Dear Pastors, Parochial Administrators, Office Managers, and Friends,

This is a time of great concern about the financial wellbeing of our parishes, schools, Diocese as well as our greater community. Aware that cancellation of Masses has significantly reduced flow of gifts from parishioners, your diocesan colleagues have been gathering information as to what others are doing across the country regarding funding their operations.

Many of the parishes in the Diocese of Oakland have long standing online giving platforms to accept gifts from the faithful. But there are a good number (more than a third) who do not have this capacity. To help now, and for as long as it is needed, the Office for Mission Advancement (OMA), Diocese of Oakland will be providing an online donation portal for the use of any and all parishes who may wish to take advantage.

The link will take the donor to a secure site for online gifts. The new site will clearly state that any gifts made, that are attributed to an individual parish, will be processed as noted. In turn, the Chancery will turn those gifts around quickly and send the funds to your parish office.

The website is up and running and you can send your parishioners there starting immediately. You may add the link to your website and direct your parishioners to it. The process is straightforward. For those parishes without a website, you can give the information over the phone or in an email to your parishioners.  We have already prepared the email for distribution.

We hope this capability will be a help with some of your financial needs during this difficult time and going forward. Please let me know if you have any questions, cell phone #925-878-9511

Parish Support – Donation Portal Logistic

LINK:   https://www.oakdiocese.org/parish-support

You could also include these directions:

This link will take donors directly to the giving page. Once there, they will enter their gift information, parish affiliation, name, address, and payment preference. Once they submit, they will get a short reply confirming that the transaction was successful. A few minutes later, a message will land in their email account with a summary of the gift, including the parish it will be directed towards, and a simple thank you.

We will process the gifts, which entails charging the credit or debit cards and running the bank account debits. NOTE: The donors accounts may not be charged immediately, but when the gift is processed by OMA staff. 

Monthly, we will send each parish a list of the donors, the amounts given, and a check for the funds received. NOTE: Aside from the immediate email received upon donating at the site, the OMA will not do an additional acknowledgement.  It will be the responsibility of the parish to include these donations in the parish database and acknowledge accordingly.

If you have any questions about process, please contact Lewis Bracy at lbracy@oakdiocese.org

Announcing and Marketing

The Office for Mission Advancement will be promoting this new Parish Support option on the Diocesan Social Media. It will be profiled in the next The Voice as well. We encourage each parish to use all tools at your disposal to “get the word out” to your parishioners.

If there is anything else you think we can do to help, please let us know. We are all in this together.

May God’s blessing be on us all!

Giles Miller

Director of Major Gifts and Campaigns

Diocese of Oakland