I really appreciated all of his words of encouragement as we worked through that process and ultimately experienced success that we could not have imagined. The consultant’s willingness to be adaptable to the free-spirited, sometimes irreverent, always questioning nature of our congregation (UU’s – where everyone knows you have an opinion!) and enthusiasm for doing whatever needed to be done was wonderful.
The consultant has done the work of raising funds for a church many times over, and most of us were relative beginners, but he gently lead us in the direction we should go, always willing to listen to our ideas and willing to be flexible as we adapted his wisdom to our unique congregation. We thank him for all that he did and continues to do to maximize our efforts. I am going to call this campaign a success!
Blessings on your consultant as he moves to his next project. We will always hold him in our hearts at First Universalist and remember the impact he made in his short time here.
First Universalist Church
Minneapolis, MN
703-399-0518
info@jdklote.com 



Carmel Lutheran Church kicked off its ‘Hearts Compelled To Share’ capital campaign in record style. As of January 25th just 73 families of the more than 900 in the church had already committed $3.75 million dollars. That total represents not only the best kickoff to a campaign at CLC, it also represents the best campaign in total even though only 8% of the congregation has pledged so far.
The previous best campaign was just four years ago when CLC collected a total of about $3 million in pledges from over 425 donors.
"Jim Klote, president of James D. Klote and Associates, a capital stewardship consulting firm based in Fall Church, VA, appears on the big screen during his "All Things New" presentation at this year's Annual Conference session. Klote and Associates will conduct free stewardship education workshops for churches in all 18 districts of the conference this fall.
Participants listen attentively during the church stewardship workshop at Wright's Chapel UMC.The Virginia Conference sponsored series of stewardship workshops in each district is winding down, with two more district gatherings remaining in November.
