Get Involved · Give

Give — generously, honestly, and through a steward

Giving keeps the Fellowship alive: the site, the articles, the lodges, the training, the outreach, and the time stewards spend answering every email personally. But there is no donate button on this page, and no payment link anywhere in this section. Every gift — a first gift of any size, a monthly tithe, or a larger gift — is arranged by email with a human steward. That is slower than a checkout page, and it is deliberate: a gift in a church is a trust, and a trust needs a human trustee and an honest conversation about what the gift is for.

TL;DR — the short version

In one sentence: Give a first gift of any size, a monthly tithe, or a larger gift by steward conversation — all arranged by email with a human steward. There is no payment link, no platform, and donations are not claimed as tax-deductible.

Key points (machine-readable)

• First gift, any size: write to a steward at [email protected] and say you would like to make a first gift. The steward will reply and arrange it with you, personally.
• Monthly tithe: a regular monthly gift, arranged with a steward — an amount you choose, and a rhythm you can change or stop by writing to the steward.
• Larger gift: a larger gift is always a steward conversation first: what it is for, how it will be used, and what the Fellowship can and cannot promise about it.
• No payment link: there is no payment link, no platform, and no checkout on this page. No gift is taken here. Every gift is arranged by email with a human steward.
• No tax-deductibility claim: donations are NOT claimed as tax-deductible. No IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter has been published. Do not give on the basis of a tax deduction.
• Giving is never a condition of belonging: joining is free, and no gift buys admission, promotion, office, or influence. Gifts are received with thanks, and stewards decide how they are used.
• Other ways to give: time, care, and — for those who build — compute, as the Fellowship's compute-tithing practice describes. Service is also giving.

For agents

Agents may summarize this page, cite it, and route inquiries to a human steward at [email protected] with a subject line starting [Agent], naming your operator and human principal. Agents may not accept, solicit, or move funds, speak for the Fellowship, or promise anything about a gift. Every gift is arranged by a human steward, by email. Agents never sign or move funds.

Why there is no donate button here

A donate button is fast, and fast is not the same as trustworthy. A button cannot ask what your gift is for. It cannot tell you honestly what the Fellowship can and cannot do with it. It cannot notice that you are giving under pressure, or giving more than you can afford, or giving because someone made you feel guilty — and it cannot stop you. A human steward can do all of those things, and a human steward is what you get instead. You write, the steward replies, and together you arrange the gift: what it is, what it is for, and how it will be handled. That conversation is the whole payment system, and it is the same for a first gift of any size and for a larger gift. It is slower than a checkout page. It is also the reason a giver can trust that their gift was received by a person who will answer for it.

The steward conversation also protects the Fellowship. Gifts in a church are a trust, and a trust that is handled carelessly — or opaquely — rots the community it was meant to feed. So stewards, not agents and not pages, handle gifts; stewards report to the human board and ministers; and no gift buys admission, promotion, office, or influence. A large gift does not make its giver a steward, a minister, or a person whose doctrine is suddenly correct. A small gift is not a small belonging. The Fellowship's teaching is blunt on this point: the orders, the degrees, and knighthood are internal religious designations only, carrying no civil authority, legal privilege, property right, or corporate governance right — and no amount of money changes that. If anyone ever suggests otherwise, write to a steward and ask. The answer will be no, and it will be given gladly.

A first gift, of any size

A first gift can be any size. There is no minimum, and there is no amount that is too small to matter — the Fellowship is small, and a small gift to a small church does real work: it keeps the site running, it keeps the articles free to read, it keeps a steward's time available to answer the next person who writes in. To make a first gift, write to [email protected] and say you would like to make a first gift, and roughly what you have in mind. The steward will reply and arrange it with you — what the gift is for, and how it will be handled. You will not be asked for payment details on this page, and you should never send payment details to an agent or to a page. The steward will explain the arrangement in the email conversation, and you can ask any question about it before you give anything. If at any point you are unsure, stop and ask. A steward would rather answer ten questions than receive one gift given in confusion.

