Frequently Asked Questions about Pledging

A Pledge is a thoughtful and tangible statement of intent about your anticipated financial contributions to the Cathedral for the Pledge Year; it is an estimate of giving and may be changed (whether increased or decreased) during the course of the Pledge Year if your financial circumstances change.

2025 Pledges — including those made/received during the 2025 Pledge Drive held in the fall of 2024 — are for the 2025 Pledge Year, which runs from January 1 through December 31 of 2025.

Your giving directly supports the vibrant and transformative ministries of the Cathedral. Pledged giving by parishioners is the principal source of funding relied upon by the Cathedral to support its mission and ministries, including the day-to-day / month-to-month expenses (e.g. utilities, maintenance/repairs, personnel, programming, etc.) associated with the daily work and ongoing operations of the Cathedral.

While the Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese, serving as the symbol and center of diocesan ministry and the principal place for diocesan celebrations and episcopal services, the Cathedral receives no direct/ongoing operating funding from the Diocese or the national Episcopal Church. Similarly, despite its popularity among tourists and neighbors drawn daily through its open doors, the Cathedral receives no direct/ongoing operating funding from the City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, the US federal government, or any other external governmental/nongovernmental agency or entity.

While contributions made at the Offertory are always accepted and gratefully received, your Pledge lets the Cathedral plan more accurately and effectively for the work and ministry we can fruitfully accomplish.

Making your Pledge allows you to make intentional decisions about your finances: when you plan ahead, you make conscious choices about using your money in ways that reflect your faith and values.

Similarly, receiving your Pledge allows the Cathedral, through its governing board (called the Cathedral Chapter) to plan wise support of the mission and ministry to which God has called us: the Cathedral’s operating budget is developed based on the total amount pledged for the corresponding budget year.

Unless they are made as payment towards a previously received/recorded Pledge, contributions at the Offertory do not afford the Cathedral Chapter the same benefit of illuminating and facilitating the wise planning and budgeting of the Cathedral’s day-to-day programs and work.

Contributions made at the Offertory are always accepted and gratefully received. Nevertheless, we invite you to contemplate how pledging allows each of us to make intentional decisions about our finances with respect to our faith and spiritual formation, practices, and calling, including/especially in challenging or uncertain circumstances.

We understand that life can be unpredictable; as such, a Pledge is an estimate of giving and may be changed (whether increased or decreased) during the course of the Pledge Year if your financial circumstances change.

At Saint James, we are given exceptional gifts every day: Both your participation — in prayer and worship, faith formation, community outreach, music and the arts, and beyond — as well as your pledged and unpledged financial contributions are gifts to God, our neighbors, and the wider world.

The richness and beauty imbued in the daily worship and work of the Cathedral and much of the resources available to support these endeavors today flow in large part from the bounty of the faithful generosity of those who have come before us.

As “stewards of Saint James,” writes Rima Lunin Schultz in The Church and the City: A Social History of 150 Years at Saint James, Chicago (1986), “the sons and daughters of the first generation, the widows of the patriarchs who had founded the parish, were generous in their support … [endowing] the future generations with the harvest of their worldly efforts.”

Nevertheless, even from its earliest days, as merely one among several parishes prior to its designation as Cathedral for the Diocese, Saint James has seemingly had to overcome undue perceptions of “affluence and unlimited resources.” Hearkening back to an earlier history of Saint James (1873) by Joseph T. Ryerson, a prominent and devoted early parishioner, Schultz notes:

“Ryerson contended that ‘as a church and a congregation … its general pecuniary [i.e. monetary] ability had been always overestimated.’ In fact, ‘compared with the churches of other denominations, Saint James was not to be considered a wealthy congregation.’ … The bulk of the contributions … came from the people of moderate means … [even as those] middle-class members of the congregation, who were probably in the majority, tended to believe the myth of affluence and unlimited resources just as much as outsiders did. … It was a parish, according to Ryerson, composed in the majority by middle-class people who did more than their share to take on the financial burdens.”

From its humble beginnings as a square brick church in a then-nascent prairie town, Saint James would within its first century come to be the Cathedral for the by then metropolized Diocese of Chicago. Even so, while the Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese, serving as the symbol and center of diocesan ministry and the principal place for diocesan celebrations and episcopal services, the Cathedral receives no direct/ongoing operating funding from the Diocese or the national Episcopal Church. Similarly, despite its popularity among tourists and neighbors drawn daily through its open doors, the Cathedral receives no direct/ongoing operating funding from the City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, the US federal government, or any other external governmental/nongovernmental agency or entity.

Over that first, fortuitous century of parish history, as “the shape and scope of … church work were changing rapidly” to keep pace with its rapidly growing and urbanizing situation, Schultz recounts, “what remained constant at Saint James was the commitment [to] … the concept of stewardship.” It is our privilege and our call today to carry on this long heritage of faithful stewardship and the legacy of the fruits accorded by it that we cherish and enjoy.

Both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures contain a clear understanding that the appropriate response to God’s generosity from God’s people is a tithe, meaning 10% of income. The amount we each Pledge is ultimately a personal, intentional, thoughtfully considered choice, as a faithful response to the gifts God has given each of us.

Out of love and gratitude for God’s gifts and your faith community, we invite you to be as generous as you can, within your means, towards supporting the mission and ministry of the Cathedral.

Pledging allows us to make intentional decisions about our finances with respect to our faith and spiritual formation, practices, and calling. Nevertheless, a Pledge is an estimate of giving and may be changed (whether increased or decreased) during the course of the Pledge Year if your financial circumstances change.

