As many of you who have glanced at my meandering contemplations on this page over the years know, I am particularly passionate about the Mission of St. John: To Know, To Love, and To Serve God in His Church and Our Community. It has been a driving force of mine to renew and restructure every facet of our Parish Family to focus on this mission, to enable all of us to live it in our hearts and souls with our actions. From creating and shepherding a Safe Environment without loopholes either physically (new lighting for the entire campus) or organizationally (with every Ministry committed to the safety of the constant flow of children and adults on our campus), to renewing the programmatic focus of the church to CYO and CAO, we have all worked together to achieve the vision Father John has laid out for us.
Nowhere is our transformation more tangibly visible than in our financial environment. Over the past 3 years, we have worked diligently to establish a transparent, efficient, and mission-focused financial organization. We have closed some loopholes, and accounted for income and expenses on efforts like the Memorial Garden. It is, quite honestly, an honor and privilege to be able to serve you with the gifts of our Parish Family, and I take this responsibility extremely seriously, as do all our clergy and staff. This week, I wanted to provide an assessment of the income of our Parish Family for Fiscal Year 2017 (from July 2016 to June 2017). Next week, we will discuss the Expenses from that same timeframe.
St. John had yet another astronomical year. The Total Income of the Parish was $4,759,563.72. I think we all need to sit back and think about just how much good we have done with these resources. There are not many parishes in the country that have this level of resources to positively act in the interest of our faith. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone to feed people all around the world. Still other hundreds of thousands have gone to clothe, shelter and support people right in Naples Park next door, in Immokalee, and internationally, from Jamaica to Africa to the Middle East. This number includes the gifts to renew our church and develop the Life Center, taking care of our church as well. Truly, we are serving God in every way possible with the gifts of your generosity in ways directly focused on our mission.
This huge number includes many facets of income for our church, including rentals, Faith Formation classes, the Capital Campaign, and most importantly, our weekly and special giving, called the Offertory. We had anticipated last year that our Offertory would be reduced by about 5% due to the Capital Campaign. We were all surprised that it actually increased 3% from 2015 to 2016. So, we again anticipated a 5% dip this year for the continued campaign gifts we have received. In FY2017, our total Offertory was $2,025,518.02, exactly the 5% decrease from last year we were anticipating. That is completely normal when we have gathered nearly $7 million in the past two years for our Capital Campaign. Even with this change, we have still seen a 6% income increase since 2014, which is very impressive growth.
There are several interesting take-aways on our Offertory giving this year for me. The first is that we increased our Easter income by $5000 from last year, a clear illustration of larger attendance, even with the later timing of Easter. This fact, along with this chart showing the month-to-month giving over the past few years, showcases that we have much more stable income monthly, and that our Parish Family can effectively plan our financial environment and expenses, which we will talk more about next week.
Words cannot express how blessed I feel to be on this journey with all of you and your continued gifts, prayers, support, and most importantly, your actions of joy, mercy, respect and love that are our Catholic Faith. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. God Bless you!