FOR CHURCHES AND FAITH-BASED ORGANISATIONS
Faithful with the offering, faithful with the accounts.
Practical guidance for church treasurers, boards and committees, leadership teams and finance volunteers, on the cash, the controls and the oversight that keep every donation working for the mission it was given for.
Where Table Stewards began
Table Stewards started by writing for church treasurers, leaders and boards, and that work continues here. Churches are small nonprofits in every way that matters: volunteer finance teams, cash income, restricted funds, and cultures built on trust and long relationships. That’s precisely why the safeguards on this page matter, and why they need to be proportionate enough that a volunteer can actually run them.
Written for churches
Why Churches Need Really Good Internal Controls
Operating in an environment of trust is exactly why controls matter.
How Segregation of Duties protects Church Finances
Why no one person should control an entire financial process, and how to split duties in a small team.
Bank Reconciliation – a Must for Safeguarding Church Finances
Assurance that all income reached the bank and every payment out was authorised.
Good Governance in Church Administration – 9 Areas to Get Right
The administrative governance that determines whether an organisation can be trusted with what it’s given.
6 Steps to Developing a Positive Culture for Effective Church Administration
Culture decides how money is handled and how people serve. Six steps to shape it deliberately.
Church Online Giving Platforms – How to Manage Risks to Data and Finances
The convenience of online giving, and managing the data and payment risks that come with it.
Also written with churches in mind
Guidance for churches and charities alike — these are the ones church treasurers and boards reach for most often.
Must-Have Cash Income Controls For Churches And Charities
Cash is the income most easily lost. The controls that protect it from collection to bank deposit.
5 Ways Internal Audits Benefit Churches and Charities
Independent assurance for your board, and insight you can’t get any other way.
Cyber Security: How To Protect Your Church Or Charity’s Data From Cyber-Attacks, Theft and Damage
With hacking attempts every few seconds, what robust protection looks like for your organisation.
How to Identify and Manage Conflicts of Interest In Churches and Charities
Protecting the integrity of decision-making when relationships overlap.
Audit Trail – How to track, trace and verify financial activities
The capability that lets you answer ‘what happened, when, and who did it?’ with evidence.
How to Prevent and Detect Collusion
Identifying, preventing and detecting the thing that defeats even good controls.
Meet The Stable Foundation Church
A note for new readers: many of the articles here are introduced through a fictitious church — The Stable Foundation Church — and its Learning & Development Committee. It’s a light-hearted way of setting the scene before each topic, so you can see how the issue plays out in a real church week rather than in the abstract.
The Stable Foundation Church is a growing church and a registered charity, founded by Pastor Joe, with three branch churches. Its Church Board governs the administrative affairs, and its board members are also trustees of the charity. The Board’s Learning & Development Committee meets on Saturdays so that leaders, staff and serving members can learn together — and that meeting is where our articles happen.
The committee
- Brother Sam — the chair. Charismatic and diplomatic; a school principal by day.
- Sister Jane — the deputy chair. Sceptical, down to earth, says it as it is.
- Sister Mary — the secretary. Great attention to detail, inquisitive, good at connecting issues.
- Brother Badtrus — a member, and on the Finance Committee. Keen to learn, challenges disorder, occasionally overbearing.
- Coach Emmanuel — the Stewardship Coach. Experienced, knowledgeable, and the one who does the explaining.
The characters are entirely fictitious. If you’d rather skip the scene-setting, every article has a table of contents so you can go straight to the substance.
Beyond the articles
Everything on this page is free, and always will be. When you’re ready to put a whole system in place, Accountable by Design gives churches and small charities the five TRUST controls, the nine high-risk processes, and a 90-day roadmap — with every template included free.
Start free this week
Ten questions, five minutes, and an honest score of how exposed your church really is.