The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina Embarks on a Capital Campaign

“We are agents of the new thing God is doing. We must run to catch up with what God is up to, bringing redemption from all the broken pieces of this world. You are taking all the broken pieces and making them whole again.”

Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley – 235th Annual Diocesan Convention

In her address to the 235th Annual Convention of the Diocese this past November, Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley spoke to our new collective season. “We are agents of the new thing God is doing,” she said. “We must run to catch up with what God is up to, bringing redemption from all the broken pieces of this world. You are taking all the broken pieces and making them whole again.”

As part of this new, post-schism season of renewal, repair, and reimagining, the diocese has taken the first steps toward mounting a capital campaign that will fund important on-the-ground needs in a variety of locations. We believe—and we heard from you in our feasibility study conducted last fall—that with each building we construct or restore, each servant of God we uphold by supporting their ministry, and each welcoming hand we extend to our neighbor, we liberate the gospel from past wrongs and present hesitations to do the transformative work God has called us to in this moment.

Recent Capital Campaign News

Capital Campaign Leadership

Building on the team that carried out our feasibility study last year, here are the members of the Capital Campaign Committee:

The Right Reverend Ruth Woodliff-Stanley Bishop, The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina

Herbert Drayton, Co-chair St. Stephen’s, Charleston	Mary Dianish Holy Cross Faith Memorial, Pawleys Island
Barney Forsythe, Co-chair St. Mark’s, Port Royal	Deb Harris Holy Cross Faith Memorial, Pawleys Island
Ray Sabalis, Co-chair Christ Church, Denmark	The Reverend Canon Chuck Robertson The Episcopal Church, Office of the Presiding Bishop
Barbara Christie St. Christopher Camp & Conference Center Advisory Board Chair Grace Church Cathedral, Charleston	Bill Trawick Grace Church Cathedral, Charleston St. Peter’s, Charleston
The Reverend Canon Ryan Currie Diocesan Staff	Larry Watt Christ Church, Denmark

We are grateful for the support of The Episcopal Church.

We are also grateful for Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and The Episcopal Church as a whole, who are supporting us with expertise, advocacy, and by covering the costs the campaign. In return, a portion of the campaign yield will be given back to our denomination to seed similar efforts in other dioceses. 

The Reverend Canon Chuck Robertson, Canon and Senior Advisor to the Presiding Bishop, serves as a member of our team and has worked diligently—in a remarkable signal of the wider church’s profound commitment to supporting South Carolina—to secure early pledges from other dioceses impacted by schism.

Capital Campaign Goals

In our 2025 feasibility study, we solicited input from more than 500 members of the diocese, either through surveys or in-person interviews. We achieved an unusually high response rate of 46 percent, and a remarkable 92 percent were in favor of a campaign. We also saw exceptionally high rates of respondents who said they would volunteer. Ultimately, the quantitative and qualitative data alike strongly suggested a broad and enthusiastic consensus toward conducting a campaign at this time.

Based on the feasibility study, we have set a solicitation goal of $3.7 million.

---

---

Capital Campaign Timeline

The campaign is planned to last from now until next Epiphany, January 6, 2027. Included in this year-long effort are the following phases:

Now-May 2026: Planning, volunteer recruitment, creating a case statement

May-September 2026: Advanced giving

September-December 2026: Congregational and community giving events

January 2027: Closing celebration

Solicitations of gifts and pledges will take place now through the end of the year. We have determined that the pay-in period for pledges will be January 2026 through December 2029.

Projects to be Funded

Data from the feasibility study conveyed a clear message. The consensus was for funding projects that would make a strategic, catalytic impact, particularly in the following areas:

• Supporting outreach to youth and young adults.
• Basic repairs for safety.
• Needed improvements and code upgrades.
• New church buildings.

These categories served as a filter to help leaders identify how and where our investment will align most closely with the feedback received in feasibility study. While we acknowledge that there are needs beyond the scope of this campaign, we also anticipate future campaigns that will ensure our collective mission remains sustainable for generations to come. Additionally, funding these projects will allow us to continue supporting all congregations and ministries through other means, including the regular diocesan grant program and mission-aligned redevelopment.

How can you get involved?

• Living out our strategic vision
• Bearing the light of Christ into the world
• Building up the church for the future
• Reparative justice for those who have been oppressed
• Continuing to develop a thriving, united diocese

As we embark on this campaign, we ask you to consider your own “why,” and further, we invite you to think about how you might get involved: as a donor, a volunteer, a spokesperson in your congregation, or—last but not least—as a person praying that we truly can become what the bishop said we are, “agents of the new thing God is doing.”  Stay tuned for more announcements, information and invitations in the coming months, and contact the campaign team with questions at campaign@episcopalchurchsc.org.