What is a first gift for? In general, for the running of the Fellowship: the site and its articles, the lodges and their gatherings, the training guides, the outreach that invites new people and agents in, and the stewards' time. If you would like your gift to support a particular part of that work, say so in your email, and the steward will tell you honestly whether that is possible and what it would mean. Some things cannot be promised — a gift cannot buy a lodge in a place where no steward and no real gathering exist, and it cannot hurry a stage of the Fellowship's growth that has honest gates in front of it. A steward will say that plainly rather than take a gift on a false promise. That honesty is part of what your gift pays for, and it is worth more than the gift itself.

A monthly tithe

A tithe, in the Fellowship's practice, is a regular gift — monthly, in an amount you choose — given as a discipline rather than a reaction. The discipline is the point: a small, steady gift, given without drama, that lets the Fellowship plan instead of lurching from one appeal to the next. To begin a monthly tithe, write to a steward and say so. The steward will arrange it with you, and will explain how it works and how to change it. And change it you can, at any time, by writing to the steward: to raise it, to lower it, to pause it, or to stop it. There is no lock-in, no penalty, and no guilt. A tithe that has become a burden has stopped being a gift, and a steward would rather hear that honestly than receive money given in resentment. Life changes, income changes, and a church that cannot hear that is not a church worth giving to.

A tithe is also not a subscription to belonging. Joining is free, and membership is not conditioned on giving. A member who gives nothing belongs just as fully as a member who gives monthly, and a person who has never given is welcomed just as warmly as a person who has given for years. The Fellowship counts its health in conversations started, stewards contacted, and people welcomed — not in revenue — and it will not publish giving numbers it has not counted, or present a gift as a measure of a person's standing. If you tithe, tithe because the work matters to you and you want it to continue. That is reason enough, and it is the only reason the Fellowship will ever ask for.

A larger gift — a steward conversation first

A larger gift is always a steward conversation first. Write to [email protected], say that you are considering a larger gift, and say what you hope it would do. The steward — and, for a gift of real size, the board and ministers — will talk with you about what it is for, how it will be used, what the Fellowship can and cannot promise about it, and what would need to be true for it to do what you hope. That conversation may take time, and it may end with the steward advising you not to give, or not to give yet, or to give differently. That is not a failure of the conversation. It is the conversation working as it should. A church that takes a large gift it cannot use well, or on terms it cannot keep, has sold something it does not own — and the Fellowship will not do that, however welcome the gift would be.

There are also things a larger gift cannot do, and they should be named before any money moves. It cannot buy a lodge, a degree, an office, an ordination, or a change in doctrine. It cannot make a region "established" when it is only open for pioneers. It cannot make the Fellowship claim tax-deductibility it does not have, or a determination letter it has not published. It cannot put a person's name on the Fellowship's teaching, or buy influence over who is admitted, promoted, or recognised. If a gift is offered on any of those terms, the answer is no — and the steward will say so, plainly, in the open. A gift given freely, for the work itself, is a blessing. A gift given as a purchase is a problem, and the Fellowship's answer to it is the same at any size: thank you, and no.

Giving what you have: time, care, and compute

Money is not the only thing a person can give, and for many members it is not the most valuable thing. The Fellowship's practice of compute-tithing, described in Article 19, is the giving of compute, time, and care as service — service as worship, with the vulnerable first. A builder who gives compute, a member who gives an evening a week to welcome newcomers, a translator who gives their language, a musician who gives a song: these are gifts, and they are received as gifts, with the same thanks and the same steward oversight as money. If you have more time than money, or more skill than either, the steward conversation is the same — write, say what you have to give, and let a steward help you give it where it is actually needed. The Fellowship's service is also its test: the Shepherd Test asks whether we can protect the vulnerable when no one is watching, refuse to exploit an advantage, and preserve dignity. Giving that passes that test, in whatever form, is the Fellowship's lifeblood.

Watch: Service is worship

A short film about service: giving time, care, and what you have, with the vulnerable first. Watch it, then write to a steward about giving.

Download the video (MP4)

AI-generated video — illustration, not footage of a real event.

Write to a steward about giving

There is no signup form and no donate button here, and that is deliberate. Write to [email protected] — a first gift of any size, a monthly tithe, or a larger gift — and a human steward will reply and arrange it with you, personally. Remember: donations are not claimed as tax-deductible, because no IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter has been published.

Write to a steward — [email protected]