June Fund Drive Response "Overwhelming"

We are overwhelmed (but in a good way). 

Over the past few months, we have watched as COVID-19 has changed our world in so many ways, including how we worship. In the first six months of 2020, we had almost 4 million users of our Hymnary website, up 25 percent from the year prior. We could trace a lot of this increase to COVID-19 and more people worshiping at home. And we were pleased that our site could be such a valuable resource in a time of trouble for people around the globe.

But, to be perfectly honest, we also wondered what COVID-19 might mean for our June fund drive, one of just two such drives we do each year. 

Though more people were using Hymnary, we knew too that financial instability could mean lots of different possibilities for the June 2020 drive. So when we launched our drive on June 1, we held our breath and hoped, and prayed, that we might be able to get the financial support we have in the past, support that is critical to maintaining, and improving, Hymnary.org.

We never would have predicted what happened next.

Your support was overwhelming. Between June 1, 2020 and June 30, 2020, we received almost 2,400 online gifts and checks totaling $67,876.47! This total was almost three times more than what we normally receive during a typical June fund drive. Almost triple! We are so grateful, so amazed and so blessed by this financial support.

We are also grateful for and blessed by the comments that so many made as they donated online or by check, hundreds and hundreds of comments that often brought smiles to our faces and tears to our eyes.

• Sorry it's not more! I use your website all the time. It's a great resource!
• Thank you for your dependable and faithful service!
• Thank you. I just discovered we can search our church hymnbook.
• I use this resource professionally on an almost-daily basis.
• Thank you for the access to hymns as I have been worshiping from home.
• Thanks for midi files.
• Thank you for your service to the saints. I enjoy reading the histories of those who have gone before us and "singing with them" to the great God we serve.
• As an English churchwarden, I often choose hymns for our Sunday services. Hymnary.org is so helpful in choosing hymns that work with Lectionary readings.
• Thank you for your website. I use the hymns to lead worship in an Alzheimer's facility (now via video due to Covid 19). The music is blessing these afflicted and their families. Thank you

As we continue on with our work this summer, and as we cope with COVID-19 as nations and a world, know that all of us at Hymnary.org are dedicated to the work of making the site the best it can be in service to the millions who use it and benefit from it and in service to our God. And we do our work with deep thanks to all who support the site in so many ways, including prayer. On behalf of all who work at Hymnary.org, my deep, deep thanks.

Harry Plantinga