Hello All,
I just want to say thank you all again. I just wanted to make it clear that it's not my pastor that is asking me. It's the event coordinator. The cake is a surprise for my pastor. I have no issues with doing the cake. I just don't want event coordinator to be expecting me to do free cakes for non-church events such as bridal showers, baby showers, everyone birthday. I respectfully declined. I honestly don't want anyone thinking that all Christians are bad. Everyone that says, "Lord, Lord" are not Christians.

I thought the quote about tithes/offerings was funny

angelfire3 The auxillary have money to but the items you need to make the cake Or pay you for it. Now if you weren't a member there i can assure you that they would have ordered it from a bakery.

Cake and Party girl, Sweetie, I too am in a very tight financial situation at the time and here is what I do. If my church asks me to do a cake and I can do the cake timewise, but do not have the money to buy the ingredients I let them know. I have supplied cakes for renewal vows, birthday cake, and cookies for events. I was recenty asked to do a cake and was paid for it. I will give my church a good discount. If there is an event and they ask me to do a cake for it I will do it if I can financially, If I can't then I ask for supplies or money for supplies up front. We are in a small church and at this time they are asking for a bunch of cookies. Not me personally, but whoever will. RIght now I can't so I am not going to make any. But they know my heart and that I will cook or bake whenever possible. So you do what you can and offer what you can from your heart cheerfully. Anything above what you can do w/o making it a hardship on your family You either ask for money for supplies or you tell them that you will give them a supply list in a couple of days and when you have the supplies in hand or the money to buy them you will be glad to make the cake or whatever. God does not expect us to be a doormat for others to walk on and that includes our brothers and sisters in Christ.

You said that you were a nursing student, a mother of 3 and it came out of your husband's income. If the church has any kind of understanding at all then this should be something they they can understand--event coordinator or anyone else of today's financial hardships if not then maybe if you just say I can't do it this time I have exams or I have 3 children that need my attention too on whatever they ask of you and you can't do then maybe they might understand that you are not always available for just anything and everything that comes up. Or your husband can talk to this event coordinator and explain that you guys just can't afford to supply all the cakes for all the events out of your own pockets. That is unreasonable to expect to you too. any way you get my drift.

How cheeky that anybody would expect a free cake from you just because they are a member of your church, going by that theory then next youll be expected to do free cakes for people because their kids go to the same school, or you work in the same office the list goes on. Now and again doing baking for the churchs benefit/fundraising is one thing but just cos a member goes to the same church is crazy!

I totally understand where you are coming from why should your family be put under financial strain so that you can just make free stuff for everybody else!

I did a cake for a church celebration (the canonization of St Mary McKillop who our church is named after) and so I made a humungous cake and as I didnt want any money from the church itself so I came to an arrangement whereby I billed them $250 for the cake, they paid me, I donated the money straight back to them and then as we get a one third rebate from the government for the donations we make to charities here in New Zealand I got $83 back on my tax return.

Do something because you WANT to not because you are bing GUILTED into doing it.

To put a new wrinkle in things...can't you claim your donation as a tax deduction? Or can you only claim the supplies purchased? Just a thought the next time you donate something to your church. Even if you don't get paid, you might put it toward your charitable deductions at tax time!

My church often asks for dessert donations from members for big events that we have and I supply whatever I feel like...might be cookies, might be a pie, not necessarily a cake and certainly not one that takes hours and hours. I agree with PP, I do sometimes donate a big fancy cake if it's an event I know a lot of prospects will attend and I chalk it up to experience and advertising. But don't feel obligated every time. I agree with pp, I don't think they realize how much time and money goes in to baking cupcakes/cakes, so they may not even know what they're asking of you :/

Greetings All,
Thanks again for your reply. They know how long and how expensive it is to make these things b/c I told them over and over. I'm not worried about them paying me or not. I was just a little irritated at the fact that they expect me to donate things, but willing to pay someone else for the same thing. I was also irritated at the fact that they didn't give me a chance to give them back the money (if they would have offered it).

All I wanted was them to offer so I can say, "No, don't pay me. This is my gift." But they didn't. I make people small free cakes/cupcakes all of the time. I have no problem with that. But to sit there and demand/expect me to do it for free is another story. Again, I would have gladly done it for free (and I still am), but allow me to make the decision to do it for free.

I do look at it as free advertising. I've already received 7 cakes orders in the last few days. So, I'm not complaining.