Both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures contain a clear understanding that the appropriate response to God’s generosity from God’s people is a tithe, meaning 10% of income. The amount we each Pledge is ultimately a personal, intentional, thoughtfully considered choice, as a faithful response to the gifts God has given each of us.

If your financial situation or income for the Pledge Year is uncertain, one approach is to make a best-estimate of your income for the Pledge Year, then determine what proportion of that estimated income you intend to commit as a Pledge towards your giving at the Cathedral. Because a Pledge is an estimate of giving, it may be changed (whether increased or decreased) during the course of the Pledge Year if your estimate differs substantially from your actual financial situation as the year progresses.

A Pledge is an estimate of giving and may be changed during the course of the Pledge Year if your circumstances/situation change.

Making your Pledge allows you to be intentional with your finances and to consciously use your money in ways that reflect your faith and values; similarly, having received your Pledge, the Cathedral, through its governing board (called the Cathedral Chapter), will have developed the Cathedral’s operating budget based on the total amount pledged by parishioners for the corresponding budget year.

Nevertheless, a Pledge is by no means a legally binding contract, and unfulfilled Pledges will never incur any legal or financial consequences or repercussions.

When parishioners who have made a Pledge are called away from the Cathedral part way through the Pledge Year, they may elect to immediately transfer the outstanding portion of their Cathedral Pledge towards a Pledge at their new parish, or they may choose to fulfill the outstanding portion of their Pledge to the Cathedral before pledging to their new parish in subsequent Pledge Years.

After turning in your Pledge, your Pledge is fulfilled by making Pledge Payments towards your Pledge during the course of the Pledge Year.

2025 Pledges, including those received during the 2025 Pledge Drive held in the fall of 2024, are for the 2025 Pledge Year, which runs from January 1 through December 31 of 2025.

During the Pledge Year, Pledge Payments may be made:

• by credit/debit card or electronic bank transfer
• at SaintJamesCathedral.org/Give: click the Give Online button and be sure to select Pledge Payment as the intended Fund or
• through the Cathedral’s Realm online parish portal: once logged in to your account through the Realm website or app, navigate to the Giving section
• by check made payable to Saint James Cathedral and turned in by mail or through the collection plates during the Offertory at a Cathedral service
• Be sure to note “Pledge Payment” in the Memo line of each check.

During the Pledge Year, Pledge Payments may be made:

• by credit/debit card or electronic bank transfer
• at SaintJamesCathedral.org/Give: click the Give Online button and be sure to select Pledge Payment as the intended Fund or
• through the Cathedral’s Realm online parish portal: once logged in to your account through the Realm website or app, navigate to the Giving section
• by check made payable to Saint James Cathedral and turned in by mail or through the collection plates during the Offertory at a Cathedral service
• Be sure to note “Pledge Payment” in the Memo line of each check.

Regular, incremental Pledge payments throughout the Pledge Year facilitate the Cathedral’s financially sound operations against the worldly realities of cashflows and expenses associated with the Cathedral’s day-to-day work and operations.

Apportioning your total Pledge for the year into equal monthly payments is particularly beneficial in that it helpfully aligns with the monthly cycle on which the Cathedral’s operating expenses are typically billed/paid.

However, Pledge payments are accepted and gratefully received during the course of the Pledge Year in any arrangement as befits your particular financial situation (including, if necessary, as a single lumpsum payment made at any point during the Pledge Year).

The Pledge Drive occurs annually, typically in the fall season, as the Cathedral’s annual operating budget for the Pledge Year (which begins on January 1 immediately following the fall Pledge Drive) is in process of being developed and prepared by Cathedral Staff and Cathedral Chapter. The Pledge Drive is a call to parishioners for Pledges, which in effect serve as a declaration of intended giving for the coming Pledge Year; in this way, Pledges made and received during the Pledge Drive are then used to meaningfully inform and guide the development of an appropriate operating budget for the Pledge Year. Payments made during the Pledge Year towards Pledges (also known as pledged giving) are used to fund the day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year operating expenses of the Cathedral.

Capital Campaigns are occasional efforts to raise funds for long-term and, typically, more substantive capital expenditures and investments, such as the construction/acquisition of a new site/building, major maintenance/repairs to existing facilities, or the replacement or refurbishment of a pipe organ. Commitments and gifts towards a Capital Campaign are directed specifically to financially supporting the stated purposes and objectives of the Capital Campaign towards which those commitments and gifts were made.

The annual Pledge Drive / pledged giving and occasional Capital Campaigns alike are complementary cornerstones of our responsible and faithful stewardship of the church.

Healthy annual pledging and pledged giving supports Capital Campaigns as/when Capital Campaigns occasionally arise by establishing a sure foundation for routine/ongoing day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year operating expenditures, thereby instilling confidence in the long-term fiscal health and viability of the Cathedral to match the long-term expenditures being planned for under a Capital Campaign.

Mutually, the occasional capital expenditures and investments afforded by a successful Capital Campaign support healthy pledging and pledged giving by avoiding undue stresses or strains on the Cathedral’s routine/ongoing operating budget and expenditures, as major elements undergirding the Cathedral’s mission and ministry — such as the grounds, buildings, facilities, and equipment in/with which its day-to-day work takes place — are properly and timely cared for and needed maintenance/repairs are not unduly deferred.

With the recent developments around 65 E. Huron, expect to hear new updates on the Cathedral’s current and ongoing Capital Campaign in the very near future!

We are thrilled about and appreciate the care and thoughtfulness with which you seek to prepare your Pledge, and we want to ensure you have all the information you need as you do so.

Please contact the Cathedral Office to be connected with a member of the Cathedral Clergy, Staff, and/or Stewardship Committee who would be glad to provide you more information.