Me and the event coordinator had a discussion yesterday and our conversation went like this:

Me: Hello!
Her: Hi! What kind of cake are you going to make?
Me: I don't know yet. I have some ideas.
Her: Well, make one that will cost YOU the least amount of money b/c I'm going to call a bakery and order from them too. I just want you to do a 3D cake for the event. Will your cake feed the entire church?
Me: So, you want me to make a 3D cake, but you're going to pay for a regular cake at a bakery. No, it will not feed everyone unless you cut very tiny pieces.
Her: Yes! I'm going to order a cake from the bakery. I was hoping you can make a cake with a construction theme, like a shovel cake or a dump truck cake or something along those lines. I want it to stand up too..
Me: OoooKay! (Gives a blank stare). I will see what I can do. But it may be a sheet cake. I'm not really concentrating on that right now b/c I have an order due on Friday, in which I'm getting paid to do.

Wow.. How nervy to just expect you to whip up a 3 D cake, and how insulting that she would tell you she's ordering a bakery cake to go with your cake.
I wouldn't even offer your sheet cake. What if the sheet cake from the bakery is terrible and the people assume its your baking?
Nope, I'd tell her she'll need to order two cakes from the bakery as you're too busy with other cake orders right now.

warchild is right - then maybe when they have to pay for them they will be slightly more appreciative next time you do something for them rather than just taking you for granted which seems to be whats going on!

Hi!

This situation is obviously stressing you out. Rather than let the stress and disappointment with those individuals at the church that just don't get it, maybe you should decline the project. It's not worth the anxiety or any increase in bad feelings between you and members of your congregation. Just my two cents.

This event coordinator has attitude+ and if I was you personally I would go and have me a little chat with the pastor of the church. It would go something like this:

Me: I am in here to discuss some things that have been going on that I am not sure you are aware of. You do know, I am sure that I am in business to do cakes for special occasions and have done cakes for this body. I am happy to do them when I can and I am happy to give them when I can, but I would like to be put in to the position of being able to give the money back to the church that they were going to pay me to do the cake instead of them assuming that I will do any and all cakes that the church needs for free. I would then tell them that my financial position did not allow for that. If the church needs a cake and I can not give it free all I would ask is the money for the supplies needed. However, so and so seems to think that I should supply all the cakes the church needs for free,but is willing to spend money to go buy a plain sheet cake to go with my free cake. I do not want my cake to be mistaken for something the bakery did. I am coming to you because I do not like that attitude and if I keep running into it then I am not going to want to do any cakes for the church.

Pastor: No, we certainly do not expect anyone in our church to do something like that. I will talk to her about her attitude and how it is coming across to you. I will also tell her that you will be paid for the cakes that need to be done. We are not going to go have a bakery make our cakes for our events when we have someone in the church with that gift. If for some reason you can not do the cake that will be a different story and if you choose to give the money back and make it a gift we will accept that, but being that, that is your livelhood we would not expect you to be giving all the cakes as a gift.

That would be my pastor's response. If we had someone in the church with that attitude. We don't, but I know him well enough and his wife to know that is what their response would be. So go have a talk with your pastor and set the record straight so you do not end up with a resentful attitude later on because someone else is going about thinngs all wrong.

I like the idea of offering them a % discount on cakes they order from you. If you go that way though, then make sure you invoice for the full amount of what the order is worth and show 'less $X.xx discount @ X%' so they can see exactly what the cakes are worth if they were to pay full price. Otherwise they'll mistakenly get the impression that whatever you charge them is all they're worth.

Or you could say (if you're happy to do it this way) "I'm happy to donate my time to make them, provided you can find somebody else who will donate the ingredients & materials."

I only read the 1st page of replies, but my 2cents is that donations are voluntary, so, you just do what you can do when you want to do it and you don't do what you don't want to do or can't afford to do.

You can't approach donations "angry". If you can't donate everything--both time and materials--then you simply tell them what you're able to give and they either accept or reject it. End of story.

I do all of my cakes as donations--time & materials. My logic is simple: I'm saving the non-profit from paying out additional monies for dessert. In the perfect world, that saved money is now freed up for something else. I know the world isn't perfect, but I can hope, right?

When I've donated cakes to my church for large gatherings, I considered it part of my yearly tithe and the actual $ amount that I gave was minimally discounted to account for my materials, but not my time. No one ever complained and no one ever questioned me.

Maybe a way to work it out here would be to consider the $60-80/month spent on birthday cakes, volunteer to make those cakes, and cut your yearly tithe by $500..........

Rae

Thanks again for you replies! As I stated in earlier replies, I have no problem donating cakes or my time, b/c I do donate my cakes oftem. I only had an issue with people trying to force me to do it as if I'm obligated to do it. The cake is almost done and I will post photos later on this morning before I take it to my church.